G61.1340 Semantics I
Prof. Anna Szabolcsi
Fall 2003
Tuesday 12:30-1:45 / Thursday 12:45-2:00
This course presupposes familiarity with elementary set theory, propositional logic, and predicate logic, as in Allwood et al., Logic in Linguistics, Chs 1-5. Its goal is to introduce some basic mathematical and logical tools and the kind of insights they offer into empirical linguistic phenomena. It will be followed by Semantics II in Spring.
Tentative calendar:
W1 Compositionality and some of its consequences
W2 Presuppositions and implicatures; Determiners as relations between
sets
W3 Competing accounts of the definiteness effect
W4 Operations in partially ordered sets
W5 Generalized quantifiers, witness sets and live-on sets
W6 Polarity: monotonicity, focus, implicatures; Count/mass-telic/atelic
W7 Free and bound variables, quantifiers
W8 Starting to build a grammar; models, assignments
W9 Categorial grammar and type theory
W10 Functional composition and extraction
W11 Lambdas; Scope a la Montague and May
W12 Scope a la Keenan and Hendriks; What scopes are really there?
W13 Different quantifiers, different scopes
W14 Questions and "partial wh-movement"
The readings combine a selection of articles, chapters from the Gamut textbook, and extensive lecture notes. The requirements include weekly assignments and a squib or an exam.
Last Modified: September 2, 2003