LING 802: Semantics
Fall
Semester 2011
Instructor: Nancy Hedberg
Lecture notes:
9/7: Chapter 1:
Truth-Conditional Semantics and the Fregean Program
What is Cognitive Linguistics?
A Biolinguistic Perspective on Semantics
LING
324: Sets, Relations and
Functions
9/9: Hour 1: Sets, Relations and Functions (Part II)
Practice Problem on Sets, Relations and Functions
(from LING 324)
Chapter
2: Executing the Fregean Program.
Do
for Wednesday 9/14:
Exercise
on sentence connectives: p. 23.
Exercises
1-3 on pp. 31-34.
9/14 Hour 1: Section 2.5:
Lambda Abstraction
Do
for Wednesday 9/28:
Exercises
1-4 on pp. 39-40.
Hour 2: Propositional Logic (From Ch.
HanÕs LING 324 materials)
9/16: Review
Propositional
Logic (cont.)
9/21: Chapter 3:
Semantics and Syntax
9/23: Instructor away
Class
presentations and discussion on Cognitive Linguistics and Construction Grammar
Readings: Goldberg 2006: Constructions at
Work: The Nature of Generalization in
Language.Ò Chapter 1.
ÒOverviewÓ. 3-18.
Chapter
7. ÒIsland Constraints and ScopeÓ. 129-165.
Jennifer
Hinnell: Cognitive and Construction Grammar
slides
Christina
Galeano: Island Constraints and
Scope slides
9/28: LING 324: Methodological Preliminaries: Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet 2000
Practice problem on implication relations and
propositional logic (from LING 324)
9/30-10/5: Chapter 4: More of English:
Nonverbal Predicates, Modifiers, Definite Descriptions
Do
the exercise on p. 66, the first and third exercise on p. 67, the exercise on
p. 76,
exercise
1 on p. 79 (but donÕt worry about the Bertrand Russell article) and exercise 2
on p. 80.
10/7-10/14: The
interface between semantics and pragmatics (and also phonology): Current insights
FŽry and
Krifka (2008). ÒInformation structureÓ Unity and Diversity of Languages, ed. P.
Van Sterkenburg. John Benjamins, 123-136.
Potts (forthcoming). ÒConventional
implicature and expressive contentÓ. Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural
Language Meaning.
Simons, Tonhauser, Beaver and Roberts (2010). ÒWhat projects
and whyÓ. Proceedings of SALT 20: 309-327.
10/19: LING 324: Predicate Logic
Practice problem on predicate logic (from LING
324)
10/21-10/26: Chapter
5: Relative Clauses, Variables,
Variable binding: Sections
5.1-5.3, 5.5
Do
the exercise on p. 95 and the exercise on p. 112
10/28: Birner, Kaplan and Ward (2007). ÒFunctional compositionality and the interaction of discourse constraints.Ó Language 83.
317-343.
Hedberg
(2000). ÒThe referential status of clefts.Ó Language 76(4). 891-920.
11/2-11/4: Chapter 6:
Quantifiers: Their Semantic Type
Do
the exercise on p. 142 and the exercises on pp. 152-153.
11/9: Chapter
7: Quantification and Grammar:
Sections 7.1, 7.2.1, 7.3, 7.5
Do
the exercise on p. 197. Try to figure out how to structure a
proof, and then prove it.
11/11: HOLIDAY
11/16: Chapter
9: Bound and Referential Pronouns
and Ellipsis
Do
the exercise on pp. 257-258.
11/18: WECOL CONFERENCE
11/23, 25: Instructor away
COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS READING: Fauconnier (1997). Mappings in Thought and Language. Chapter 2: ÒMental-Space ConnectionsÓ.
11/30: Chapter
12: First Steps towards an
Intensional Semantics
Do
the exercise on p. 309.
12/2: Discussion of
Student Research Papers
Conclusions