Talk by Jan Köpping, Thursday 7th 4-6 PM

by Anke Himmelreich Comment Closed
The next talk in the semantics colloquium will be by Jan Köpping. Please find an abstract below. Title: De re without movement. Cyclic semantic interpretation Room: IG 4.301 Date: November 7 Time: 4pm - 6pm Abstract: When it comes to the interpretation of certain expressions (e.g. definite descriptions) in intensional environments, one of their readings, namely their de re reading, is derived by lifting the expression in question into a position where it receives this interpretation naturally. E.g. "Peter believes that the president of Germany is on holidays" is (roughly) interpreted as "Peter believes about the president of Germany that he is on holidays." This kind of movement step is found in other areas of semantics theorizing as well, most prominently when it comes to account for the accessibility of discourse referents introduced by such expressions. In order for their discourse referents to end up in the right universe, the expressions are dislocated while their host-DRS is construed; thus, some comparable sort of movement step...
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Talk by Marta Wierzba, Wednesday 6th 4-6 PM

by Tina Bögel Comment Closed
The next talk in the phonology colloquium will be by Marta Wierzba (Potsdam University) - Abstract below:   06.11.19 Marta Wierzba: "Focus projection: extending the empirical data base" Room: IG 4.301 Everybody is welcome!   In this talk, I present two experiments on focus projection in German. In transitive sentences, prosodic prominence on the object is compatible with interpreting a larger unit (VP, IP) as focused. Such a broad-focus interpretation is usually assumed to be less available when the subject or the verb is the most prominent element. In experiment 1, I use a new experimental paradigm to test whether this prosodic asymmetry carries over to sentences with wh-movement. In experiment 2, I investigate whether projection is also possible for a different information-structural category, namely contrastive topics (CTs), and to what extent CT projection follows the same pattern as focus projection....
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Talk by Kathryn Barnes, Thursday – October 31, 4-6 pm

by Anke Himmelreich Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Kathryn Barnes. Please find an abstract below. Title: Modals in Malay Room: IG 4.301 Date: October 31 Time: 4pm - 6pm Abstract: Crosslinguistic research into modal systems outside of Europe has revealed systematic variation in how modal force, strength and flavour are grammaticalised in different languages. This talk aims to give an initial analysis of the grammaticalisation of these features in modality in Malay, looking specifically at the necessity modals mesti (must) and perlu (need). The data collected through semantic fieldwork with speakers of Malay found that the modals display previously observed behaviour with regard to flavour; mesti varies between epistemic and root modal flavour, with perlu being restricted to root modality. However, both modals vary between weak and strong necessity readings and their root readings are also gradable, with perlu consistently being stronger than mesti. The use of a degree-based analysis of necessity modals, initially put forward by Portner & Rubinstein (2016), to interpret mesti and...
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