Kategorie: Talks

We are happy to announce a talk by Nicole Gotzner (ZAS) at the Semantics Colloquium. Please note that the talk will already begin at 3 pm sharp. Please register beforehand (s.walter@em.uni-frankfurt.de) to receive the access data to zoom on Thursday shortly before the talk starts. Title: The use and interpretation of gradable adjectives Date:December 3 Time: 3 pm - 5 pm st Abstract: The use and interpretation of gradable adjectives Gradable adjectives like tall are well studied in semantics (e.g., Kennedy, 2007) but the pragmatic inferences associated with such adjectives remain underexplored. The present talk targets the role of different semantic and contextual factors in the use and interpretation of bare and negated adjectives.  In the first part, I will demonstrate an interplay between the properties of the measurement scale underlying the semantics of adjectives and their associated implicatures (Gotzner, Solt & Benz, 2018a,b; Leffel, Cremers, Gotzner, & Romoli, 2019). Then, I present a novel experimental paradigm (Gotzner & Kiziltan, to appear) indicating that participants use distinct portions of a scale...

We are happy to announce a talk by Vesela Simeonova (University of Tübingen) at the Semantics Colloquium. Please register beforehand (s.walter@em.uni-frankfurt.de) to receive the access data to zoom on Thursday at 4 pm. Title: The logophoric side of reportative evidentials Date: November 26 Time: 4 pm - 6 pm Abstract: Evidentiality and logophoricity have been known to be in a typological complementary distribution (Aikhenvald, A. 2004. Evidentiality. OUP). The explanation defended by this talk is that they contain the same element - a pronoun referring to an attitude holder - realized differently: overt in logophoric languages, covert in evidential ones. I present novel data on evidentiality, which demonstrate striking parallels between reportative evidentials and logophors as well as drastic differences between reportative and direct evidentials. The formal account is couched within decompositional semantics, with a new syntax to host the proposed evidential argument structure....

We are happy to announce a talk by Frank Sode (GU) at the Semantics Colloquium. Please register beforehand (s.walter@em.uni-frankfurt.de) to receive the access data to zoom on Thursday at 4 pm. Title: A Unified Semantics for Hidden and Complement Fulfilling Conditionals in Desire reports Date: November 19 Time: 4 pm - 6 pm Abstract: The topic of this talk is the semantics of desire reports, as illustrated by the examples in (1). (1) a. I want you to be here.       b. I wish you were here.       c. I would be glad if you were here.       d. I'm glad that you are here. The focus will be on the interpretation of the sentences in (1) at the syntax-semantics interface. Heim (1992) argues that sentences like (1-a) and (1-b) hide a conditional on some level of semantic interpretation. Williams (1974) has argued that the "if"-clauses in examples like (1-c) is "complement fulfilling". Typically, predicates that license complement fulfilling conditionals are classified as factive when they combine with a "that"-clause, as in (1-d). I will argue...

There will be a talk by Cornelia Ebert (GU) in the _Bochum Language Colloquium_ on November 5. You can find the abstract below. Please note that there will be no Semantics Colloquium in Frankfurt on November 5, so this talk might be a good alternative for anyone who wanted to participate in the Semantics Colloquium on Thursday, since it takes place at the regular meeting time of our colloquium.   *Title:* Semantic Effects of Gesture-Speech Alignment  *Date/Time:* 05 November, 16:15–17:45 CEST   Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84014051687?pwd=dzNiRjMyeGg0RmtNWWlOc0dTSlg2UT09 Zoom Meeting-ID: 840 1405 1687   ;   Password: 9AKcXf   *Abstract:* Ebert & Ebert (2014) argue that the semantic contribution of a co-speech gesture is partly determined by the temporal alignment of gesture and speech. They claim that an iconic gesture (e.g. a manual gesture depicting "square" or a square object) that accompanies an indefinite ('a window') makes a different contribution than the same gesture that accompanies a definite ('the window') or one that is temporally aligned only with the NP complement ('window'). Crucially, it...