Category: Semantics

We are happy to announce a talk by Alla Paslawska (Lwiw) in the Semantics Colloquium. The talk will take place on campus in IG 4.301. If you wish to participate virtually via Zoom, please contact Lennart Fritzsche for the link.    The talk will be held in German.  Date: December 5, 2024 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm c.t. Title: Wie viele Gesichter hat die Negation? Abstract: Jede der Wissenschaft bekannte Sprache verfügt über morphologische Mittel, die Negation zum Ausdruck bringen können. Dazu werden Partikeln, Affixe, Konjunktionen etc. zugerechnet. Bedeutet das, dass die Negation eine morphologische Kategorie ist? Bei näherem Hinsehen merkt man, dass im Fall der Negation die Morphologie uns oft im Stich lässt. Denn was bedeutet eigentlich niemand? Man denkt wohl nicht an Odysseus, der unter dem Namen „Niemand“ dem Polyphem einen glühenden Pfahl in das einzige Auge gerammt hat. Niemand bedeutet vielmehr jemand, nichts ist etwas etc., d.h. die Antwort nach dem kategorialen Status der Negation ist im Bereich der Semantik zu finden. Trotzdem haben auch die Syntax, Prosodie...

We are happy to announce a talk by Paul Koenig (Frankfurt) in the Semantics Colloquium. The talk will take place on campus in IG 4.301. If you wish to participate virtually via Zoom, please contact Lennart Fritzsche for the link.  Date: October 28, 2024 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm c.t. Title: Scale theory in adjective semantics Abstract: Gradable adjectives cause difficulties in the analysis of their semantic and logical form due to different phenomena such as references to comparative classes, dimensional references, units of measurement, factor phrases and norm references. How the constants of the semantic form relevant for graduation are represented in the logical form, taking into account the factors mentioned, is part of the work of Bierwisch (1987), on which the approaches in this paper are based. The main objective is to use a new definition of directed intervals to specify the definitions given in Bierwisch 1987, which are intended to provide a mathematical/logical framework for the representation of the logical form, and to close problems that...

We are happy to announce a single-authored talk by Sebastian Walter (Frankfurt) and a talk by him and Lennart Fritzsche (Frankfurt) in the Semantics Colloquium. The talk will take place on campus in IG 4.301. If you wish to participate virtually via Zoom, please contact Lennart Fritzsche for the link.  Date: November 21, 2024 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm c.t.   Talk 1: Sebastian Walter (Frankfurt)  Title: Indirect discourse as mixed quotation: Insights from shifted face emoji (joint work with Stefan Hinterwimmer) Abstract: Indirect discourse (ID) has been claimed to prohibit shifted interpretations of face emoji (Grosz et al. 2023). However, in this talk evidence is presented that face emoji can receive a shifted interpretation in ID utterances. Specifically, it will be shown that they can receive an interpretation from the perspective of the matrix subject, thus adding ID to the list of environments where the interpretation of face emoji is not strongly anchored to the author (cf. Grosz et al., 2021). A similar behavior has been attested for certain deictic expressions...

We are happy to announce a talk by Cornelia Ebert (Frankfurt) and Markus Steinbach (Göttingen) in the Semantics Colloquium. The talk will take place on campus in IG 4.301. If you wish to participate virtually via Zoom, please contact Lennart Fritzsche for the link.  Date: November 7, 2024 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm c.t. Title: The semantics of semi-conventionalized lexical depictions in spoken and sign languages Abstract: Typological research has shown that many unrelated spoken languages have ideophones such as English helter-skelter or German plitsch-platsch. Ideophones form a special class of words which are used in specific registers (often vivid narrative contexts) and can be defined as “an open lexical class of marked words that depict sensory imagery” (Dingemanse 2019). They have been argued to be depictive items which establish an iconic relationship of the form of an ideophone (including the utterance of it) and its meaning, which lies in the domain of sensory imagery encoding information about movement, sound, sentiment or mental state. In addition, ideophones typically contribute...

We are happy to announce a talk by Magnus Poppe (Frankfurt) in the Semantics Colloquium. The talk will take place on campus in IG 4.301. If you wish to participate virtually via Zoom, please contact Lennart Fritzsche for the link.  Date: October 31, 2024 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm c.t. Title: Dynamic Binding and Pronoun Dis-agreement Across Modalities Abstract: In multimodal discourse, pointing gestures introduce referents that enhance pronoun resolution, even when grammatical agreement between pronoun and gesture-introduced referents is absent. This study examines the role of "pointing" versus "non-pointing" gestures in pronoun binding by manipulating gesture type and pronoun agreement. Results indicate that pointing gestures facilitate pronoun resolution across both agreeing and non-agreeing contexts, while non-pointing gestures lack this referential impact. Supported by Gutzmann’s (2020) insights, which suggest that gender features on pronouns add a supplementary layer of meaning rather than being central to the main discourse, the findings indicate that gestures may allow pronouns to bind even with a gender mismatch, without altering the truth of the primary...