Category: Semantics

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...

We are happy to announce a talk by Carla Umbach (ZAS, Cologne University) at the Semantics Colloquium. Please register beforehand (koepping@em.uni-frankfurt.de) to receive the access data (to zoom) on thursday at 4pm (= immediately before the colloquium starts). Title: Equatives in Turkish – two cognitive strategies across categories Date: July 16th Time: 4pm - 6pm...

We are happy to announce a talk by Robert van Rooij (Amsterdam) at the Semantics Colloquium. Please find the abstract below. Please register beforehand (koepping@em.uni-frankfurt.de) to receive the access data (to zoom) on thursday at 4pm (= immediately before the colloquium starts). Title: Conditionals, Generics and Causality Date: July 9th Time: 4pm - 6pm   Abstract: According to Adams (1965), the acceptability of an indicative conditional goes with the conditional probability of the consequent given the antecedent. Lewis (1975) and Kratzer (2012) gave a very similar analysis of all types of conditionals, and frequency adverbs. However, some conditionals seem to be inappropriate, although their corresponding conditional probability is high. These are cases with a missing link between antecedent and consequent (Douven, 2008, Rott, 2019). In this talk I will argue that the missing link should normally be a causal link. Biscuit conditionals, however, show that the link should be thought of in a more general way. Finally, I will argue that causality and interest...

We are happy to announce a talk by Malte Zimmermann (Potsdam) that will be discussed next thursday at the Semantics Colloquium. Malte Zimmermann will pre-record his talk for our meeting. Please send a mail to koepping@em.uni-frankfurt.de to register beforehand and receive the link. You thereby also register for the discussion session at our usual time. You will receive the access data (to zoom) on thursday at 4pm (= immediately before the colloquium starts). Title: Fake Tense in Hausa Counterfactuals: A novel argument for underspecified EXCL Date: July 2nd Time: 4pm - 6pm  ...

We are happy to announce a talk by Amir Anvari (Paris) next thursday at the Semantics Colloquium. Please find an abstract below. Amir Anvari pre-recorded his talk for our meeting. Please send a mail to koepping@em.uni-frankfurt.de to receive the link. By this, you also register for the discussion session at our usual time. You will receive a reply with the access data (to zoom) on thursday at 4pm (= immediately before the colloquium starts). Title: The variable-based account of indexical shift redux Date: June 25th Time: 4pm - 6pm  --- Abstract: The observation that in some languages indexicals can shift, i.e., can refer to objects other than those that make up the actual speech event, was something of a bombshell thrown by Philippe Schlenker in his 1999 dissertation, with quite far reaching consequences both for philosophy of language and linguistic analysis proper. Schlenker took the data to be pointing to a view of language on which attitudinal predicates quantify over contexts and indexicals involve context variables that,...