*CANCELLED* Talk by Paul Koenig (Frankfurt) in the Semantics Colloquium

by Lennart Fritzsche Comment Closed
*CANCELLED* 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 24, 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...
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Talk by Thomas Strobel (Università Ca’ Foscari) in the Historical Linguistics Colloquium

by Melanie Hobich Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Thomas Strobel (Università Ca’ Foscari) in the Historical Linguistics Colloquium. Date: Thursday, July 11, 2024 Room: IG 251 Time: 2 pm – 4 pm ct Title: "Exzeptiva – Grenzfälle zwischen Präpositionen und Konjunktionen?" Abstract: Während die Semantik von Exzeptiva wie engl. except (for) oder but bereits gut erforscht ist, gibt es zu deren Syntax noch recht wenig Literatur (so etwa zu dt. außer ausführlicher nur Döring & Jay 2017). Im Vortrag konzentriere ich mich auf das Vorkommen von Exzeptivmarkern zusammen mit Nominalphrasen als Ausnahmen. Dabei fällt auf, dass die Kasuswahl nach dt. außer sowie seinen niederländischen und schwedischen Entsprechungen nl. behalve / schwed. (för)utom (hier bei nachfolgenden Pronomina) schwankt. Im Deutschen gilt außer als „(syntaktischer) Einzelgänger“ (grammis bzw. Pasch et al. 2003). Auch nl. behalve wird beispielsweise in der Syntax of Dutch den „Borderline cases“ (Broekhuis 2013: 1.4) zugerechnet und schwed. (för)utom befindet sich laut SAG an der Grenze bzw. ist ein „Mittelding“ (mellanting) zwischen Präposition und Konjunktion (1999:...
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Talk by Nadine Bade (Potsdam) in the Semantics Colloquium

by Lennart Fritzsche Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Nadine Bade (Potsdam) 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: July 11, 2024 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm c.t. Title: Shared mechanisms behind matrix and embedded implicatures — evidence from priming Abstract: There is an ongoing debate in the literature on implicatures regarding what mechanisms are behind their derivation. Specifically, theories make different predictions for the role of different types of alternatives in implicature computation. More recently, this question has been tackled in the experimental literature by making use of a priming paradigm (Chemla & Bott, 2016, Rees & Bott 2018, Waldon & Degen 2021, Marty et al. 2024). I will offer an extension of the existing priming paradigm which includes embedded (downward-entailing) cases as well as cases highlighting the alternative visually (or not). The results suggest that both influence the rate to which implicatures are derived. I will...
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Talk by Carla Spellerberg (Amherst) and Carolin Reinert (Frankfurt) in the Semantics Colloquium

by Lennart Fritzsche Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Carla Spellerberg (Amherst) and Carolin Reinert (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: July 4, 2024 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Title: Nouns and their typical activities Abstract: In this talk, we present parts of our ongoing joint work on the semantics and processing of English adjective noun constructions such as the following: (1) a. Mary is a skillful dancer. b. Mary is a skillful ballerina. c. Mary is a skillful person. d. Mary is a skillful beginner. We assume that adjectives like skillful are underspecified, and capture this by means of a parameter in the semantics of these adjectives. Moreover, we assume that value of this parameter is supplied as a default by world knowledge associated with certain nouns, or is supplied by the context of utterance. We are interested in the (in)ability of nouns to provide a default interpretation: while...
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