| L1 |
- Overview
- Meaning
- Grice on Non-natural Meaning
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- Required Reading
- Portner, Ch. 1
- Optional Reading
- The following reading is optional for undergraduates in 24.903 and required for graduate students in 24.933:
- Grice, H. P. "Meaning." The Philosophical Review 66, no. 3 (1957): 377-388.
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| L2 |
- Concepts of Meaning
- Circularity/Holism
- Truth-Conditions
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| L3 |
- More on Truth-Conditions
- Meta-language vs. Object Language
- Semantic Properties of Sentences
- Some Obvious Shortcomings of Truth-Conditional Semantics (Slang, Honorifics)
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| L4 |
- Truth-Conditions
- Propositional Logic
- Truth-Tables
- The Connectives
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- Required Reading
- Partee, Barbara H., Alice ter Meulen, and Robert E. Wall. "Statement Logic." In Mathematical Methods on Linguistics. Boston, MA: Kluwer, 1987, chapter 6, sections 6.1-6.4, pp. 97-112. ISBN: 9027722447.
- Optional Reading
- Partee, Barbara H., Alice ter Meulen, and Robert E. Wall. "Basic Concepts of Logic and Formal Systems." In Mathematical Methods on Linguistics. Boston, MA: Kluwer, 1987, chapter 5, sections 6.5 and 6.6. ISBN: 9027722447.
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| L5 |
- Tautologies, Contradictions
- De Morgan's Laws
- The Material Conditional
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| L6 |
- The Material Conditional (cont.), as an analysis of "if"
- Initial Plausibility
- "Paradoxes"
- Pragmatic Inferences
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| L7 |
- Pragmatic Inferences (cont.)
- Sentence (Truth-Conditional) Meaning vs. Speaker Meaning
- "I'm not hungry"
- Grice's Maxims of Conversation
- Quantity Implicatures
- Pragmatic Strengthening of "possible" (from Portner's Book)
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- Required Reading
- Portner, Ch. 11
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| L8 |
- Gricean Quantity Implicatures (cont.)
- Reasons to prefer a Pragmatic Approach over an Ambiguity Approach
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| L9 |
- Gricean Quantity Implicatures (cont.)
- Applied to Strengthening of "some" and "or" (Truth-Conditionally: Inclusive, Pragmatically Strengthened to Exclusive)
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| R1 |
Review Session 1 |
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| L10 |
Gricean Story about "or" again |
- Required Reading
- A refrigerator summary of Grice's maxims (PDF), and a sample derivation of a quantity implicature (PDF), meant to replace the calculation on pp. 201-202 of Portner's book.
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| L11 |
Supplementing Material Conditional Truth-Conditions for "if" with Pragmatic Inferences |
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| L12 |
- Problems for the analysis of "if" as Material Conditional + Pragmatic Implicatures
- New Topic: Compositionality
- Analyzing "Sheila barks"
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- Required Reading
- Portner, Ch. 2
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| L13 |
- Proper names have as their semantic value individuals
- Predicates have as their semantic value sets of individuals, or functions from individuals to truth-values
- Brief Discussion of Vagueness
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| L14 |
- Transitive Predicates (Functions from Individuals to Functions from Individuals to Truth-Values)
- Function Application as the Main Semantic Composition Principle
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- Required Reading
- Portner, Ch. 3
- Optional Reading
- Partee, Barbara H., Alice ter Meulen, and Robert E. Wall. Mathematical Methods on Linguistics. Boston, MA: Kluwer, 1987, chapters 1 and 2 (Sets, Relations, Functions). ISBN: 9027722447.
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| L15 |
- The Lambda-notation for Specifying Functions
- Order of Arguments
- First Introduction to Relative Clauses
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| L16 |
- Review of Semantic System
- Different kinds of Transitivity Alternations, Implicit Arguments
- Informal Discussion of Relative Clauses
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| L17 |
- Relative Clauses
- Gaps, Variables, Fillers
- Predicate Abstraction
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- Required Reading
- Heim, Irene, and Angelika Kratzer. "Relative Clauses, Variables, Variable Binding." In Semantics in Generative Grammar. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1998, pp. 86-105. ISBN: 0631197125.
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| L18 |
- Example Calculation: "Shelby is smart"
- Modifiers
- Predicate Modification
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- Required Reading
- Portner, Ch. 4
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| L19 |
- "smart dog" vs. "smart person"
- Perhaps, adjectives are not one-place predicates but functions from one-place predicates to one-place predicates
- Other Interesting Cases of Adjectives: "alleged murderer", "canine genius"
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| L20 |
- Perhaps, adjectives are one-place predicates after all, but context-dependent ones
- "Pauline is a tall horse"
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| L21 |
- Definite NPs
- "The" as a function from one-place predicates to individuals
- Partial function only defined for predicates that are true of exactly one individual
- Presuppositions
- The "King of France"
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- Required Reading
- Portner, Ch. 5.1, 5.2
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| L22 |
Quantifiers |
- Required Reading
- Portner, Ch. 6.1, 6.2
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| L23 |
- Natural Language Quantifiers
- Compared to Predicate Logic Quantifiers
- The Meaning of "most"
- Negative Polarity Items
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| L24 |
- Negative Polarity Items (cont.)
- Licensing by Quantifiers in position of Downward Monotonicity (the Fauconnier-Ladusaw Hypothesis)
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- Required Reading
- Portner, Ch. 6.3
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| L25 |
- Frege vs. Russell on the meaning of "the"
- Attributive vs. Referential Uses of Definite Descriptions
- Pragmatic analysis of the two uses of Definite Descriptions
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- Required Reading
- Portner, Ch. 5.4.4, 5.4.5
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| L26 |
- Review of the analysis of "the killer of the black cat" (from problem set)
- More on Referential vs. Attributive
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| L27 |
- Tense
- Semantic Values Relative to a Time of Evaluation
- The Past Tense
- Existential Quantification or Referential?
- Partee's Example "I didn't turn off the stove"
- Also: "Last month, I went for a hike"
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- Required Reading
- Portner, Ch. 8.1
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| R2 |
Review Session 2 |
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| L28 |
More on the Past Tense and whether it is Referential or involves Existential Quantification (Contextually Restricted) |
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| L29 |
- Aspectual Classes: States, Activities, Achievements, Accomplishments
- Instants vs. Intervals
- Accomplishments are only true of Intervals
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- Required Reading
- Portner, Ch. 8.2.1
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| L30 |
- "The World of Sherlock Holmes"
- Shifting the World of Evaluation
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| L31 |
Modals |
- Required Reading
- Portner, Ch. 8.3
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| R3 |
Review Session 3 |
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| L32 |
- Conditionals again
- The Strict Implication Analysis
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| L33 |
- Conditionals again (cont.)
- Stalnaker's Definite Analysis
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