The course provides an in-depth introduction in inquisitive semantics, logic, and pragmatics, and engages students in current research questions. Inquisitive semantics offers a new logical-semantical model for the interpretation of natural language. The proposition expressed by a sentence is viewed as a proposal to update the common ground of a conversation. Crucially, a speaker may propose several alternative ways of updating the common ground, from which the hearer is invited to choose. The new semantic framework gives rise to new directions for the study of pragmatics, and also leads to new logical research questions.

In the first part of the course we discuss the logical and philosophical foundations of inquisitive semantics, and will illustrate its applications in several empirical linguistic domains. The last part of the course is intended to have the nature of a research colloquium. Students will choose a small research project on logical, philosophical or linguistic aspects of inquisitive semantics, write a small research report, and present their findings to the other students.

Date	Topic	Reading	Optional reading
Week 1 7/9	General course introduction (slides)  Basic intro to inquisitive semantics (slides)	Groenendijk-Roelofsen-10-notes Aloni-Butler-Dekker-07	Groenendijk-99 Mascarenhas-09-first-part Groenendijk-Stokhof-99
Week 2 14/9	Inquisitive semantics (restricted, support-based)	Groenendijk-Roelofsen-09 (sec.1-3)	Groenendijk-09
Week 3 21/9	Inquisitive algebra and logic	Roelofsen-11 Ciardelli-Roelofsen-09-tark	Ciardelli-Roelofsen-10-jpl
Week 4 28/9	First order inquisitive semantics: the maximality problem and witnesses	Ciardelli-09 Groenendijk-Roelofsen-11
Week 5 5/10	Witness semantics An algebraic perspective	Groenendijk-Roelofsen-11-note Roelofsen-11-note	Roelofsen-11-lori
Week 6 12/10	Witness semantics	Groenendijk-Roelofsen-11-prague
Week 7 19/10	The logic of interrogation from the perspective of inquisitive semantics	Groenendijk-11	Groenendijk-99
	Break (midterm paper due Nov 1)
Week 8 2/11	Attentive content (slides)	Ciardelli-Groenendijk-Roelofsen-10	Zimmermann-00
Week 11 9/11	Three ways of thinking about possibilities
Week 10 16/11	Disjunctive questions, prosody and syntax	Pruitt-Roelofsen-11	Roelofsen and van Gool-09
Week 9 23/11	Disjunctive questions, semantics Erotetic languages	Pruitt-Roelofsen-11 Groenendijk-11-hierarchy
Week 12 30/11	Erotetic languages and the inquisitive hierarchy Inquisitive dynamic epistemic logic	Groenendijk-11-hierarchy Roelofsen-11-idel
Week 13 7/12	Polarity particles	Farkas-Roelofsen-11	Farkas-Bruce-10
Week 14 14/12	Project presentations	David van Tijn Holger Brunn Matt Teichman Pawel Lojko

• Unconditionals: Rawlins, Kaufmann.
• Hypothetical information exchange: supposition, modal subordination, conditional questions, counterfactuals.
• Inquisitiveness cross-linguistically: Haspelmath-01, Bhatt-00
• Questions and indefinites in dynamic semantics: Haida.
• Intervention effects: Beck, Kim, Pesetsky, Haida, Cable.
• Question-based models of discourse: Ginzburg, Roberts, Büring.
• Acquisition of disjunctive questions in Japanese and Mandarin: Akagi.
• Exhausitivity marking in Hungarian: Balogh-09, ch.4,5
• Further reading on attentive might: Willer-11, Yalcin-11

Assignments and grading