ens19-Super Semantics

Super Semantics Fall 2019

Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris - September 2019 -January 2020

This site is for the sole benefit of the participants in the class of Super Semantics in the Fall of 2019.

Instructors

Emmanuel Chemla (LINGUAE, LSCP CNRS) Email: chemla@ens.fr

Philippe Schlenker (LINGUAE, Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS; New York University) Email: philippe.schlenker@gmail.com

With a guest lecture by:

Salvador Mascarenhas (LINGUAE, DEC, Institut Jean-Nicod)

Note

In later years, Salvador Mascarenhas (currently on sabbatical) will be among the regular instructors for this course.

Topic

While formal semantics has been a success story of contemporary linguistics, it has been narrowly focused on spoken language. Systematic extensions of its research program have recently been explored: beyond spoken language, beyond human language, beyond language proper, and even beyond systems with an overt syntax. First, the development of sign language semantics calls for systems that integrate logical semantics with a rich iconic component. This semantics-with-iconicity is also crucial to understand the interaction between co-speech gestures and logical operators, an important point of comparison for sign languages. Second, several recent articles have proposed analyses of the semantics/pragmatics of primate alarm calls, an important topical extension of semantics. Third, recent research has developed a semantics/pragmatics for music, based in part on insights from iconic semantics. Finally, the methods of formal semantics have newly been applied to reasoning and to concepts, which do not have a syntax that can be directly observed. The overall result is a far broader typology of meaning operations in nature than was available a few years ago. The course will offer a survey of some of these results, with topics that will change from year to year.

Credits: 6 ects

Time and place: Mondays, 2-4:30pm. First lecture: Sept 23.

Salle Ribot

Prerequisites

Students should have an ability to follow formal analyses, and they should thus have taken a serious introduction to formal logic or to formal semantics, or have significant experience with mathematical theories. If in doubt, please check with the instructors.

Requirements

Guidelines for the squibs and mini-term paper can be found HERE.

Participants will be invited to work on small projects (e.g. literature reviews, formal analyses of a set of phenomena, proposals for experiments ). Specifically:

(i) Two 2-page squibs [= short discussions] will be due starting early in the semester. Note: Squib #2 should preferably be a paper outline.

(ii) a mini-term paper (at most 10 pages) will be due at the end of the semester.

Squib deadlines:

Squib #1 November 25

Squib #2 January 6 [preferably a paper outline] Note: Squib #2 can be replaced with a brief class presentation on January 6. Please

(i) contact the instructors by December 16 if this is of interest;

(ii) tell the instructors (by email or in a meeting) by January 3, 9am, what you intend to present.

Mini-term paper Deadline: January 27, 9pm

All papers should be submitted by email to both instructors:

chemla@ens.fr, philippe.schlenker@gmail.com.

Note: Students should not get double academic credit for the same work. If you are pursuing a project you started in another academic context, please (i) make an explicit note of this, and (ii) indicate what is new in the current version.

Honor Code

To foster learning and discussion, students are discouraged from using phones, tablets or laptops during class, unless this is solely to take notes and/or follow the pdf slides as they are presented (with all other applications closed).

[Summary of some data on this topic]

[Effects of laptop multitasking on users and nearby students]

Course structure

Material for the class (readings, slides) will either (i) be linked to the sessions below, or (ii) be made available in this Dropbox folder.

Part A. Super Semantics in thought (Chemla)

Part B. Super Semantics in communication (Schlenker)

Sessions [tentative; to be adapted as we go]

Part A. Super Semantics in thought (Chemla)

Sept. 23: Connectedness in adults, children and animals, for concepts and logic

Slides in the dropbox folder for the class

Reading 1: connectedness as a relevant notion for quantifiers

A systematic comparison of a notion of connectedness for content words and logical words. It tests the effect of such a notion with an artificial learning task (spoiler: adults prefer connected non-words).

Reader's note: a good paper to see what formal semantics looks like, with an experimental application.

Reading 2: connectedness in baboons

This paper explores the logical version of the connectedness constraint with animal: baboons learn connected "quantifiers" (rules, really) faster than non-connected rules.

Reader's note: covers the same ground as the paper above in a less formal (and less systematic) way, with the bonus of showing how to test claims from formal semantics with animals, and discussing why we may like to do that.

Reading 3 (extra): connectedness for whole sentences

The connectedness constraint can apply not only to content words and logical words, but also at the level of whole sentences. It shows how this has consequences for interpretation of sentences with a scalar item (those phrases generating alternatives).

Reader's note: A more advanced exercise in reading formal semantics, with the benefit of showing more subtle phenomena and getting into serious details.

Sept. 30: Alternatives and competition

Slides in the dropbox folder for the class

Reading 1: minimal conditions for competition

An experiment with minimal linguistic instructions and intervention shows that competition arises under very minimal conditions: no clear conversational context and a minimal vocabulary. Bonus: even subtle effects of competition arise quickly, namely "symmetry effects" where the abundance of competitors kills the competition.

Reader's note: should be easy to read, and yet covers some subtle issues (symmetry effect)

Reading 2: alternatives in thought?

Reader's note: A more advanced reading in formal semantics, with a more systematic look and comparison of various potential approaches and different types of arguments (conceptual arguments, cross-linguistic arguments from introspection, experimental results)

Oct. 7: Negative polarity items and reasoning

Slides in the dropbox folder for the class

Reading 1: Correlation between acceptability of NPIs (like any) and monotonicity judgments (like I saw doves => I saw birds).

Reading 2: Inverse relation: showing that inferences can be modified by the presence or absence of polarity items (like Only three aliens aw (any) doves => Only three aliens saw birds).

Oct. 14: Intervention (NPI and competition)

Slides in the dropbox folder for the class

Reading 1: Correlating (or not) intervention effects and implicature effects.

Reading 2: Semantic illusions

Oct. 21: Semantics in reasoning, guest lecture by Salvador Mascarenhas

Slides in the dropbox folder for the class

Oct. 28: [no class: cogmaster break]

Part B. Super Semantics in communication (Schlenker)

Reminder: readings that are not linked below will be found in this Dropbox folder.

Reading for this part: Schlenker, What is Super Semantics? forthcoming, Philosophical Perspectives [published pdf in the Dropbox folder]

Nov. 4: Introduction: Linguistic Inferences Without Words

Reading: Tieu et al. Linguistic Inferences Without Words

Optional: Schlenker Gestural Semantics

Nov. 11: no class (holiday)

Nov. 18: Primate Semantics I

Optional background: Zuberbühler 2009, Survivor Signals.

Reading: Schlenker, Chemla, Zuberbühler Semantics and Pragmatics of Monkey Communication. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics. [pdf]

Longer version: Schlenker et al. Formal Monkey Linguistics. Target article in Theoretical Linguistics. Preprint version

Shorter version: Schlenker, Chemla, Zuberbühler What do Monkey Calls Mean? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20, 12, 894–904. Penultimate version: [pdf]

Note: there is a very recent issues of Proceedings of the Royal Society on animal vs. human languages.

Nov. 25: Primate Semantics II

Dec. 2: Sign Language Semantics I

Optional background: Zucchi, Formal semantics of sign languages

Optional background: Delaporte and Shaw, introduction to their historical dictionary of ASL (on the history of LSF and ASL)

Reading: Schlenker Visible Meaning

Shorter alternative: Schlenker Logical Visibility and Iconicity in Sign Language Semantics: Theoretical Perspectives

Dec. 9: Sign Language Semantics II

Dec. 16: Typology of Iconic Enrichments

Optional: Schlenker Iconic Pragmatics

Optional: Tieu et al. Co-speech gesture projection: evidence from inferential judgments

Jan. 6: Student presentations