ENS 25 - SUPER SEMANTICS

Fall 2025

Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris

September 2025 -January 2026

Under construction!

This site is for the sole benefit of the participants in the class of Super Semantics in the Fall of 2025.

The site will be updated as we go.

Please fill out this form to register (including if you are just auditing the course).

General information

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, there is an emerging movement of animal semantics, which seeks to analyze animal calls and gestures with semantic methods. 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.

INSTRUCTORS

Emmanuel Chemla (LINGUAE, LSCP CNRS)

Email: emmanuel.chemla@ens.psl.eu

Benjamin Spector (LINGUAE, Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS; New York University)

Email: spector.benjamin@gmail.com

Philippe Schlenker (LINGUAE, Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS; New York University)

Email: philippe.schlenker@gmail.com

TIME AND PLACE

Mondays, 4-6:30pm.
First lecture: Sept 23.

Salle Ribot on 29 rue d'Ulm

CREDITS: 6 ects

Prerequisites, communication, requirements

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.

COMMUNICATION

About any topic: write to us early in case of doubt.

We will communicate through this website and by e-mail. Be sure to be officially registered for the class so that we have your address.

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

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]

REQUIREMENTS

The initial description of the course is available in this document.

All details for the requirements, including detailed instructions for squibs are in this essential document.

Below is just a short version of it.

Topic first: Participants are invited to work on small projects (e.g., literature reviews, formal analyses of a set of phenomena, proposals for experiments). The first task is always the choice of a topic in Super semantics - please discuss possible topics with the instructors as early as possible.

Assessment:

Beside readings and occasional, short preparatory exercises (not to be handed out), students will write two squibs and one mini-term paper. The mini-term paper can build on the squibs, of course. Please send the squibs and mini-terms paper by email to all instructors.

Squib 1: November 14, 9pm
Squib 2: December 19, 9pm
Mini-term paper: February 2, 9pm

Individual & group work: You are encouraged to get feedback on your work not just from the instructors but also from one or several students. (If so, please indicate which other student(s) you discussed your work with.) You may also work in groups of up to three participants, please discuss this option with us.

Use of AI: You can use AI as you wok, but should credit it in detail by explaining in detail how you used it.

Academic credit: 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.

Logistics: All materials should be submitted by email to all three instructors:
emmanuel.chemla@ens.psl.eu,
spector.benjamin@ens.fr,
philippe.schlenker@gmail.com.

Sessions, Class Material

Part A. Super Semantics in communication (Schlenker)

Readings that are not linked below will be found in the Dropbox folder.

General reading for this part: One of the following:
Schlenker, What is Super Semantics? Philosophical Perspectives 2019 [published pdf in the Dropbox folder]

Patel-Grosz et al. Super Linguistics: an Introduction, to appear in Linguistics & Philosophy (broader and less detailed than the preceding reference)

Optional background: What it All Means (ask the instructor for a pdf copy).