NYU19

Topics in Formal Pragmatics - 2019

Philippe Schlenker

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

September-October 2019 - NYU

Instructor: Philippe Schlenker (E-mail: philippe.schlenker@gmail.com)

Note: P. Schlenker will be present at NYU for 8 weeks in September-October 2019. In addition, he will be at NYU for advising purposes for 3 weeks in May 2020 (precise dates to be determined later).

Topic

This seminar will offer a hands-on introduction to topics of current interest in formal pragmatics, focusing on implicatures (especially the local computation of implicatures) and presuppositions (including presupposition projection). It is particularly intended for graduate students with little detailed knowledge of these topics.

Syllabus: [pdf]

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]

Important

(i) Please sign up here if you plan to attend some or all of the seminar (irrespective of whether you plan to enroll or not; this is just so that the instructor has your email address, can assess how many people will attend, and which topics will be of particular interest to the audience).

(ii) The discussion sessions (open to all graduate students, whether registered or not) are scheduled by way of this Doodle poll. If you plan to attend some discussion sessions, please fill out this poll by Thursday, August 15, 2019. [Please add to your name: (a) your affiliation, and (b) E if you plan to formally enroll, and otherwise n % in case you plan to attend n% of the discussion sessions (we take Week 2 to be representative of any seminar week.]

Requirements

Besides active class participation:

(i) 2 squibs/mini-literature reviews (at least one squib may be replaced with a class presentation)

(ii) 1 mini-term paper (to be emailed 10 days after the seminar end; ideally the mini-term paper will have been prepared by the two squibs/presentations in (i))

The squib and mini-term paper should be connected to the broad questions that will be addressed in the seminar.

Please contact the instructor soon after the beginning of the term to discuss (i) and (ii).

Readings and slides

If they are not linked below, they will be made available in this Dropbox folder.

Schedule and topics [to be adapted as we go]

8 weeks in September-October 2019 - see below for sessions and readings.

–General sessions (2 hours 40 per week) will be held on Tuesdays, 3:30pm-6:10pm, Room 103.

–Discussion sessions (1 hour 45 per week) are open to all graduate students (whether registered or not for the course). See below for the schedule.

Main sessions are in red; normal schedule: Tuesdays 3:30pm-6:10pm, 10 Washington Place Room 103

Discussion sessions are in blue; schedule: Wednesdays 4-5:45pm, 10 Washington Place Room 408.

Background reading (both parts of the course): Schlenker, The Semantics/Pragmatics Interface

Background reading (part on presuppositions): Schlenker, Two Theories of Local Contexts

Tuesday, September 3, 2019: Implicatures I Additional reading: Chierchia et al. 2012: Scalar implicature as a grammatical phenomenon

Wednesday, September 4, 2019: discussion Alicia Parrish on the acquisition of quantity-related inferences

Tuesday, September 10, 2019: Implicatures II

• On exhaustivity operators

Fox 2007

• On the RSA model

Further online resources: Scontras et al. 2018

Additional reading: Spector's handout on the RSA model

Advanced: Bergen et al. 2016

Wednesday, September 11, 2019: discussion Anna Alsop and Ioana Grosu on free choice within the RSA model (to be confirmed)

Friday, September 13, 2019 - Special session: Implicatures III - Talk by Leon Bergen on irony (UCSD), 3-5pm Room 104.

Verbal irony, pretense, and the common ground

by Leon Bergen (UCSD)

Abstract: We propose that several types of verbal irony are forms of linguistic countersignaling, where agents engage in pretense about the state of the world or the perspective they hold in order to communicate about the common ground. We formalize this intuition using the Rational Speech Acts framework, by introducing a mechanism for pretense and a speaker whose goal is to be informative about the state of the common ground. In so doing, we resolve a number of the challenges facing Grice's original account for verbal irony, and provide a novel account of the social function of irony. We show that our model extends to several types of non-declarative content in a modular way.

Tuesday, September 17, 2019: Implicatures IV - Guest lecture by Leon Bergen, tutorial on game-theoretic pragmatics (UCSD)

Wednesday, September 18, 2019: discussion + Mini-squib #1 due (9pm, by email)

Tuesday, September 24, 2019: Implicatures V

Wednesday, September 25, 2019: Guest discussion: Sam Alxatib on only, innocent inclusion and exclusion

Readings: Fox 2007; Bar Lev and Fox 2017

Tuesday, October 1, 2019: Presuppositions I

Seminal ideas: Stalnaker 1974, Heim 1983

Wednesday, October 2, 2019: discussion: Omar Agha on Fox and Spector 2018 (on focus and exhaustivity operators)

Tuesday, October 8, 2019: Presuppositions II

Wednesday, October 9, 2019: discussion + Mini-squib #2 due (9pm, by email) Alex Warstadt on presuppositions within the RSA. Relevant: Qing et al. 2016

Tuesday, October 15, 2019: NO CLASS (NYU classes meet on a Monday schedule)

Wednesday, October 16, 2019: discussion Ioana Grosu on metaphors. Relevant: Kao et al. 2014

Tuesday, October 22, 2019: Presuppositions III

Wednesday, October 23, 2019: discussion Anna Alsop on free choice.

Mini-term paper due [by email]: Friday, November 1, 2019, 9pm EST.

Instructions for the mini-squib(s)

Choose between A, B, and C. In either case, please consult with the instructor ASAP. Registered students should write 1 squib and give a class presentation or write an additional squib.

Note: Your squib can be very short. Ideally, it should present one very clear argument or empirical problem.

A. Write a brief review of an article that concerns one of the topics that will be discussed in the seminar.

Consult with the instructor on the choice of the paper. Your squib should be empirically and formally precise. Be sure to specify in your review:

(i) the empirical problem that is addressed, and the generalizations that are discussed [state them precisely];

(ii) what the main formal proposal is;

(iii) how the formal analysis is applied to several selected examples;

(iv) what some strengths and weaknesses of the proposal are.

B. Write a squib related to one of the topics that will be discussed in the seminar. Your squib should be empirically and formally precise. The squib should be very focused, and it should:

(i) define a clear problem, which could be:

(a) an empirical problem [interesting patterns of projection for connectives we haven’t discussed; empirical problems for the analyses we have discussed, etc.];

(b) a formal problem that arises in some of the theories we have discussed;

(ii) give a precise analysis of the relevant data and formalisms;

(iii) discuss one or several possible solutions.

C. Give a class presentation, to be discussed with the instructor.

Instructions for the mini-term paper

The mini-term paper should be a more elaborate version of B. above. The key is to find some crisp empirical and/or formal result, not to write something long. Approximate length: 6-10 pages.