SYLLABUS

See below.

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) is scheduled by way of an online poll of interested participants. Please fill out the poll if you are interested! The information will also be useful to schedule guest talks, hence multiple slots are provided, including right before the 'official' Tuesday main session. Thanks a lot for your patience in filling this out!

APPOINTMENTS

The instructor will be available for appointments both in person and on Zoom (depending on the student's preference).

REQUIREMENTS

Besides active class participation:

(i) 1 class presentation + 1 squib/mini-literature review (in some cases, the squib may be replaced with an additional 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.

You are encouraged to take the opportunity of this seminar to explore new datasets and propose new generalizations.

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 - see below for sessions and readings.

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

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

POSSIBLE TOPICS

• Intensional vs. Extensional: (i) Does temporal/modal dependency work by way of implicit parameters or explicit variables? (ii) Do pointing-related data from sign language bear on the issue?

• Dynamic vs. E-type: Does anaphora by way of pointing (in sign and in gestures) yield an argument for dynamic over E-type approaches to donkey anaphora?

• Non-monotonicity: Should if- and/or when-clauses be analyzed as definite descriptions of times/worlds/situations?

(Relevant recent work by Manuel Križ and Omar Agha)

• Variables vs. Iconic semantics: Should pictorial semantics be enriched with variables (relevant work by Dorit Abusch)? What about music semantics?

• Grammar vs. Iconicity: How should the syntax and of semantics of highly iconic linguistic constructions be analyzed, especially: (i) classifier predicates in sign language; (ii) sequence of pro-speech gestures in spoken language?

• Agreement: Does one need specifically temporal or modal agreement rules? (Sequence of Tense, Sequence of Mood)

REFERENCES

See below.

Heim and von Fintel have a detailed book manuscript on intensional semantics

Preliminary schedule and readings - to be adapted

Main sessions are in black; normal schedule: Tuesdays 3:30pm-6:10pm (unless otherwise noted), WP 103

Discussion sessions are in blue; normal schedule: Mondays 1pm-2:45pm (unless otherwise noted), WP103

[Monday, September 6: No Class - Labor Day]

Tuesday, September 7: Time- and world-denoting pronouns: insights from sign language

Background:

Partee 1973

Lectures Notes A, B and C, in the Dropbox folder [or relevant parts of Heim and von Fintel, Intensional Semantics]

Optional: Schlenker 2012 Temporal and modal anaphora in sign language (ASL)

Monday, September 13: Omar Agha on conditionals and definite descriptions

Tuesday, September 14: Intensional vs. extensional approaches to time and modality

Lectures Notes A, B and C, in the Dropbox folder [or relevant parts of Heim and von Fintel, Intensional Semantics]

Optional: Percus, Constraints on Some Other Variables in Syntax

Tuesday, September 21: Tense Semantics I Squib/presentation #1 due!

Section 1 and 2 of Ogihara and Sharvit

Optional: Heim's Comments on Abusch

Wednesday, September 22 at 2pm EST on Zoom [note the non-standard day and time!] Guest speaker: Anastasia Tsilia (MIT) – Embedded Tense in Modern Greek and Beyond

[please write to the instructor if you didn't get the Zoom link by email: philippe.schlenker@gmail.com]

Abstract: How many roads are there to a simultaneous reading (e.g., 2 years ago, John thought_{_t} that Mary was_{_t} pregnant)? Some languages, like English, use an embedded past, while others, like Hebrew, use an embedded present. Modern Greek, however, displays an unexpected ‘optionality’: both present and past tenses can be used under a past tense attitude verb to convey a simultaneous reading. This talk has an empirical and a theoretical part. First, we describe and enrich the typology, providing novel data from Modern Greek and Russian. We test the accessibility of simultaneous readings, using three parameters: (i) the existence of a deletion rule, (ii) de re readings of the embedded past, and (iii) the shiftability of the present. We conclude that Modern Greek has a mixed tense system, and that there is variation with respect to the availability of simultaneous readings with an embedded past in languages without a deletion rule (e.g., Hebrew vs. Russian). Therefore, we introduce a new distinction between languages without tense deletion, based on the accessibility of simultaneous de re readings. Thus, we end up with four instead of two types of languages. In the theoretical part of the talk, we present work in progress, trying to predict how many Logical Forms lead to a simultaneous reading in each type of language. We provide an analysis using a pragmatic Prefer De Se principle and a syntactic Prefer Local Binding parameter. The first states that de se readings are preferred whenever possible, be they obtained via de se Logical Forms or via de re ones with temporal descriptions that happen to be de se. Prefer Local Binding expresses a preference for locally bound temporal variables, therefore blocking de re readings of the embedded past in the absence of a deletion rule. In this way, we account for the newly introduced distinction between Russian and Hebrew. Based on data from ellipsis, we argue that in Modern Greek Prefer Local Binding is inactive, and thus there are three roads to the simultaneous reading.

Tuesday, September 28: Tense Semantics II

Optional: Heim's Comments on Abusch

Sharvit Sequence of Tense [advanced!]

Wednesday, September 29 at 2pm EST on Zoom [note the non-standard day and time!] Guest speaker: Yael Sharvit (UCLA) – Tense in attitude contexts - some outstanding problems.

Abstract: I will discuss some issues about embedded tense that (I believe) have not received sufficient attention in the literature. I will point out what - in my opinion - could be fruitful ways for addressing these issues.

Monday, October 4: Zhuoye Zhao

Tuesday, October 5: Tense Semantics III

[Monday, October 11: No class - Fall break]

Tuesday, October 12, 2021: NYU classes on a Monday schedule => discussion session. Squib/presentation #2 due!

Monday, October 18: Discussion

Tuesday, October 19: Pictorial Variables

Readings: Abusch Possible Worlds Semantics for Pictures, or Section 4.2. of Schlenker What is Super Semantics?

Optional: Schlenker et al. 2021

Monday, October 25 on Zoom Guest speaker: Benjamin Spector on (non-)dynamic anaphora

Title: Anaphora without dynamic semantics - A static trivalent semantics for pronouns and indefinites

Abstract: Current theories of presupposition projection fall, by and large, into three categories:

- dynamic theories (Heim 1983, and much subsequent work)

- static trivalent approaches (Peters 1997, Beaver & Krahmer 2001, a.o)

- static bivalent approach supplemented with the Transparency Principle, according to which presupposed content must be redundant in the syntactic environment in which the presupposition trigger appears (Schlenker 2007, 2008), or Chemla's Similarity Principle (Chemla 2008).

It has been recognized long ago that the phenomenology of presupposition projection is closely related to that of the licensing of anaphora. That is, the conditions under which a non-referential pronoun can be anaphoric to a previously introduced indefinite (as in `Ada bought a pen and she used it to write a letter' ) are very similar to those under which the presupposition triggered by some expression can be `filtered out' by previously introduced content (as in `Ada bought a pen and John knows that she bought a pen').

This striking resemblance is well accounted for in dynamic theories of anaphora (Kamp 1981, Heim 1982, Groenedijk & Stokhof 1991 and much subsequent work) which are conceptually related to dynamic theories of presupposition, or even unified with them (van der Sandt & Geurts 1991, van der Sandt 1992) . But, with the exception of Rothschild 2017, nobody has proposed a non-dynamic theory of anaphora which would use the conceptual ingredients of non-dynamic theories of presupposition, based on either trivalent semantics or the Transparency Principle. Rothschild’s own approach incorporates some non-trivial syntactic copying operation, a move which, everything else being equal, it would be better to dispense with on parsimony grounds.

In my talk, I will propose a non-dynamic, static approach to anaphora which combines a trivalent approach with Schlenker's principle of Transparency. I will make use of a key idea recently introduced by Matt Mandelkern (in his manuscript `Witnesses'), according to which an existential statement such as 'Someone_x came' introduces a variable (notated x here), and, relative to a world w and and assignment function g, is undefined, rather than true or false, if it is classically true in w (i.e. if someone came in w) but g(x) does not denote an individual who came in w. Furthermore, I will assume that a sentence such as `She_x came' comes with the presupposition that the variable x is "valued* by the assignment function (which can be partial), a presupposition which is subject to the Transparency principle.

While related to Mandelkern's approach, my proposal, unlike his, is fully static at the level of compositional semantics (while Mandelkern's proposal makes use of the notion of local contexts). Consideration of sentences with nested quantifier-variable dependencies will require the of use plural assignments (cf. works Van den Berg, Nouwen, Brasoveanu, Kuhn among others) instead of simple assignments, with an added benefit: the system will account for quantificational subordination/paycheck sentences.

Tuesday, October 26, 2021: Matt Mandelkern on (non-)dynamic anaphora (last general session)
Title: Witnesses

Abstract:

The meaning of definite descriptions is a central topic in philosophy and linguistics. Indefinites have been relatively neglected by philosophers, under the Russellian assumption that they are simply existential quantifiers. However, a robust set of patterns suggest that this assumption is wrong. In this paper I develop a new approach to (in)definites which aims to capture these patterns. On my theory, truth-conditions are classical. But in addition to truth-conditions, meanings comprise a second dimension, which I call bounds. It is at the level of bounds, not truth-conditions, that the characteristic coordination between indefinites and definites takes place. My system has a classical logic, thus avoiding serious problems which face the most plausible extant account of these patterns, namely, dynamic semantics. More generally, my approach yields a new perspective on the relation between truth-conditions and dynamic effects in natural language.

Mini-term paper due [by email]: Friday, November 5, 2021, 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 one squib and give a class presentation (or write an additional squib). In some cases, the squib may be replaced with an additional class presentation.

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.