Preliminary Schedule

Monday. Introduction (ZL and SC): In this first course, we provide an overview of the course and briefly introduce both Montague Semantics and semantics in MTTs, highlighting some of their key similarities and differences

Tuesday. Features of MTT-semantics (ZL): In this lecture, we delve deeper into the specifics of MTT-semantics. Issues to be discussed include the rich typing structures of MTTs, the claim that MTT-semantics can be seen as both model-theoretic and proof-theoretic and the use of powerful tools for semantic constructions. The lecture will conclude with a number of issues that will become relevant for the upcoming lecture, more specifically judgmental interpretations and identity criteria.

Wednesday: Case study on modification (SC). In this lecture, we concentrate on modification, both adjectival and adverbial. We compare approaches cast within MTTs and MS respectively and compare predictions. We start with the classic tripartite adjectival distinction of intersective, subsective and non-subsective adjectives, we continue by discussing gradable adjectives, multidimensional adjectives, veridical adverbs, manner and speaker oriented adverbs. Some of the issues that will arise during the discussion are: inference via typing v.s. inference via meaning postulates, regular v.s. polymorphic typing, coarse grained domain of individuals v.s. a fine-grained one.

Thursday: Case study on copredication (SC). Copredication is the phenomenon in which more than one predicate (verb or adjective) requiring different types of arguments, are used in coordination and applied to the ”same” CN argument, e.g. in John picked up and mastered the book. In order to deal with these structures, pustejovsky (1994) introduced the notion of a dot-object, basically an object with two senses. We discuss alternative formalizations of dot-types and discuss why are these constructions problematic. We then look at the introduction of dot-types in MTTs (Luo, 2010, 2012] to illustrate how a formal treatment of dot-types can be done in MTT-semantics. We then study the individuation criteria for dot-types, comparing two accounts – one in Chatzikyriakidis and Luo (2018) on the one hand and the other by Gotham in Gotham (2014, 2016) on the other.

Friday: Dependent types in event semantics (ZL). In this lecture, we will discuss (neo-)Davidsonian event semantics in both the Montagovian setting and the MTT-setting. Issues to be discussed include dependent typing in linguistic semantics in general, selectional restrictions in MTT-event semantics and lastly dependent event types.

References

S. Chatzikyriakidis and Z. Luo. Identity criteria of common nouns and dot-types for copredication. Oslo Studies in Language, 2018.

S. Chatzikyriakidis and Z. Luo. Proof assistants for natural language semantics. Logical Aspects of Computational Linguistics 2016 (LACL 2016), 2016.

S. Chatzikyriakidis and Z. Luo. Adjectival and adverbial modification: The view from modern type theories. Journal of Logic, Language and Information, 26(1), pp.45-88, 2017.

M. Gotham. Copredication, quantification and individuationy. PhD thesis, University College London, 2014.

Matthew Gotham. Composing criteria of individuation in copredication. Journal of Semantics, 34 (2):333–371, 2016.

Z. Luo. Type-theoretical semantics with coercive subtyping. Semantics and Linguistic Theory 20 (SALT20), Vancouver, 2010.

Z. Luo. Formal semantics in modern type theories with coercive subtyping. Linguistics and Philosophy, 35(6):491–513, 2012.

Z. Luo. Formal Semantics in Modern Type Theories: Is It Model-theoretic, Proof-theoretic,

or Both? Invited talk at Logical Aspects of Computational Linguistics 2014 (LACL 2014), Toulouse. LNCS 8535, pages 177–188, 2014.

Z. Luo and S. Soloviev. Dependent event types. In de Queiroz R. Kennedy J., editor, Logic, Language, Information, and Computation. WoLLIC 2017, LNCS, volume 10388. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2017.

T. Xue, Z. Luo and S. Chatzikyriakidis. Propositional Forms of Judgemental Interpretations. NLCS18 (affiliated with FLoC), Oxford. 2018.