A first introduction to compositionality: Tight and loose semantic composition.

Beginning verb semantics

Heim & Kratzer, chapter 1

Math background: Partee et al., chapter 1 and 2

Davidsonian event semantics

Homework 1: Due September 14.

Heim & Kratzer, chapter 2

Logic background: Partee et al., chapters 5 & 6, but you can leave out 6.5 & 6.6.

Davidsonian event semantics.

The lambda notation.

Homework 2: Due September 21.

Heim & Kratzer, chapter 3

Logic background: Partee et al. 7.1 to 7.3.

Logic background: Partee et al. 13.1, but you can leave out 13.1.3

Optional: The Event Argument, chapters 1 to 3.

We'll have two extra sessions this week: we'll also meet on Tuesday and Thursday during the Ling 601 meeting times.

In the area of event semantics, we'll look at Schein's argument for neo-Davidsonian association of external arguments. We will also talk a little bit about a suitable mereology for events and plural individuals.

Since you asked for it, we will explore the question whether material implication is the correct interpretation for English "if" ..."then".

This will be the last week where the main purpose of your obligatory readings is to build the technical skills for the more advanced work on relative clauses, quantifiers, and pronouns that will be central for the rest of the semester. Lectures and readingswill come together from now on. Homeworks lag behind by one week.

Homework 3 : Due September 28.

Logic background: Partee et al. 13.2.

The Penn Lambda Calculator

Heim & Kratzer chapter 4

Optional: Liina Pylkkänen's 2002 dissertation: Introducing Arguments.

Pragmatic strengthening and the neo-Gricean account of conversational implicatures.

A case study of or.

Homework 4: Due October 5

Logic review: Potts' Logic for Linguists.

Entry on Implicatures in the Stanford Encyclopedia. Gamut's reconstruction of Gricean conversational implicatures (PDF 2.3 MB).

Ray Jennings on disjunction.

More advanced : Luis Alonso Ovalle on exclusive disjunction. Luis Alonso-Ovalle's 2006 dissertation: Disjunction in Alternative Semantics.

There is a holiday on Monday. UMass will be following a Monday schedule on Tuesday, but Kyle will be teaching a syntax class during the semantics slot.

We will continue our discussion of pragmatic strengthening, but this time round in the more general context of exhaustive interpretations.

Homework 5: Due October 12

Logic review: Potts' Logic for Linguists.

Optional: Chapter on implicatures in Kai von Fintel's lecture notes on pragmatics. You can also listen to audios of von Fintel's lectures on pragmatics. Or watch videos of Richard Breheny and Napoleon Katsos' lectures on implicatures in language and cognition (the lectures are in English, the site is French).

Kyle will be teaching a syntax class on Monday.

We'll finish up our discussion of exhaustive interpretations.

Homework 6: Due October 19

Logic review: Potts' Logic for Linguists.

Optional: My article on situations in natural language semantics in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Video of my Paris lectures, in particular lecture 4.

The definite article. A first encounter of presuppositions.

Homework 7: Due on October 29.

Heim on Articles and Definiteness (7.8 MB)

Optional: Heim on presupposition projection. Videos of five lectures on presuppositions by Bart Geurts (the lectures are in English. The site is French). Beaver on presuppositions (PostScript).

Relative clauses

Homework 8: Due on November 5

Heim & Kratzer, chapter 5. Relative clauses & binding.

Relative clauses: correlatives.

Homework 9: Due on November 14

If you want to know more about relative clauses and relative pronouns ...

Junko Shimoyama on Internally Headed Relative Clauses and E-type Anaphora (PDF)

Alex Grosu & Fred Landman on Strange Relatives of the Third Kind. (PDF)

Rajesh Bhatt on the Raising Analysis of Relative Clauses (PDF)

Martina Wiltschko on Relative Pronouns and Determiners (PDF)

Holiday on Monday. On Friday, we will meet in the Partee room.

Quantificational DPs

Homework 10

Heim & Kratzer, chapter 6

Partee et al. chapter 14

Quantifier scope: real and fake

Formal constraints on quantifier denotations: Extension & Conservativity

No class on Friday.

Heim & Kratzer, chapter 7

Heim & Kratzer, chapter 8

Janet Fodor & Ivan Sag on Referential & Quantificational Indefinites

Optional: Lisa Matthewson on the Interpretation of Wide-Scope Indefinites.

Constraints on quantifier denotations: Quantity. Number trees. Monotonicity properties and polarity. Quantifiers that are not first-order definable.

Homework 11

Barwise & Cooper on Generalized Quantifiers & Natural Language

Barbara Partee on Many Quantifiers

Referential and bound pronouns, pronominal features, the typology of pronouns

Heim & Kratzer, chapter 9

Reading for the break: Kratzer on Making a Pronoun.

More on pronouns

Last class on Friday

Heim & Kratzer, chapter 10

Reading for the break: Elbourne on D-type/E-type pronouns. Link for original dissertation on Situations and Individuals.