29.1709, Calls: Semantics/Belgium

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LINGUIST List: Vol-29-1709. Fri Apr 20 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.1709, Calls: Semantics/Belgium

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Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2018 13:30:50
From: Guido Vanden Wyngaerd [guido.vandenwyngaerd at kuleuven.be]
Subject: Logic Now and Then: Scales in language and logic

 
Full Title: Logic Now and Then: Scales in language and logic 
Short Title: LNAT 

Date: 20-Sep-2018 - 21-Sep-2018
Location: Brussels, Belgium 
Contact Person: Guido Vanden Wyngaerd
Meeting Email: lnat4 at crissp.be
Web Site: http://www.crissp.be 

Linguistic Field(s): Semantics 

Call Deadline: 15-Jun-2018 

Meeting Description:

Scalarity is a rich field of study in linguistics and logic. Linguistically,
it enters into the meaning of a wide range of expressions.  The best-known
case in degree semantics may well be the gradable adjective (tall, short,
likely, good), but cross-categorially many other cases have been detected and
analysed in similar scalar terms: 

- Verbs: degree achievement verbs (broaden, widen), directed motion (rise,
drop), measure verbs (cost), psych-verbs (like, amuse)
- Nouns: gradable nouns (an utter fool, a slight disappointment)
- Adverbs: intensifying (hard/much), focus associating (only, even, merely)
- Prepositions: (above, before, under)
- Cardinal and ordinal numerals (five, sixth)
- Quantifiers (many, more, most, all, few)

Given the crucial role of scalarity in the semantics of vague adjectives and
nouns (e.g. tall, heap), it can help to understand the sorites paradox, which
has been studied extensively in philosophical logic (Keefe 2000). Some
solutions to this paradox, such as Williamson’s (1994) epistemicism, stick to
classical logic, while others move to systems of many-valued logic. An
interesting philosophical question is whether the latter move can or should be
understood as transforming truth itself into a scalar notion.

The semantic scales that have been proposed in degree semantics to account for
gradability are standardly (Kennedy 2007, Solt 2015) viewed as (i) a set of
values (ii) with an associated ordering relation and (iii) a dimension of
measurement.  But that is where the uniformity ends, given that there are – in
many cases real, in some cases possibly eliminable – elements of variation for
each of the three components of a scale. Some scales are viewed as involving a
discrete linear order of values, others as dense (with a third value between
any two other values), though it has also been argued (Fox & Hackl 2006) that
all measurement is dense. Some scales involve conventionalized units of
measurement (cm, min, etc.), others don’t. Some have scalar endpoints at both
ends, some at neither, and some at one end (Kennedy & McNally 2005). The
values on the scales have been identified as degrees, which can be thought as
points on the scale (Beck 2011), but also as extents (Seuren 1973), vectors
(Zwarts 2003), etc. (cf. Solt 2015, 23) And while there is a wide range of
possible dimensions (volume, weight, age, duration, distance, etc.), the
orders they involve come in a limited number of types (ordinal, interval or
ratio orders). Moreover, such types of scales seem to be metaphorically
connected to properties of spatial axes in a constrained number of ways
(Nouwen, sd): vertical in the case of number (under 50 attendants), very often
horizontal for time expressions (after three minutes), for instance. 

Given that linguistic expressions of scalar opposition are so often latched on
to spatial experience, it would also be useful to discover whether and, if so,
which kinds of geometrical diagrams for scalarity have been proposed in the
literature (a case in point are those introduced in Ogden 1932, 16).  While
the question which diagrams have been proposed has a historical interest in
its own right, the features of such diagrams may provide clarifying
perspectives on the phenomenon itself.

Since a nonlinear relation between causal stimuli and their mental
representation – in the form of compressed logarithmic scales – is
characteristic of several modes of perception (colour vision, overtones in
music, touch, taste, etc.), the possible connection between such perceptual
scales in human cognition and scalarity as it surfaces in language and logic
is an issue of considerable interest (cf. Dehaene et al. 2009 on number).

Invited speakers

Christopher Kennedy (University of Chicago)
Stefanie Solt (Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS))


Call for Papers:

Abstracts should be in PDF-format, anonymous, at most one page long, and
should include any example sentences. A second page may be added for
bibliographical references only. Please submit abstracts through EasyChair,
using the following link:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=lnat4

Conference e-mail:lnat4 at crissp.be

Authors may submit at most one individual and one co-authored abstract.The
abstract submission deadline is 15 June 2018, midnight, Brussels time.
Notification of acceptance will be on July 15, 2018.

Important Dates:

First call for papers: April 1, 2018
Second call for papers: May 1, 2018
Abstract submission deadline: June 15, 2018
Notification of acceptance: July 15, 2018
Conference: September 20-21, 2018

For further information, visit
http://www.crissp.be/lnat-4-first-call-for-papers/




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