21.2572, Calls: Disc Analysis, Pragmatics, Semantics/France

Sat Jun 12 00:03:19 UTC 2010

LINGUIST List: Vol-21-2572. Fri Jun 11 2010. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 21.2572, Calls: Disc Analysis, Pragmatics, Semantics/France

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1)
Date: 10-Jun-2010
From: Anamaria Falaus < anamariafalaus at gmail.com >
Subject: Workshop on Alternative-Based Semantics

-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 20:02:04
From: Anamaria Falaus [anamariafalaus at gmail.com]
Subject: Workshop on Alternative-Based Semantics

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Full Title: Workshop on Alternative-Based Semantics 

Date: 29-Oct-2010 - 30-Oct-2010
Location: Nantes, France 
Contact Person: Anamaria Falaus
Meeting Email: anamariafalaus at gmail.com
Web Site: http://www.alternative-semantics.univ-nantes.fr/ 

Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis; Pragmatics; Semantics 

Call Deadline: 20-Jun-2010 

Meeting Description:

The 'Laboratoire de Linguistique de Nantes' (LLING EA 3827) is pleased to 
invite abstracts for submissions to a workshop on alternative-based 
semantics, to be held at the University of Nantes, France, October 29-30, 
2010.

Meeting description:
Ever since Hamblin's proposal for the interpretation of questions (1973), a
variety of linguistic phenomena have been argued to have a semantics that 
makes reference to alternatives: not only interrogative constructions 
(Karttunen 1977), but also focus (Rooth 1985, 1992, Krifka 1993, Beck 
2006), scalar implicatures (e.g. Chierchia 2001, Fox 2006, Keshet 2006, 
Spector 2006, Katzir 2008), disjunction (Geurts 2003, Simons 2004, Alonso-
Ovalle 2006, 2008), topichood (Büring 1997), mood (Villalta 2000), 
comparatives (Morzycki 2009), quantifiers and indefinites, in particular 
polarity-sensitive and free-choice indefinites (e.g. Krifka 1995, Lahiri 1998, 
Giannakidou 2001, Kratzer & Shimoyama 2002, Jayez & Tovena 2005, 
Farkas 2006, Chierchia 2006, Aloni 2007, Alonso-Ovalle & Menéndez-
Benito 2009).

The range of application of alternative-based semantics has been 
constantly expanding. As a result, a wide array of alternative-based systems 
have been proposed. These systems differ in the way they conceive the 
source of alternatives, the status of alternatives, or the precise way in which 
they are exploited in a given context. In Hamblin semantics accounts, 
certain expressions (e.g. indefinites in Kratzer & Shimoyama 2002) denote 
sets of alternatives, which then combine with other constituents of the 
sentence in a compositional manner. In contrast to this 'one dimensional 
system', other alternative-based theories of interpretation assume a 
'multidimensional' semantics (Rooth 1985, Krifka 1995, Chierchia 2006): 
alongside standard meanings, speakers recursively build up alternative sets 
that are accessed by alternative sensitive-operators.

Taken together, these studies raise both theoretical and empirical issues 
such as the following:

- How are alternative sets generated? What is the role of grammar and 
context in determining alternative sets? Are they located at the lexical level, 
as often argued for polarity items or scalar elements? Or rather are they 
generated on the basis of the structure in which they occur (Katzir 2007)? 
Do we need both mechanisms, with different kinds of alternatives playing a 
role in different phenomena?

- What are the kinds of alternatives that are relevant? At what point of the
derivation do speakers consider alternatives and decide whether to exploit 
them for meaning enrichment? What are the principles that govern meaning 
enrichment that results from consideration of alternatives?

- Can alternatives and alternative-sensitive operators be used to capture 
and predict cross-linguistic variation, as argued for instance for polarity-
sensitive items and indeterminate pronouns in Kratzer & Shimoyama (2002), 
Chierchia (2006), Alonso-Ovalle & Menéndez-Benito (2009)?

- The attempts in the recent literature to provide a unified account of scalar
implicature effects and focus effects (e.g. Fox & Katzir 2009), by making use 
of alternative-sensitive operators akin to only, raise the issue of further
possible extensions. Do the different phenomena that have been treated in 
terms of alternatives deserve a unified analysis? 

Call For Papers

Extended Deadline for Submission: June 20, 2010

Abstracts are invited for 30 minute talks, followed by 15 minutes of 
discussion. 

Abstracts must be anonymous, in .pdf format, and they should not exceed 
two pages in 12 point font, with margins of 2.5 cm (1 inch) on all sides.

Invited speakers:
Gennaro Chierchia (Harvard University)
Emmanuel Chemla (Institut Jean Nicod)
Paula Menéndez-Benito (University of Goettingen)
Maribel Romero (University of Konstanz)
Daniel Büring (UCLA) (to be confirmed)

Important dates:
Deadline for submission: June 20, 2010
Notification of acceptance: July 31, 2010
Conference dates: October 29-30, 2010

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