23.1257, Calls: Semantics, Pragmatics/Spain

Tue Mar 13 14:55:06 UTC 2012

LINGUIST List: Vol-23-1257. Tue Mar 13 2012. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 23.1257, Calls: Semantics, Pragmatics/Spain

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Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2012 10:54:14
From: Laia Mayol [laia.mayol at upf.edu]
Subject: Information, Discourse Structure and Levels of Meaning

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Full Title: Information, Discourse Structure and Levels of Meaning 
Short Title: IDL12 

Date: 25-Oct-2012 - 26-Oct-2012
Location: Barcelona, Spain 
Contact Person: Laia Mayol
Meeting Email: laia.mayol at upf.edu
Web Site: http://blogs.uab.cat/idl12/ 

Linguistic Field(s): Pragmatics; Semantics 

Call Deadline: 16-Apr-2012 

Meeting Description:

Information and discourse structure, and the analysis of different levels of meaning (conventional and conversational implicatures, presuppositions, etc.) have been two of the most fruitful areas of research in the semantics-pragmatics interface in the last decade. This workshop aims to study the interactions between these two areas. Thus, the questions that this workshop will address go in two directions.

1. How does information and discourse structure affect the different levels of meaning? Can we obtain a better understanding of, for instance, conversational implicatures or presuppositions, once the topic-focus structure is taken into account?

2. How do the dimensions of meaning affect the information structure of discourse? Can we obtain a better understanding of concepts such as topic, focus, contrastive topic, background or QUD, once the properties of the different levels of meaning are taken into account?

Invited Speakers:

Daniel Büring (Universität Wien)
Bart Geurts (Radboud University Nijmegen)
Craige Roberts (Ohio State University)
Gregory Ward (Northwestern University)

Organizers: Laia Mayol (UPF) and Xavier Villalba (UAB). This workshop is an initiative of the funded research project 'Compositionality of meaning and semantic operations at the syntax-semantics and grammar-cognition interface (COMPOSING)' (FFI2011-23356). 

2nd Call for Papers:

We invite contributions related (but not limited) to the following topics:

- Recently, there have been proposals to relate the behavior of conventional implicatures (CIs) and presuppositions to the Question Under Discussion (Simons et. al. 2011) as a unifying mechanism to account for their projectivity, while others account for the projective behavior of CIs through other means (Potts, 2005). What is the proper account of projective behavior of CIs and presuppositions? What is the relationship between projectivity and discourse structure?

- The study of information structure has developed quite independently of the (neo-)Gricean discussion on 'what is said' and 'what is implicated'. How do notions like focus and topic fit into the classical Gricean picture? For instance, what is the relationship between information structure and conversational implicature? Can the calculation of a conversational implicature depend on the discourse structure?

- The classical (neo-)Gricean picture stemming from Stalnaker's contribution strongly restricts the interactions between different dimensions of meaning. Whereas presuppositions are previous to 'what is said', implicatures are by definition derived from 'what is said'. Yet, Geurts (2010) has called for a new picture where (conversational) implicatures can be derived from presuppositions. How does this new picture modify the Gricean conception of 'what is said', and the limits between semantics and pragmatics? Which range of interactions should pragmatics allow?

- Dislocations, particularly in Romance languages, require that the detached information be either part of the common ground or that it can be bridged, with remarkable differences between left and right dislocations. What is the relationship between such bridging phenomena and presupposition accommodation? Are they the same species?

- The semantic/pragmatic distinction between assertion and presupposition has commonly been paired with the informational distinction between new and old information. However, as argued by Abbott (2010), this view runs into trouble when we consider certain constructions which combine presupposed and new informational content (e.g. uniquely identifying descriptions or reverse wh-clefts). To what extent do these cases are accounted for by the standard Stalnakerian theory of common ground plus accommodation? Are these cases instances of Schlenker's 'informative presuppositions' (Schlenker, 2007)?

- The concept of contrast has been claimed to play a role in information structure, particularly in connection with focus (Rooth 1992, Krifka 2008), but also in cases of (clitic) left-dislocation (Vallduví 1992, López 2009). To what extent is contrast a well-defined concept? Is it a semantic or a pragmatic notion? How does it interact with presupposition? Does it play any role in licensing implicatures?

We invite contributions on these aspects for 30 minute oral presentations. Abstracts should conform to the following guidelines:

- Abstracts must be submitted electronically via Easychair (https://www.easychair.org/account/signin.cgi?conf=idl12).
- Abstracts should be anonymous.
- Abstracts should not exceed two pages, including examples and references.
- Submissions are restricted to one single-authored or one co-authored abstract at most.
- The conference language is English: abstracts and talks will be in English.
- Page format: A4, 2.5 cm margins on all sides, at least 12 pt Times New Roman font, single line spacing.
- File format: .pdf
- File name: surname.pdf

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