Logic List Mailing Archive

Modeling experiencers in natural language semantics

13-16 Jan 2014
Tezpur, India

second call for papers - submission deadline: October *22*, 2013 * 
Modeling experiencers in natural language semantics*

Workshop hosted by the 5th Indian School on Logic and its Applications 
(ISLA 2014)

January 6-17, 2014 (workshop dates: January 13-16)

Tezpur University, Assam, India


Description:

There is a long-standing tradition of using *logical *and, more 
specifically, *model-theoretic *tools in the analysis of natural 
languages. Building on this tradition, our workshop aims at addressing one 
specific issue that has been the topic of discussion lately in the areas 
of formal semantics, applied logic, computational linguistics, and 
philosophy. The issue at stake is the notion of *experiencer*, across 
languages and across linguistic categories. For example, it is commonly 
assumed that in a sentence like "Deeti's performance astonished Raj", Raj 
occupies the role of the experiencer. One of the open questions currently 
under debate is whether this experiencer argument remains present in 
derived adjectives such as 'astonishing', as in "Deeti's performance was 
astonishing". Another open question is whether derived adjectives like 
'astonishing' belong to the same semantic category as morpho-syntactically 
simple adjectives like 'nice' or 'great', which are commonly classified 
under the label of evaluative adjectives and have elicited a heated debate 
in semantics and in philosophy. Yet another question is the role of 
experiencers in other linguistic constructions such as, e.g., *evidential 
markers* (which do not exist in English but do e.g. In Japanese). In 
addressing these and other questions concerning experiencers, our workshop 
aims at reaching a better understanding of the nature of argument 
structure in natural language, which we take to be a key element in 
understanding the logical patterns that linguistic constructions give rise 
to, and in modeling the logic of natural language. Our interdisciplinary 
workshop will provide a platform for a fruitful exchange between those 
working in foundational areas in logic and those who are interested in the 
applications of logic to natural languages.

Invited speakers:

Eric McCready (Aoyama Gakuin University)
Brendan Gillon (Mc Gill)
Carla Umbach (Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft)

Call for papers:

We invite abstracts for 40-minute presentations (30 + 10) to be submitted 
by *October 22* to both of the following addresses:

berit.gehrke@upf.edu
isidora.stojanovic@upf.edu

Please include your name, affiliation and the title of the abstract in the 
body of the e-mail. Abstracts should be anonymous and should not exceed 2 
pages in length (A4 or letter-size), in 12 pt. font, with 1-inch/2,5-cm 
margins, including examples and references. The language of the 
submissions and the presentations will be English.

Workshop organizers:

Berit Gehrke (CNRS / Paris 7)
Isidora Stojanovic (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)

-- 
Dr. Isidora Stojanovic
Chargée de recherche
Institut Jean-Nicod, ENS - Pavillon Jardin
29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris (France)
from October 1st, 2012 to Sept 30, 2014:
Marie Curie Fellow
Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Edifici Roc Boronat, office 53.610
Roc Boronat, 138, 08018 Barcelona (Spain)
http://parles.upf.edu/llocs/istojanovic/
<http://ira.stojanovic.online.fr>