25-28 Jun 2014
Berlin, Germany
CFP: Semantics and Philosophy in Europe 7 (SPE 7)
The colloquium Semantics and Philosophy in Europe 7 (SPE 7) will be
hosted by the Zentrum fr Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS) in
Berlin in cooperation with Institut fr Philosophie and Institut fr
deutsche Sprache und Linguistik at Humboldt University Berlin.
DATE: June 26-28, 2014 (conference), June 25, 2014 (tutorials)
PLACE: Zentrum fr Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Berlin
WEBSITE: http://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/fileadmin/spe7/index.html
Invited speakers:
? Maria Aloni (University of Amsterdam)
? Peter Grdenfors (Lund University)
? Jane Friedman (New York University)
? Rick Nouwen (Utrecht University)
? Galit Sassoon (Bar Ilan University)
? Jason Stanley (Yale University)
The purpose of the Semantics and Philosophy in Europe colloquia is
provide a forum for presenting research in the interface between
linguistic semantics and various areas of philosophy (philosophy of
language, philosophy of mind/cognition, metaphysics etc.). Previous
SPE meetings have taken place place in Paris (SPE1, 2008 and SPE3,
2010), London (SPE2, 2009), Bochum (SPE4, 2011), Turin (SPE5, 2012)
and St.Peterburg (SPE6, 2013). In addition to the general session, SPE
7 will feature two special sessions:
?Conceptual structures and truth-conditional semantics
?Attitudes towards questions
Two preconference tutorials will be offered: ?Questions: from embedded
clauses to speech acts (Manfred Krifka, ZAS)
?Evaluative predicates (Friederike Moltmann, CNRS, Carla Umbach, ZAS)
Program and organization:
Anton Benz (ZAS), Manfred Krifka (ZAS/HU Berlin), Friederike Moltmann
(CNRS Paris), Tobias Rosefeldt (HU Berlin), Stephanie Solt (ZAS),
Isidora Stojanovic (UPF Barcelona / CNRS Paris), Carla Umbach (ZAS),
Thomas Ede Zimmermann (Goethe Universitt Frankfurt).
Special sessions:
1. Conceptual structures and truth-conditional semantics
Over the last decades, truth-conditional semantics has proven
successful in offering detailed analyses for how the meanings of
composite expressions can be derived from the meanings of their parts.
Still, when it comes to the meanings of lexical items it is generally
agreed that one has to take recourse to mental concepts and conceptual
structures opening up the possibility of grounding meaning in human
cognition. This raises the question of whether conceptual structures,
which are clearly internal, can be reconciled with the referential /
truth-conditional approach; how might conceptual structures be
made to dovetail with truth-conditional semantics?
2. Attitudes towards questions
The semantics and pragmatics of questions has attracted the
attention of philosophers for several reasons. On the one hand there
is a lively debate about the distinction between knowledge-how and
knowledge-that, in which the semantics of wh-complements plays a
crucial role and which has made philosophers think more about
attitudes whose contents are characterized by indirect questions in
general. On the other hand, the theory of implicit 'questions under
discussion' that shape our discourse has been found relevant for
several issues in the philosophy of language and metaphysics. The
session inquires recent linguistic thought about these issues and its
application in philosophy.
We invite submissions for the general session and the special sessions
for 45 minute presentations (incl. discussion) or posters. Submissions
are limited to 1 individual and 1 joint abstract per author. Abstracts
have to be anonymous not exceeding two pages in length. Abstract are
submitted electronically in PDF format via EasyChair. Upon submission
you will be asked to provide a 10 line summary indicating subject
matter and conclusions (the summary need not be included in the
two-page abstract itself).
Instructions about EasyChair:
To submit your abstract please follow the SPE7 submission link, ,
sign in, click on "New Submission" at the top of the page and follow
the instructions. EasyChair requires authors to be registered. To
register for EasyChair, please click on the registration link and
follow the instructions.
The submission deadline is 1. February 2014. We expect to make
notifications of acceptance in the beginning of March.
Contact:
spe7@zas.gwz-berlin.de