13-16 Jan 2014
Tezpur, India
announcement and call for papers * 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 15* 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>