LINGUIST List 21.3617 Mon Sep 13 2010 Confs: Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis/France Editor for this issue: Amy Brunett <brunettlinguistlist.org> LINGUIST is pleased to announce the launch of an exciting new feature: Easy Abstracts! Easy Abs is a free abstract submission and review facility designed to help conference organizers and reviewers accept and process abstracts online. Just go to: http://www.linguistlist.org/confcustom, and begin your conference customization process today! With Easy Abstracts, submission and review will be as easy as 1-2-3! Directory         1.    Anamaria Falaus, Workshop on Alternative-Based Semantics Message 1: Workshop on Alternative-Based Semantics Date: 10-Sep-2010 From: Anamaria Falaus <anamariafalausgmail.com> Subject: Workshop on Alternative-Based Semantics E-mail this message to a friend Workshop on Alternative-Based Semantics Date: 29-Oct-2010 - 30-Oct-2010 Location: Nantes, France Contact: Anamaria Falaus Contact Email: anamariafalausgmail.com Meeting URL: http://www.alternative-semantics.univ-nantes.fr/ Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis; Pragmatics; Semantics 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 integrated into meaning via alternative sensitive-operators. The present workshop seeks to provide a forum of discussion for experimental and theoretical work addressing issues like the source and the role of (various kinds of) alternatives in the grammar. Workshop on Alternative-Based Semantics University of Nantes, October 29-30, 2010 Campus Tertre, Bâtiment Censive, Salle de conférences Friday, October 29 8:45-9:15 Registration/Coffee 9:15-9:45 Introduction Anamaria Falaus, LLING 9:45-10:45 Phenomena Involving Alternatives: Experimental Comparison Emmanuel Chemla, Institut Jean Nicod 10:45-11:15 Coffee break 11:15-12:00 Widening as Entropy Jacques Jayez, ENS Lyon 12:00-12:45 Inquisitive and Alternative Semantics Jeroen Groenendijk & Floris Roelofsen, ILLC, Amsterdam 12:45-14:45 Lunch break 14:45-15:45 tba Maribel Romero, University of Konstanz 15:45-16:15 Coffee break 16:15-17:00 Ignorance in Free Relatives Via a Wideness Constraint on Hamblin Alternatives Kyle Rawlins, Johns Hopkins University 17:00-17:45 What we Gain, and What we Lose, with a Hamblin Semantics for Free Choice Anastasia Giannakidou & Josep Quer, U. Chicago & U. Pompeu Fabra Saturday, October 30 8:30-9:00 Coffee 9:00-10:00 Scalar Implicatures and Dependent Plurality in Spanish Paula Menéndez-Benito, University of Göttingen 10:00-10:30 Coffee break 10:30-11:15 Domain Alternatives Cause Intervention Effects in German Wh-questions Clemens Mayr, ZAS 11:15-12:00 English FCI: Plurality, Universality, and Definiteness Veneeta Dayal, Rutgers University 12:00-14:00 Lunch break 14:00-15:00 On the Role of Scalar Alternatives in the Polarity System Gennaro Chierchia, Harvard University 15:00-15:30 Coffee break 15:30-16:15 Alternatives in Givenness Marking Michael Wagner, McGill University 16:15-17:00 Mere-ology Elizabeth Coppock & David Beaver, University of Texas at Austin 17:00-18:00 Discussion Alternate Talks: Contrastive Topic: A Reductionist Approach Uli Sauerland, ZAS Prosody and Interpretation of Disjunctive Questions Kathryn Pruitt & Floris Roelofsen, UMass & ILLC, Amsterdam Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue Page Updated: 13-Sep-2010       About LINGUIST    |   Contact Us       While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.