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LINGUIST List 23.4110

Wed Oct 03 2012

Confs: Pragmatics, Semantics/Germany

Editor for this issue: Xiyan Wang <xiyanlinguistlist.org>

Date: 02-Oct-2012
From: Yaron McNabb <yaron.mcnabbuni-konstanz.de>
Subject: Much Ado about Much: Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Quantity Expressions
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Much Ado about Much: Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Quantity Expressions

Date: 12-Oct-2012 - 13-Oct-2012
Location: Konstanz, Germany
Contact: Yaron McNabb
Contact Email: < click here to access email >
Meeting URL: http://cms.uni-konstanz.de/ling/quantoren/events/much-ado-about-much-the-semantics-and-pragmatics-of-quantity-expressions/

Linguistic Field(s): Pragmatics; Semantics

Meeting Description:

In this workshop, we set out to discuss the semantics and pragmatics of quantity expressions, such as ‘much’, ‘many’, ‘little’, and their comparative (‘more’, ‘less’) and superlative (‘most’, ‘least’) counterparts. We are interested in theoretical and experimental investigations that address questions such as:

- Should the analysis of the various quantity expressions be stated in a uniform way or does each expression require a distinct analysis?

- What is the basic meaning of ‘positive’ quantity expressions (‘much’, ‘many’, ‘little’, ‘few’) and how do they relate to each other?

- Is the meaning of the comparative and superlative expressions derived from their ‘positive’ counterparts?

- How can we derive the differences in implications and inferences that the various expressions carry?

- What is the source of ‘epistemic effects’ and ‘ignorance references’ in some quantity expressions, especially in superlative quantifiers—is it semantic (lexical) or pragmatic?

Friday, 12 October (Room Y 310)

9:00-9:30
Gathering, coffee and opening remarks

9:30-11:00
Bernhard Schwarz (McGill University)
'On calculating ignorance implications with superlative modifiers'

11:00-11:30
Coffee break

11:30-13:00
Clemens Mayr (ZAS Berlin)
'Modified numerals differ sometimes but not always'

13:00-14:00
Lunch

14:00-15:30
Rick Nouwen (Universiteit Utrecht)
'What's the worst that can happen?'

15:30-16:00
Coffee break

16:00-17:30
Stephanie Solt (Universiteit van Amsterdam/ZAS Berlin)
'Observations on much as an NPI'

17:30-19:30
Preprandial break

19:30
Dinner

Saturday, 13 October (Room Y 132)

9:00-9:15
Coffee

9:15-10:45
Alexis Wellwood (University of Maryland, College Park)
'A matter of degrees: Composing cross-categorial comparatives'

10:45-11:15
Coffee break

11:15-12:45
Chris Cummins (Universität Bielefeld)
'Using embedded quantifiers'

12:45-13:00
Concluding remarks

13:00
Lunch


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