LINGUIST List 21.1967

Sat Apr 24 2010

Calls: Disc Analysis, Pragmatics, Semantics: France

Editor for this issue: Di Wdzenczny <dilinguistlist.org>

        1.    Anamaria Falaus, Workshop on Alternative-Based Semantics
Message 1: Workshop on Alternative-Based Semantics
Date: 23-Apr-2010
From: Anamaria Falaus <anamariafalausgmail.com>
Subject: Workshop on Alternative-Based Semantics
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Full Title: Workshop on Alternative-Based Semantics

Date: 29-Oct-2010 - 30-Oct-2010 Location: Nantes, France Contact Person: Anamaria Falaus Meeting Email: anamariafalausgmail.com Web Site: http://www.alternative-semantics.univ-nantes.fr/

Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis; Pragmatics; Semantics

Call Deadline: 10-Jun-2010

Meeting Description:

The 'Laboratoire de Linguistique de Nantes' (LLING EA 3827) is pleased to invite abstracts for submissions to a workshop on alternative-based semantics, to be held at the University of Nantes, France, October 29-30, 2010.

Invited speakers: Gennaro Chierchia (Harvard University) Emmanuel Chemla (Institut Jean Nicod) Paula Menéndez-Benito (University of Goettingen) Maribel Romero (University of Konstanz) Daniel Büring (UCLA) (to be confirmed)

Important dates: Deadline for submission: June 10, 2010 Notification of acceptance: July 31, 2010 Conference dates: October 29-30, 2010

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 accessed by alternative sensitive-operators.

Taken together, these studies raise both theoretical and empirical issues such as the following:

- How are alternative sets generated? What is the role of grammar and context in determining alternative sets? Are they located at the lexical level, as often argued for polarity items or scalar elements? Or rather are they generated on the basis of the structure in which they occur (Katzir 2007)? Do we need both mechanisms, with different kinds of alternatives playing a role in different phenomena?

- What are the kinds of alternatives that are relevant? At what point of the derivation do speakers consider alternatives and decide whether to exploit them for meaning enrichment? What are the principles that govern meaning enrichment that results from consideration of alternatives?

- Can alternatives and alternative-sensitive operators be used to capture and predict cross-linguistic variation, as argued for instance for polarity- sensitive items and indeterminate pronouns in Kratzer & Shimoyama (2002), Chierchia (2006), Alonso-Ovalle & Menéndez-Benito (2009)?

- The attempts in the recent literature to provide a unified account of scalar implicature effects and focus effects (e.g. Fox & Katzir 2009), by making use of alternative-sensitive operators akin to only, raise the issue of further possible extensions. Do the different phenomena that have been treated in terms of alternatives deserve a unified analysis?

Call For Papers

We welcome submissions addressing these issues, both from a theoretical and an experimental perspective. Abstracts are invited for 30 minute talks, followed by 15 minutes of discussion. Abstracts must be anonymous, in .pdf format, and they should not exceed two pages in 12 point font, with margins of 2.5 cm/1 inch on all sides.

Submission page: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/? conf=alternative2010

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