Advanced Semantics
Current work on semantics and questions of logic and meaning for syntactic systems in generative grammar.
Spring 2009
This course is the second of the three parts of our graduate introduction to semantics. The others are _24.970 Introduction to Semantics_ and _24.954 Pragmatics in Linguistic Theory_. Like the other courses, this one is not meant as an overview of the field and its current developments. Our aim is to help you to develop the ability for semantic analysis, and we think that exploring a few topics in detail together with hands-on practical work is more effective than offering a bird's-eye view of everything. Once you have gained some experience in doing semantic analysis, reading around in the many recent handbooks and in current issues of major journals and attending our seminars and colloquia will give you all you need to prosper. Because we want to focus, we need to make difficult choices as to which topics to cover. This year, we will focus on topics having to do with modality, conditionals, tense, and aspect.
Readings
- Interspersed between these chapters were papers, presentations, and working papers. The readings were covered approximately in the order listed.
- “Beginnings of Intensional Semantics.” Chapter 1 in [Intensional Semantics].
- “Propositional Attitudes.” Chapter 2 in [Intensional Semantics].
- “Modality.” Chapter 3 in [Intensional Semantics].
- Portner, Paul. Modality . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780199292431.
- “Conditionals.” Chapter 4 in [Intensional Semantics].
- Kusumoto, Kiyomi. “Issues in Tense Semantics.” Chapter 1 in “Tense in Embedded Contexts.” PhD diss., University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1999.
- Portner, Paul. “The Progressive in Modal Semantics.” Language 74, no. 4 (December 1998): 760-787.
- “DPs (Determiner Phrases) and Scope in Modal Contexts.” Chapter 7 in [Intensional Semantics].
- “Beyond de re—de dicto : The Third Reading.” Chapter 8 in [Intensional Semantics].
- Keshet, Ezra. “Split Intensionality: A New Scope Theory of De re and De dicto .” Working paper, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, May 2009.
- Required readings will be mostly from lecture notes, textbooks, handbook articles, and similar sources, plus a few original research papers. In terms of the number of pages, this will be relatively little compared to our other graduate courses in linguistics, but don’t be fooled: the material tends to be technical and therefore time-consuming. You will also have to select and read a few additional articles or book chapters on your own to write about in your term paper.
Prerequisites & course information
Prereq: Permission of instructor G (Spring) 3-0-9 units
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Spring 2009
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.