Sprach- und literaturwissenschaftliche Fakultät - Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft

Sprach- und literaturwissenschaftliche Fakultät | Institut für deutsche Sprache und Linguistik | Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft | Veranstaltungen | Vortrag: Louise McNally (Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona): Multi-level syntax and semantics

Vortrag: Louise McNally (Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona): Multi-level syntax and semantics

  • Wann 12.11.2018 von 15:59 bis 23:59
  • Wo Dorotheenstraße 24, Raum 1.401
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Abstract:
Ladusaw (1985) distinguished between multi-stratal syntactic frameworks -- those with multiple representations using a single theoretical vocabulary -- and multi-level syntactic frameworks -- those with representations using different theoretical vocabularies. Frameworks using only syntactic trees coupled with movement are an example of the former; Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG), with its use of both F-Structure and Constituent-Structure, is an example of the latter. In this talk, which reports on incipient work, I explore the possibility of hooking up a multi-level semantics to a multi-level syntax with characteristics that are, in very general terms, similar to those of LFG. The multi-level semantics described here is distinct in nature from two-dimensional semantics in philosophy of language and multi-dimensional meaning representations in circulation since Potts (2005); it is closer in spirit to the intuition behind the Relevance Theoretic distinction between conceptual and procedural meaning. Its central tenet is that distinct representational languages should be used to model and compose interpretations for non-referential descriptive expressions, on the one hand, and for referential expressions (as I will define them in the talk), on the other. I will close by offering various reasons why I think such a semantics is worth exploring.