 2016 - 2017 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 0627-4001-01 | Advanced Semantics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FACULTY OF HUMANITIES | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
University credit hours: 4.0
Course description
ADVANCED SEMANTICS Fred Landman
Course objectives:
Advanced semantics teaches techniques for developing semantically interpreted grammars – how to associate syntactic structures compositionally with semantic interpretations, and how to use such grammars to study sophisticated semantic phenomena. The course teaches techniques that make the advanced semantic literature accessible.
Topics:
-The role of the principle of compositionality of meaning in semantically interpreted grammars.
-Using the theory of types and its Boolean semantics.
-The operation of lambda abstraction and the uses of lambda conversion.
-Semantic interpretation through type shifting principles.
-The semantics of transitive verbs, scope relations and intensional contexts.
-The Partee triangle of definite, indefinite and quantificational noun phrases.
-Aspects of the semantics of plurality.
Prerequisits: Foundations of Formal Semantics
The course is open for BA-students and MA-students who have taken Foundations of Formal Semantics.
Since the course teaches techniques that make the advanced semantic literature accessible, students interested in semantics are advised to take this course as soon after Foundations of Formal Semantics as they can, since this will enable them to start participating in advanced courses and seminars.
(Note that Advanced Semantics is not in competition with the BA-seminar on semantics, in fact, it is profitable to take both simultaneously.)
Reading material: Lecture Notes Advanced Semantics will be made available in class.
Requirements:
-homework exercises during the semester
-Each student chooses a semantics paper with considerable linguistic and technical
sophistication from a selection of such papers presented and writes a critical reading report.
Course objectives:
Advanced semantics teaches techniques for developing semantically interpreted grammars – how to associate syntactic structures compositionally with semantic interpretations, and how to use such grammars to study sophisticated semantic phenomena. The course teaches techniques that make the advanced semantic literature accessible.
Topics:
-The role of the principle of compositionality of meaning in semantically interpreted grammars.
-Using the theory of types and its Boolean semantics.
-The operation of lambda abstraction and the uses of lambda conversion.
-Semantic interpretation through type shifting principles.
-The semantics of transitive verbs, scope relations and intensional contexts.
-The Partee triangle of definite, indefinite and quantificational noun phrases.
-Aspects of the semantics of plurality.
Prerequisits: Foundations of Formal Semantics
The course is open for BA-students and MA-students who have taken Foundations of Formal Semantics.
Since the course teaches techniques that make the advanced semantic literature accessible, students interested in semantics are advised to take this course as soon after Foundations of Formal Semantics as they can, since this will enable them to start participating in advanced courses and seminars.
(Note that Advanced Semantics is not in competition with the BA-seminar on semantics, in fact, it is profitable to take both simultaneously.)
Reading material: Lecture Notes Advanced Semantics will be made available in class.
Requirements:
-homework exercises during the semester
-Each student chooses a semantics paper with considerable linguistic and technical
sophistication from a selection of such papers presented and writes a critical reading report.