Experimental semantics - theoretical module

elective seminars
general courses

(in Polish) Znajomość filozofii języka i lingwistyki na poziomie elementarnym

The course introduces to the study of linguistic meaning utilizing (a variety of) empirical methods, conducted in the field of philosophy (philosophy of language) and linguistics. The theoretical module will involve elements of lecture and text-reading, and will be devoted to an analysis of selected issues illustrating the significant contribution of experimental methods to the semantic research.

The course introduces to the study of linguistic meaning utilizing (a variety of) empirical methods, conducted in the field of philosophy (philosophy of language) and linguistics. The theoretical module will include a general introduction to experimental semantics (its subject matters, methods, challenges) and detailed discussions of selected case studies of that discipline. The course will be primarily concerned with those issues in semantics which illustrate a significant contribution of experimental methods to the development of semantic research. These issues include, but are not limited to: the nature of reference and proper names, descriptions and presupposition, conditionals, quantification, and anaphora. We will focus on the questionnaire and the psycholinguistic methods. A special emphasis will be put on those issues which bear philosophical relevance.

Literature (selected positions):

Machery, E., Sytsma, J., & Deutsch, M. (2015). “Speaker’s reference and cross-cultural semantics”. In A. Bianchi (ed.), On Reference, 62–76. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Devitt, M., Porot, N. (2018). “The reference of proper names: testing usage and intuitions”. Cognitive Science 42, 1552–1585.

Abrusán, M., & Szendrői, K. (2013). “Experimenting with the king of France — topics, verifiability and definite descriptions”. Semantics and Pragmatics 6(10), 1–43.

Schwarz, F. (2016). “False but slow: Rejecting statements with non-referring definites”. Journal of Semantics 33(1), 177-214.

Gordon, P. C., Grosz, B. J., Gilliom, L.A., (1993), “Pronouns, names, and the centering of attention in discourse”, Cognitive Science 17, 311-347.

Rostworowski, W., Kuś, K., Maćkiewicz, B., (2022). “Against Intentionalism: experimental study on demonstrative reference”, Linguistics and Philosophy 45, 1027-1061.

Oberauer, K., Weidenfeld, A., & K. Fischer (2007). “What makes us believe a conditional? The roles of covariation and causality”, Thinking & Reasoning, 13:4, 340-369.

Krzyżanowska, K., Collins, P., U. Hahn (2017). “Between a conditional’s antecedent and its consequent: discourse coherence vs. probabilistic relevance”. Cognition 164, 199–205.

Douven, I., Elqayam, S., & Mirabile, P. (2022). “Inference strength predicts the probability of conditionals better than conditional probability does”. Journal of Memory and Language, 123(2). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2021.104302

Geurts, B., Katsos, N., Cummins, Ch., Moons, J. and Noordman, L. (2010). “Scalar quantifiers: logic, acquisition, and processing”. Language and Cognitive Processes, 25: 130-148.

Chemla, E. & Bott, L. (2013). “Processing presuppositions: dynamic semantics vs pragmatic enrichment”. Language and Cognitive Processes 38(3): 241–260.

Knowledge:

Students

- know the basic concepts in semantics conceived as a discipline of linguistics, psycholinguistics and philosophy of language

- are familiar with the current state of knowledge in the field of experimental semantics and its selected issues,

- are aware of the challenges and the limitations of the experimental methods in semantics.

Scientific skills:

Students

- are able to plan and implement an experimental study on a certain semantic issue, in cooperation with other students,

- know how to apply selected experimental methods to test semantic hypotheses,

- know how to analyze the results of an experimental study.

Social skills:

Students

- are able to prepare a work plan for the team, as well as for the individuals involved in specific tasks,

- understand their role in a team, can communicate with others, express their own position and understand the positions of others,

- can evaluate their own and others work and provide feedback.

Requirements:

- presentation of a selected experiment and its theoretical background, based on the proposed literature

- a commentary to one of the papers from the list

- preparing an own project of experimental study, individually or in small groups

Number of absences: 2