Schedule

The following schedule is subject to change. Do not rely on the printed copy; instead, consult this page. All listed readings are required, and should be completed by the start of class. With rare exceptions, homework assignments will be assigned on Thursdays and due on the following Thursday.

Week Date Topic Reading Assignments
1 Thu Sep 3 Course Overview, Requirements
2 Tue Sep 8 Approaching Meaning: Denotations and Truth, Semantics vs. Pragmatics Kearns Chap. 1
Thu Sep 10 Implicature I: Sentence Meaning vs. Utterance Meaning Levinson 3.0-3.1 (97-118) HW1 out
3 Tue Sep 15 Implicature II: Grice’s Maxims H.P. Grice, “Logic and Conversation”
Thu Sep 17 Implicature III: Grice’s Maxims, Flouting Implicatures HW1 due;
HW2 out
4 Tue Sep 22 Implicature IV: Varieties of Implicature, Conversational vs. Conventional Implicature Levinson 3.2.3 (126-132);
Kearns 11.1.3 (258-260)
Thu Sep 24 Propositional Logic I: Representing Truth Conditions Kearns 2.1-2.2 (25-35) HW2 due;
HW3 out
5 Tue Sep 29 Propositional Logic II: Logical Relations Amongst Sentences Lobner 4.2-4.3 (62-73)
Thu Oct 1 Propositional Logic III: Ambiguity or Implicature? HW3 due;
HW4 out
6 Tue Oct 6 Presupposition I & II: Intro, Diagnostics, Triggers Levinson 4.0-4.2 (167-185)
Thu Oct 8 HW4 due;
HW5 out
7 Tue Oct 13 NO CLASS!!! (BU Monday) 1. Levinson 4.3.2 (191-198) (required)
2. L. Karttunen, “Presup’s of Compound S’s” (169-182) (optional)
Thu Oct 15 Presupposition III: Projection HW5 due;
HW6 out
8 Tue Oct 20 Presupposition IV: Presupposition and Common Ground Levinson 4.3.1 (185-191)
Thu Oct 22 Presupposition V: Filtering Conditions and Common Ground HW6 due
9 Tue Oct 27 Pre-midterm review; Predication I: Predicates and Reference, Predicate Logic
Thu Oct 29 MIDTERM EXAM (in-class)
10 Tue Nov 3 Predication II: Predicates and Arguments, Predicate Logic Kearns 2.3-2.4 (35-47)
Thu Nov 5 Quantification I: Variables, First-Order Predicate Logic E. Bach, excerpt fr. Informal Lectures on
Formal Semantics (6-17)		 HW7 out
11 Tue Nov 10 Quantification II: First-Order Pred. Logic, The Aristotelian Square of Opposition 1. Review Kearns & Bach from Week 10
2. Other Readings??? (TBA)
Thu Nov 12 Quantification III:  The Aristotelian Square, Scope ambiguities HW7 due;
HW8 out
12 Tue Nov 17 Quantification IV: Expressive Power/Limitations of First-Order Predicate Logic Kearns:
4.1-4.2 (67-72)
5.1 (93-94)
Thu Nov 19 Quantification V: Generalized Quantifier Theory Kearns:
4.3-4.5 (73-85),
5.2-5.3 (94-99)		 HW8 due;
HW9 out
13 Tue Nov 24 Quantification VI: Negative Polarity Items and GQ Theory Kearns 4.6 (85-89) HW9 due
Thu Nov 26 NO CLASS!!! (Thanksgiving)
14 Tue Dec 1 Nouns & Verbs I: Aspectual Classes of Verbs D. Dowty, Word Meaning and
Montague Grammar, 2.2 (51-71)		 HW10 out
Thu Dec 3 Nouns & Verbs II: Mass vs. Count Nouns, Plurals Kearns 6.2-6.3 (123-133)
15 Tue Dec 8 Nouns & Verbs III: Distributive vs. Collective Predicates, Plurals, and Universal Quantification Z. Vendler, “Each and Every,
Any and All“		 HW10 due
Thu Dec 10 Pre-final review; Course Wrap-up
16 Wed Dec 16 FINAL EXAM (9-11am)