HW3 (due F 2/15 @ 5pm by email or at my office)

Your third homework assignment is now available for download–just click on the link below for a PDF version. It will be due on Friday, February 15, at 5pm.  Since we do not have a class meeting on Friday 2/15, please submit your assignment either via email, or by delivering a hard copy to my office.  (Of course, …

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Reading for Tu 2/12 : Löbner §4.2-4.3 (pgs. 62-73)

I’ve posted a short excerpt from another Semantics textbook (written by Sebastian Löbner) in the “Readings” section of the website.  It discusses how certain semantic relationships between sentences, such as entailment, can be modeled in Propositional Logic.  Please read this excerpt for Tu 2/12. (Note: §4.2 of the reading uses some terms that you won’t …

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Handout on ‘all’, ‘most’, ‘some’, and their scalar implicatures

Here’s a handout entitled “All, most, and some: A case study in scalar implicature”, which summarizes what we saw in today’s class.  The notion “scalar implicature” will remain with us throughout the semester, so it will pay to review this material, and make sure that you understand each step in the reasoning process that underlies scalar implicatures. …

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Reading for Th 2/7: Kearns §2.1-2.2 (pgs. 24-32)

For this Thursday 2/7, please read sections 2.1 and 2.2 (pgs. 24-32) of the Kearns textbook.  The reading describes the language of propositional logic, a precisely-defined formal language that allows us to represent the truth conditions of certain English sentences.  We will spend next week becoming acquainted with the language of propositional logic, and seeing …

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