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This course will introduce candidates to the formal study of meaning, staring with questions such as What is meaning. An overarching problem we will meditate on, and try our best to solve, concerns the way in which a meaning of a string of words and sentences are built to mean what they do. Since it is impossible to agree on even the meaning of the word ‘meaning’, linguists have adopted a system from logic (the intersection of Mathematics and Philosophy) that can begin to solve this problem. This logical system is what this course is about. This will ultimately lead us to ponder the relationship between grammar and logic. The students will not only learn the logical methods of conducting formal semantic analyses, but will also be introduced to the philosophical issues that underlie them. The course will, to a large extent, follow the textbook of Heim & Kratzer ("Semantics in Generative Grammar", Blackwell, 1998), although handouts, slides, and additional material will be provided. The assessment will be continuous and will take shape of on-going problem sets and a final exam (MAP). |
