This course is an introduction to natural language semantics as conceived of in works like Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet (2000) or Heim and Kratzer (1998). We will first take a brief look at the kinds of phenomena that any semantic theory should account for, such as entailment relations ((1)) or ambiguity ((2)):
1a. Lupi has long hair
1b. Lupi has brown eyes
1c. Lupi has long hair and brown eyes
2a. Luisa said that Klaus will pay her bills
2b. It won't be hot for more than two days in Nis
Lupi is my cat. Now, if (1a) and (1b) are true, then it follows that (1c) is also true - that is, the pair of sentences (1a) and (1b) entails (1c). Ambiguous sentences are those that have more than one meaning; we can see this by considering the situations where they can be true. (2a), for example, can be true in a situation where Luisa owes money and Luisa says that Klaus will help. Unfortunately for Luisa, (2a) can also be true in a situation where Klaus will pay the bills of some other relevant woman (e.g., Debbie) instead.
Similarly, (2b) can be true in a situation where, out of ten summer days in Nis, it's hot only on two - it is not the case that it will be hot for more than two days in Nis (wouldn't it be nice of Nis to be this cool!). In addition, it can also be true in a situation where, out of ten summer days in Nis, it's hot on seven, but cool on three - that is, more than two days, i.e., three, are such that it won't be hot for those days (much more likely!).
In order to understand phenomena like these, our theory must tell us what the meaning of a sentence is. We will pursue the idea that the meaning of a sentence is a function of its parts and of how they are put together (Frege's principle of compositionality). After a very brief introduction to set theory, which provides some of the formal tools that we need, we will take the case of sentences like those in (3) and (4) and then go back to some of our initial examples, specially (2b):
(3) Klaus snores
(4) Every man snores
Required readings: Although no previous knowledge of semantics is required, I will assume that you have read chapter 1 of the following book before the class (or any other introduction to set theory):
Partee, Barbara, Alice ter Meulen and Robert Wall (1987) Mathematical Methods in Linguistics, Kluwer (basic set theory can be found in Chapter 1, but )
Good Textbooks:
Chierchia, Gennaro and Sally McConnell-Ginet (2000) Meaning and Grammar, MIT Press (Chapters 1, 2 and 3)
Heim, Irene and Angelika Kratzer (1998) Semantics in Generative Grammar, Blackwell (Chapters 1, 2, 6, 7)
Web-material: I will post some material on my site around July. In the meantime, detailed discussion of some of the issues we will deal with can also be found at the following sites:
Daniel Büring's Semantics I
Pauline Jacobson's Formal Semantics
Paul Portner's General Semantics
General discussion of semantics, on the web:
R. Beard on colorless green ideas
Bill Ladusaw on the semantics enterprise