We will start with how word meanings can be described and then move to how such meanings can be combined to derive sentence meanings in principled ways. For the latter, we need to understand truth conditional semantics which is the foundation of the affirmative, argumentative use of language. Additionally, we will investigate how discourse context and speaker’s intentions can be integrated, i.e move to pragmatics. Notorious fields for semantic investigation are the English tenses, the use of conjunction (“and”) and disjunction (“or”) in natural languages and the use of quantifiers(“all, every, some, none”) and negation (“not”). For these fields we will discuss the respective roles of semantics and pragmatics and we will ask how children acquire such expressions.
To give an example: Why is “or” usually interpreted as “either or” in natural language? What is the basic meaning of “or” – how can this meaning be described? Is there a semantic component? Can it be separated from the pragmatics of “or”? How do children acquire the meaning of “or”? Does the acquisition path show the semantic and the pragmatic component?

For preparation:
Fromkin, Hyams and Rodman (Introduction to Language) – Chapter on Semantics
Chierchia, G. and S. McConnell-Ginet (1990): Meaning and Grammar. An Introduction to Semantics. MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass. Chapter 1.
A full list of basic and interesting articles and possible seminar/presentation material as well as a preliminary course planning will be available on StudIp two weeks before the beginning