CFP: Semantic Content Workshop

Invited Speakers:

1. Frank Veltman (University of Amsterdam)

2. TBA

Recent debates about semantic content have called into question traditional accounts and have renewed interest in unorthodox approaches, in particular approaches that operate with semantic contents that do not have absolute truth-values (de se contents, centered propositions, relativized/incomplete propositions etc). These novel approaches to semantic content challenge the simple models of communication and information transfer that have traditionally been assumed. They also raise independently interesting questions about linguistic communication.

The project on “Semantic Content and Conversational Dynamics” (semcon.wordpress.com) invites contributions to an international workshop on topics relevant to these issues. For example, we welcome contributions on any of the following issues (but other relevant issues also welcome):

•  What are semantic contents, what do they need to be, given their job description?

•  What is the job description of semantic contents?

•  Do we need de se or centered contents?

•  How do de se or centered contents figure in conversation or in the transmission of information?

•  Are there reasons to depart from “static” semantics, i.e. from a semantics that (principally) assigns semantic contents to sentences or to sentence-context pairs?

Email your 1000-word abstracts by 31st of May 2014 to [email protected]. Please prepare the abstract for blind review (no identifying information), and include relevant information about yourself only in the accompanying email (name, affiliation). We will notify you of acceptance/rejection of your contribution by July 1st.

There will be space for up to 8 contributed papers.

We are aiming to finance the accommodation of those whose contribution has been accepted.