Modeling experiencers in natural language semantics

Workshop hosted by the 5th Indian School on Logic and its Applications (ISLA 2014)
January 6-17, 2014 (workshop dates: January 13-16)
Tezpur University, Assam, India

Description:

There is a long-standing tradition of using *logical *and, more
specifically, *model-theoretic *tools in the analysis of natural languages.
Building on this tradition, our workshop aims at addressing one specific
issue that has been the topic of discussion lately in the areas of formal
semantics, applied logic, computational linguistics, and philosophy. The
issue at stake is the notion of *experiencer*, across languages and across
linguistic categories. For example, it is commonly assumed that in a
sentence like "Deeti's performance astonished Raj", Raj occupies the role
of the experiencer. One of the open questions currently under debate is
whether this experiencer argument remains present in derived adjectives
such as 'astonishing', as in "Deeti's performance was astonishing". Another
open question is whether derived adjectives like 'astonishing' belong to
the same semantic category as morpho-syntactically simple adjectives like
'nice' or 'great', which are commonly classified under the label of evaluative
adjectives and have elicited a heated debate in semantics and in
philosophy. Yet another question is the role of experiencers in other
linguistic constructions such as, e.g., *evidential markers* (which do not
exist in English but do e.g. In Japanese). In addressing these and other
questions concerning experiencers, our workshop aims at reaching a better
understanding of the nature of argument structure in natural language,
which we take to be a key element in understanding the logical patterns
that linguistic constructions give rise to, and in modeling the logic of
natural language. Our interdisciplinary workshop will provide a platform
for a fruitful exchange between those working in foundational areas in
logic and those who are interested in the applications of logic to natural
languages.

Workshop organizers*:

Berit Gehrke (CNRS / Paris 7)
Isidora Stojanovic (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)