Investigating Semantics: Empirical and Philosophical Approaches

ORGANIZATION

Erica Cosentino, Dirk Kindermann, Max Kölbel, Maria Spychalska, Markus
Werning.

Natural language semantics is today a wide-ranging and methodologically diverse discipline. One can distinguish broadly between those who use experimental methods from those who don't. Mostly, semanticists in psychology or neuro-science work experimentally, while philosophers, logicians and linguists work non-experimentally. However, the variety of approaches and methods among both groups is huge. Even within the camp of theoretical semantics there are numerous communities: formal semantics, possible world semantics, discourse representation theory, etc. The same heterogeneity is present in the camp of empirical researchers: psycho- and neuro-linguistics, corpus linguistics, etc. The aim of the workshop is to bring together these different branches which are often working on very related topics. The workshop will not only present the variety of empirical and theoretical approaches to semantics, but also invites explicit discussions of the neurobiological and psychological basis of semantics as well as its methods, and epistemology.

INVITED SPEAKERS
Giosue Baggio (SISSA, Triest)
Derek Ball (U St. Andrews)
Emma Borg (U Reading)
Anna Borghi (U Bologna)
Manfred Krifka (ZAS, Berlin)
Gina Kuperberg (MGH, Tufts U)
Ira Noveck (CNRS, Lyon)
Paul Pietroski (U Maryland)
Michiel van Lambalgen (U Amsterdam)

CONTACT: [email protected].