1 LING 610: Semantics in Generative Grammar Course Info Instructor Angelika Kratzer Time Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 10:10 to 11:00 Place Office Hours Tuesday & Thursday from 1:00 to 2:00 Friday from 11:00 to 12:00 Website http://courses.umass.edu/ling610f/ E-Mail [email protected] I use E-Mail only for organizational and bureaucratic matters. Please come and talk to me about any issue that has to do with the content of the class. Textbooks Irene Heim & Angelika Kratzer (1998): Semantics in Generative Grammar. Oxford (Blackwell Publishers). Barbara Partee, Alice ter Meulen, Robert Wall (1993): Mathematical Methods in Linguistics. Dordrecht (Kluwer/Springer). Prerequisites This class is part of our doctoral curriculum in linguistics and is designed for graduate students who are taking Ling 601 at the same time. Kyle Johnson and I will teach our graduate 1st year classes together. Requirements Lots of readings. Many (partly) individualized assignments and mini-projects. Questions. Please hand in typed hard copies of your homeworks and project reports. Goal I want to get you to a point where you know enough semantics to start doing original research in ‘pure’ semantics, the syntax/semantics or syntax/phonology interface, or in semantic acquisition or processing.2 Organization of the course Class time will be used for lectures and discussion on linguistic topics. I will solicit information about each student’s linguistic and formal background in the first session and students will receive individualized plans for acquiring the necessary tools in set theory and logic, depending on their background. There will be no lectures on logic or set theory. Students will work on this material on their own or in groups with like-minded spirits. Students are encouraged to use office hours for individual or group tutorials. Schedule, readings, topics The schedule will be adjusted as we go along. Please consult the website for weekly updates, readings and homeworks.3 Questionnaire 1. Linguistic background. Please describe your background in relevant areas in semantics, syntax, philosophy of language, logic, computational linguistics, processing or acquisition. Which particular topics and projects have you worked on? 2. Languages. Which languages (including non-standard dialects) do you speak or read natively or non-natively? Is there a language other than English or a non-standard dialect of English that you would like to work on? Have you done fieldwork on a language or dialect? Please give detailed answers and mention anything that might be useful for me to know. 3. Formal background Please rate your knowledge in the following areas a. Propositional calculus, syntax and truth-tables Never heard of it     It’s coming out of my ears Textbook? b. Predicate calculus, syntax and model-theoretic interpretation Never heard of it     It’s coming out of my ears Textbook? c. Semantic types Never heard of it     It’s coming out of my ears Textbook? d. The -notation (e.g. the informal notation of Heim & Kratzer) Never heard of it     It’s coming out of my ears Textbook?4 e. The -calculus, syntax and semantics Never heard of it     It’s coming out of my ears Textbook? f. Generalized quantifiers Never heard of it     It’s coming out of my ears Textbook or