The semantics-pragmatics interface

Lecturer: Uli Sauerland, ZAS Berlin
Room: 1.402
In the 1970s, a sequential view of how semantics and pragmatics interact emerged (Grice, Searle): semantics assigns a logical meaning to a sentence which usage conditions on communication make reference to. Despite its strong intuitive appeal, this view frayed as soon as linguists attempted to formally specify the pragmatic conditions. A conception where “semantic” and “pragmatic” operations are interleaved with each other fares empirically better, but leaves the “pragmatic” conditions without grounding in communication. I primarily present this conundrum, but then espouse a alternate view of pragmatics based on cognitive efficiency following Meyer (2013) and the thought uniqueness idea of Sauerland (2018).
Course material

Mon Aug 5th

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    Sequential and interleaved conceptions

Tue Aug 6th

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    Scalar implicatures 1: Ungrammaticality

Wed Aug 7th

Thu Aug 8th

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    Scalar implicatures 2: Free choice

Fri Aug 9th

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    Scalar implicatures 3: Intermediate implicatures

Mon Aug 12th

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    Implicated presuppositions

Tue Aug 13th

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    Efficiency

Wed Aug 14th

Thu Aug 15th

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    Deriving semantic economy

Fri Aug 16th

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    Conclusion