Course unit details:
Semantics and Pragmatics
| Unit code | LELA62021 |
|---|---|
| Credit rating | 15 |
| Unit level | FHEQ level 7 – master's degree or fourth year of an integrated master's degree |
| Teaching period(s) | Semester 1 |
| Available as a free choice unit? | Yes |
Overview
This is a course unit in the study of meaning. We explore semantics, in the truth-conditional, model-theoretic perspective, in the tradition of work by Richard Montague, and pragmatics, in the spirit of H. Paul Grice.
Phenomena discussed include presuppositions, adjectival modification, relative clauses, quantificational determiners, scope ambiguities, free and bound variables, and implicatures.
The course unit draws on lecture notes, Irene Heim & Angelika Kratzer (1998)’s textbook Semantics in Generative Grammar, and Stephen C. Levinson (1983)’s Pragmatics textbook.
Aims
The course unit provides students with an overview of topics central in semantics and pragmatics, both from an empirical and a theoretical perspective.
Syllabus
- PART I: Introduction
- PART II: Composition Principles
- PART III: Presuppositions
- PART IV: Variables and Binding
- Part V: Quantification
- Part VI: Wrap Up and Outlook
Teaching and learning methods
The lectures include in-class exercises, opportunities for student participations and seminar-style discussion, an interactive platform provided through Blackboard, optional meetings. Lectures will be accompanied by a weekly seminar that combines a mixture of staff-lead and self-organised peer and collaborative learning, with the lecturer in attendance every other week.
Knowledge and understanding
By the end of this course, students will have an understanding of central empirical phenomena in the study of semantics and pragmatics of natural language and of their analysis.
Intellectual skills
By the end of this course, students wills have acquired a set of tools for the compositional analysis of natural language meaning, which can then easily be extend to cover further linguistic phenomena or serve as a backdrop for semantic research in cross-linguistic variation, processing, or language acquisition and change.
Practical skills
By the end of this course, students wills have acquired a set of tools for the compositional analysis of natural language meaning, which can then easily be extend to cover further linguistic phenomena or serve as a backdrop for semantic research in cross-linguistic variation, processing, or language acquisition and change.
Transferable skills and personal qualities
Performing successful self-directed study and learning, executing tasks with appropriate time-management, synthesizing complex issues, overcoming apparent challenges.
Employability skills
- Other
- Students will acquire analytical, argumentation and problem-solving skills that will benefit them regardless of the career they choose to pursue. The tools acquired for the analysis of meaning in natural language can also be applied to natural language processing and automated translation, but will also be beneficial in speech therapy, first and second language teaching, and law, among other fields.
Assessment methods
Weekly exercise sheets - 0%
1 assignment with problem sets 1000 words - 40%
1 assignment with problem sets 2000 words - 60%
Feedback methods
| Feedback method | Formative or summative |
| In-class feedback and discussion of weekly exercise sheets | formative |
| Optional written feedback on weekly exercise sheets | formative |
| Written comments on assignments submitted | summative |
| Written comments on the exam | summative |
| Optional consulation and feedback during office hours | formative or summative |
Recommended reading
- Irene Heim & Angelika Kratzer (1998), Semantics in Generative Grammar (Malden: Blackwell)
- Stephen C. Levinson (1983), Pragmatics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
- Barbara Partee (2011), "Formal Semantics: Origins, Issues, Early Impact," The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication 6: pp. 1-52.
- Manfred Krifka (2011), "Varieties of Semantic Evidence", in Claudia Maienborn, Paul H. Portner and Klaus von Heusinger (eds.), Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning (Berlin: De Gruyter), pp. 242-268.
- Kai von Fintel (2004), "Would you believe it? The king of France is back! Presuppositions and Truth-Value Intuitions," in Marga Reimer and Anne Bezuidenhout (eds.), Description and Beyond (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. 269-296.
- H. Paul Grice (1975), "Logic and Conversation," in Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan (eds.), Studies in Syntax and Semantics: Speech Acts (New York: Academic Press), pp. 183-198
Study hours
| Scheduled activity hours | |
|---|---|
| Lectures | 22 |
| Independent study hours | |
|---|---|
| Independent study | 128 |
Teaching staff
| Staff member | Role |
|---|---|
| Vera Hohaus | Unit coordinator |