Topics in Semantics and Pragmatics
Basic Information
Dates
Description
The course acts as an introduction to work on foundational issues of meaning, communication and interpretation. The topics we will study include: the relation between meaning and intentions; the effect and role of context in determining what is meant; the relation between meaning and speaker’s commitments; the distinction between, on the one hand, what is said and, on the other, what is meant or conveyed or communicated without being said (in the relevant sense): this will lead us to the study of implications, presuppositions and expressive meaning.
Methodology
There will be a reading assigned to each session. For each of the readings the teacher will provide in advance a list of “reading questions” that should help the students understand the reading and focus on its most relevant parts. In class, we will discuss those reading questions and the teacher will typically also present and discuss some additional material. In each of the sessions, one of the students will do a short presentation of one particular issue within the topic discussed in that session.
Structure of the course, contents and primary readings:
October 7: Introduction.
October 14, 21: Meaning and intentions
Grice, H. P. (1957) “Meaning”, Philosophical Review, 66, 377-88.
Gluer, Kathrin. & Peter Pagin (2003) “Meaning Theory and Autistic Speakers”. Mind and Language. 18(1): 23-51.
October 28: Saying and implicating
Grice, P., (1975) “Logic and conversation” (in Grice, P.: 1989, Studies in the Way of Words, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)
November 4: Assertion
Stalnaker, R. (1978). “Assertion”. In P. Cole (Ed.) Syntax and semantics (Vol. 9, pp. 315–332). New York: Academic Press. Also in R. Stalnaker, Context and content. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999, pp. 78–95.
November 11, 18: Lying vs. Untruthfully Implicating
Pepp, Jessica (2019). “Assertion, Lying, and Untruthfully Implicating,” in S. Goldberg, ed., The Oxford Handbook on Assertion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Stokke, A. (2013b). “Lying and asserting”. Journal of Philosophy, 110 (1), 33–60.
November 25: Communication and commitments
Mazzarella, Diana, Robert Reinecke, Ira Noveck, Hugo Mercier (2018), “Saying, presupposing and implicating: How pragmatics modulates commitment”. Journal of Pragmatics, Volume 133, August 2018, Pages 15-27
December 2: Presuppositions
Abbott, Barbara (2008). “Presuppositions and common ground”. Linguistics and Philosophy, 21, 523–538.
December 9: Expressive meaning
Jeshion, Robin (2013). Slurs and Stereotypes. Analytic Philosophy 54 (3):314-329.
Evaluation
Class participation (10%), class presentation (10%), two or three short papers or problem sets that will be related to the reading questions (80%).
Bibliography
Abbott, Barbara (2008). Presuppositions and common ground. Linguistics and Philosophy, 21, 523–538.
Hom, Christopher, (2010), “Pejoratives”, Philosophy Compass. Volume 5, Issue 2, 164–185
von Fintel, Kai: (2008). “What is presupposition accommodation, again?” Philosophical Perspectives 22 (1):137-170
García-Carpintero, M. (2018). On the Nature of Presupposition: A Normative Speech Act Account. Erkenntnis
Gauker, C. (2008). Against accommodation. Philosophical perspectives, 22, 171–205.
Gluer, Kathrin. & Peter Pagin (2003) “Meaning Theory and Autistic Speakers”. Mind and Language. 18(1): 23-51.
Grice, H. P. (1957) “Meaning”, Philosophical Review, 66, 377-88 (also in Grice (1989))
Grice, H. P. (1969) “Utterer’s meaning and intentions”, (in Grice (1989))
Grice, P., (1975) “Logic and conversation” (in Grice, P (1989))
Grice, P., (1978) "Further notes on Logic and Conversation" (in Grice, P. (1989))
Grice, P. (1989) Studies in the Way of Words, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Geurts, B. (2019). “Communication as commitment sharing: speech acts, implicatures, common ground”. Theoretical Linguistics, 45(1-2), pp. 1-30.
Jeshion, Robin (2013). “Slurs and stereotypes”. Analytic Philosophy, 54(3): 314–329
Mazzarella, Diana, Robert Reinecke, Ira Noveck, Hugo Mercier (2018), “Saying, presupposing and implicating: How pragmatics modulates commitment”. Journal of Pragmatics, Volume 133, August 2018, Pages 15-27
Pagin, Peter. 2014. Assertion. Stanford Enciclopedia of Philosophy.
Pepp, Jessica (2019). “Assertion, Lying, and Untruthfully Implicating,” in S. Goldberg, ed., The Oxford Handbook on Assertion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Potts, Christopher, (2007) “The expressive dimension”. 2007. Theoretical Linguistics 33(2): 165–197.
Reboul, Anne (2006), HOT Theories of Meaning: The Link Between Language and Theory of Mind. Mind & Language, Vol. 21 No. 5 November 2006, pp. 587–596.
Sennet, A. (2018). Presupposition triggering and disambiguation. In G. Preyer, Beyond Semantics and Pragmatics. Oxford: OUP.
Simons, Mandy. (2003). Presupposition and accommodation: Understanding the stalnakerian picture. Philosophical Studies, 112, 251–278.
Simons, M., Tonhauser, J., Beaver, D., & Roberts, C. (2011). What projects and why. Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT), 22, 309–327.
Soames, Scott (1989) “Presupposition”, In D. Gabbay and F. Guenthner (eds), Handbook of Philosophical Logic IV, 553-616.
Stalnaker, R. (1978). “Assertion”. In P. Cole (Ed.) Syntax and semantics (Vol. 9, pp. 315–332). New York: Academic Press. Also in R. Stalnaker, Context and content. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999, pp. 78–95.
Stalnaker, R. (2002). Common ground. Linguistics and Philosophy, 25, 701–721.
Stokke, A. (2013b). “Lying and asserting”. Journal of Philosophy, 110(1), 33–60.
Williamson, T. (1996/2000). Knowing and Asserting. Philosophical Review 105, pp. 489–523; included with some revisions as chapter 11 of his Knowledge and its limits. New York: Oxford UP, 2000.
Other considerations
Note regarding COVID-19:
In the (hopefully unlikely) event that the COVID-19 pandemic were to make face-to-face teaching unadvisable, the course would be given online (using an application such as Microsoft Teams or Zoom). Students would be expected to connect during the indicated hours for the entire course and to actively participate during the discussion periods. The essay submission and evaluation processes would stay the same.
Equality Policy
In agreement with the University of Barcelona Equality Policy (Pla d’Igualtat), this course will incorporate a so called gender perspective that will include, among others, the following aspects: regarding class dynamics: we will try to ensure that everyone feels equally welcomed and encouraged to contribute to class discussions; regarding the content of the course and the readings that will be the basis for the different sessions of the course: we will use a bibliography that takes appropriately into account the significant contributions made by women to the topics that we will discuss and study; Regarding the grading of the course: we will try to be aware that unconscious gender biases might interfere in the process of grading problem sets, papers, and other aspects of the course, and will try to apply mechanisms to prevent them.