Situations, Information, and Semantic Content (16-18 December, 2016)
Idea and Motivation
The semantic content of natural language is multiply situated: Whether an utterance receives one interpretation or another depends on the discourse situation (in which the utterance takes place), on the target situation (which is described by the utterance), and on the interpreting agents' informational situation (which also contains the agents' background knowledge). Over the past decades, work on extra-linguistic context-dependence has focused on discourse situations and target situations, and has paid less attention to the dependence of interpretation on the agents' informational situation. However, this kind of information-dependence plays a crucial role in the explanation of a number of semantic phenomena, including the behavior of epistemic/deontic modals and propositional attitude-sentences. Recent research in situated cognition has suggested an even more general scope of semantic information-dependence. The latter assumes that cognition (and therefore, all linguistic understanding) is fundamentally embedded in the situational context of the cognition.
Program
Day 1 (16 December 2016)
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| 09:00 - 09:30 | Registration |
| 09:30 - 09:45 | Opening |
| 09:45 - 10:45 | Friederike Moltmann: Modal Objects and their Truthmakers |
| 10:45 - 11:00 | Coffee Break |
| 11:00 - 11:45 | David Boylan: Miners and Modals |
| 11:45 - 12:30 | Ethan Jerzak: Two Ways to Want |
| 12:30 - 14:00 | Lunch Break |
| 14:00 - 15:00 | Floris Roelofsen: Information, Issues, and Live Possibilities |
| 15:00 - 15:45 | Dirk Kindermann: Fragmented Contexts |
| 15:45 - 16:00 | Coffee Break |
| 16:00 - 16:45 | Mark Bowker: Situated Content and the Problem of Underdetermination |
| 16:45 - 17:45 | Ede Zimmermann: Multiple Indices vs. Indirect Senses |
Day 2 (17 Decmber 2016)
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| 09:15 - 10:15 | Roussanka Loukanova: Typed Theory of Situated Information for Syntax-Semantics Interfaces |
| 10:15 - 10:30 | Coffee Break |
| 10:30 - 11:15 | Luke Burke: Monads, Information, and Perspective |
| 11:15 - 12:00 | Gregory Bochner: The Problem of the Essential Index |
| 12:00 - 12:45 | Patrick Allo: Logics as Levels of Abstraction: The Situated and Relational Nature of Information |
| 12:45 - 14:00 | Lunch Break |
| 14:00 - 15:00 | Robin Cooper: Rich Semantic Content Using Record Types |
| 15:00 - 15:30 | Poster Session Lightning Talks: Mihnea Capraru: Sundial Semantics and Embedded Communication Simone Carrus: Literal and Non-Literal Uses of Slurs: The Case of the Denial Milana Kostic: Towards a Probabilistic Account of Epistemic Modality Hannes Rieser: A Process Algebra Account of Speech-Gesture Interaction Insa Lawler, Florian Hahn, and Hannes Rieser: Multi-Modal Context-Dependency Milo Phillips-Brown: I want to, but . . . (poster only) |
| 15:30 - 16:15 | Poster Session & Coffee Break |
| 16:15 - 17:15 | Markus Werning: Evidence for Single-Type Semantics – An Alternative to e/t-based Dual-Type Semantics |
| 17:15 - 18:00 | Kristina Liefke: Rich Situated Propositions: The ‘Right’ Objects for the Content of Propositional Attitudes |
| 19:00 | Workshop Dinner |
Day 3 (18 Decmber 2016)
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| 10:00 - 11:00 | Nikola Kompa: Language and Embodiment |
| 11:00 - 11:15 | Coffee Break |
| 11:15 - 12:00 | Markus Kneer: Truth-Assessment and Retraction of Epistemic Modals: Empirical Data |
| 12:00 - 12:45 | Dietmar Zaefferer: Bridging the Gap Between Language and Action with an Agent-Based Situation Theory |
| 12:45 - 14:00 | Lunch Break |
| 14:00 - 15:00 | Sebastian Löbner: Frames as Informational Holograms - Towards an Integrating Theoretical Model of Syntax, Semantics, Utterance Meaning, and Context in Frame Theory |
Posters
- Mihnea Capraru: Sundial Semantics and Embedded Communication
- Simone Carrus: Literal and Non-Literal Uses of Slurs: The Case of the Denial
- Milana Kostic: Towards a Probabilistic Account of Epistemic Modality
- Insa Lawler, Florian Hahn & Hannes Rieser: Multi-Modal Context-Dependency
- Milo Phillips-Brown: I want to, but ...
- Hannes Rieser: A Process Algebra Account of Speech-Gesture Interaction
Acknowledgement
The workshop is supported by LMU Munich's Institutional Strategy LMUexcellent within the framework of the German Excellence Initiative (via Kristina Liefke's project Rich Situated Natural Language Content) and is hosted by the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (MCMP). The MCMP gratefully acknowledges support from the the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
Photo Credits
Header background: Francis Chan, "Bienalle Sculpture at Night". Some right reserved (desaturated from original). Source: www.piqs.de.