Philosophy 514. Recent and Contemporary Philosophy:
Semantics of Natural Language
Gilbert Harman and Mark Johnston
Mondays 1:30-4:30PM, Fall Semester, 2004-2005
This is the version of the syllabus as of November 30, 2004.
Purposes of the Seminar
1. to survey recent linguistic semantics, including truth-functional semantics, Montague semantics, quantifiers, generalized quantifiers, definite and indefinite descriptions, compositionality,
pragmatics, vagueness, and event semantics;
2. throughout to consider whether and how linguistic semantics might be relevant to issues in
metaphysics and epistemology;
3. in particular, to look at recent discussions of generic sentences, plurals, mass terms, and talk
about kinds.
Provisional Schedule
Part One: General Background
September 13 Introduction.
September 20 Semantics/Pragmatics.
September 27 Quantification, Compositionality, Domain Restriction.
October 4 Modality and Sentential Complements.
October 11 Adjectives, Vagueness, Verbs, Events
October 18 Talk by Fran cois Recanati.
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Part Two: Noun phrases, Generics and Kinds
November 1 Descriptions and Pronouns
November 8 Plurals and Mass Terms
November 15 - December 6 Generics and Kinds
Provisional Reading Assignments
Part One: General Background
September 13 Introduction.
Barbara Abbott “The Formal Approach to Meaning: Formal Semantics and Its Recent Developments,” online at http://www.msu.edu/user/abbottb/formal.htm.
David Lewis, “General Semantics,” in Lewis, Philosophical Papers Volume 1 (Oxford, 1983),
189-232 [in Marx Hall Library: B29.L49 1983].
September 20 Semantics/Pragmatics.
H. P. Grice “Logic and Conversation,” in Grice, Studies in the Ways of Words (Harvard UP,
1989), 1-85 [in Marx Hall Library: B1641.G483S77 1989].
Robert Stalnaker “Assertion,” in Stalnaker, Context and Content (Oxford, 1999) 78-95 [in
Marx Hall Library: B831.5 .S73 1999].
David Lewis “Scorekeeping in a Language Game,” in Lewis, Philosophical Papers Volume 1
233-249 [in Marx Hall Library: B29.L49 1983].
Extra Added after class discussion on September 20.
Frank Jackson “On Assertion and Indicative Conditionals,” Philosophical Review 88 (1979)
565-589.
David Lewis “Probabilities of Conditional and Conditional Probabilities,” reprinted in Lewis,
Philosophical Papers Volume 2.
David Lewis “Probabilities of Conditionals and Conditional Probabilities II,” reprinted in
Lewis, Papers in Philosophical Logic (Cambridge UP, 1998).
September 27 Quantification, Compositionality, Domain Restriction.
Michael Glanzberg “Quantifiers,” available online at http://individual.utoronto.ca/glanz/
handbook.pdf.
David Lewis “Adverbs of Quantification,” in Lewis, Papers in Philosophical Logic (Cambridge UP, 1998) 5-20 [in Marx Hall Library: BC135.L44 1997].
October 4 Modality and Sentential Complements.
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Richard Larson and Gabriel Segal “Clausal Complements and Attitude Reports,” chapter 11
of Knowledge of Meaning: An Introduction to Semantic Theory (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1995).
Angelica Kratzer “The Notional Category of Modality,” e.g., in Portner and Partee, eds.,
Formal Semantics: The Essential Readings (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002).
October 11 Adjectives, Vagueness, Verbs, Events
Chris Kennedy “Towards a Grammar of Vagueness,” available online at http://www.ling.
northwestern.edu/~kennedy/Docs/togramvague-abs.html
Delia Graff “Shifting Sands: An Interest Relative Theory of Vagueness,” Philosophical Topics
(2000), vol. 28(1): 45-81.
Noam Chomsky “Remarks on Nominalization,” In Roderick Jacobs and Peter Rosenbaum,
eds., Readings in English transformational grammar (Waltham, MA: Blaisdell, 1970)
184-221.
Terence Parsons “Underlying Events in the Logical Anslysis of English,” in Lepore and
McLaughlin, eds., Actions and Events: Perspecives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985) 235-67 [in Marx Hall Library: B105.A35D373 1985[.
James Higginbotham “On Events in Linguistic Semantics,” in James Higginbotham, Fabio
Pianesi, and Achille C. Varzi Speaking of Events (Oxford UP, 2000).
October 18 Talk by François Recanati.
François Recanati Literal Meaning (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), text
available online at http://jeanNicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/documents/disk0/00/00/03/26/
ijn_00000326_00/ijn_00000326_00.rtf.
Part Two: Noun Phrases, Generics, and Kinds
November 1 Descriptions and Pronouns
Gareth Evans “Pronouns,” Linguistic Inquiry 11 (1980) 337-362. Reprinted in Evans, Collected Papers (Oxford UP, 1985) 214-48 [Listed in Marx Hall Library: P106.E8425 1985,
but seems to be missing.]
Delia Graff “Descriptions as Predicates,” Philosophical Studies, 102 (2001) 1-42.
November 8 Plurals and Mass Terms
Alex Oliver and Timothy Smiley “Strategies for a Logic of Plurals,” The Philosophical Quarterly 51 (2001) 289-306 [online via Library Web].
Barry Schein “Conjunction Reduction Redux,” online at http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~schein/
crrchap1.pdf.
George Boolos “To Be is to Be a Value of a Variable (or to Be Some Values of Some Variables),” reprinted in Boolos, Logic, Logic, and Logic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998) 54-72 [in Marx Hall Library: BC51.B58 1998].
Thomas McKay Draft of Plurals and Non-Distributed Predication available from his website,
http://philosophy.syr.edu/mckay.html.
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Barry Schein Plurals and Events (MIT Press, 1993).
November 15 Generics and Kinds—Part I
Greg Carlson “A Unified Analysis of the English Bare Plural,” e.g., in Gutiérrez-Rexach, ed.,
Semantics: Critical Concepts in Linguistics, vol. 3.
November 22 Generics and Kinds—Part II
Agelika Kratzer "Stage Level and Individual Level Predicates," in G. Carlson and F.J. Pelletier (eds.): The Generic Book. Chicago (The University of Chicago Press), 1995,
pp. 125-175.
Reread Carlson from last week.
November 29 A. Cohen First three chapters of Think Generic: The Meaning and Use of Generic
Sentences Stanford CSLI, 1999.
December 6 Generics and Kinds—further reading
Richard Larson “Events and Modification in Nominals,” online at <http://semlab5.sbs.sunysb.edu/ rlarson/salt8.pdf>.
Other Useful Reading
Basic Textbooks
Gennaro Chierchia and Sally McConnell-Ginet Meaning and Grammar: An Introduction to Semantics, 2nd edition (MIT Press, 2000).
Irene Heim and Angelika Kratzer Semantics in Generative Grammar (Blackwell, 1998).
Richard Larson and Gabriel Segal Knowledge of Meaning: An Introduction to Semantic Theory
(MIT Press, 1995).
Two Recent General Anthologies
Paul Portner and Barbara H. Partee Formal Semantics: The Essential Readings (Blackwell, 2004).
Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach Semantics: Critical Concepts in Linguistics, 6 volumes (Routledge, 2003).
Collections of new essays
Marga Reimer and Anne Bezuidenhout Descriptions and Beyond (Oxford UP, 2004).
Zoltán Gendler Szabó Semantics vs. Pragmatics (Oxford UP, 2005).
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On-line Resources
Semantic Links http://semanticsarchive.net/links.html
Semantics Archive http://semanticsarchive.net/
Kai Fintel’s Semantics etc Blog http://semantics-online.org/blog/
Miscellaneous
Nathan Salmon “Are General Terms Rigid?” to appear in Linguistics and Philosophy, 27, 2004.
L.K. Schubert and F.J. Pelletier “Problems in the Representation of the Logical Form of Generics,
Plurals and Mass Nouns,” in E. Le Pore, ed., New Directions in Semantics (Academic Press,
1987)
Krifka, M. et al. Introduction to The Generic Book (University of Chicago Press 1995).
Asher N. and M. Morreau “What Some Generics Mean” in The Generic Book.
G. Carlson “Truth Conditions and Generic Sentences,” in The Generic Book.
G. Carlson Reference to Kinds in English, Garland, 1980.
G. Carlson “Generic Terms and Generic Sentences,” Journal of Philosophical Logic, 11, 1982.
A. Cohen “Generics, Frequency Adverbs and Probability,” Linguistics and Philosophy, 22, 1999.
A. Cohen “On The Generic Use of Indefinite Singulars,” Journal of Semantics, 10, 2001.
M. Fara “The Semantics of Habituals,” chapter 4 of Dispositions and Their Ascriptions, Princeton
PHD Dissertation, 2001 [online at http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/research/fara/
dissertation.pdf
Terrence Parsons A Primer in the Semantics of English, online at http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/
humnet/phil/faculty/tparsons/Ling125/READINGS.htm.
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