Dynamic Semantics

Course Description

This course will introduce and investigate dynamic semantics. Very roughly, this is an approach to semantics on which meanings are identified with incremental changes to a body of information. This is meant to contrast with, or perhaps generalize, 'static' approaches on which meanings are supplied by referents, concepts, or truth-conditions. A special focus of the course will be on foundational questions about dynamic theories. What makes a theory dynamic, and not static? What kind of evidence could there be for a distinctively dynamic (or static) theory? Though these foundational questions will be our focus, we will keep them grounded through a number of case studies drawn from anaphora, presupposition projection, and epistemic modality.

Syllabus

• Syllabus

Required Readings

• Assertion, Stalnaker
• Scorekeeping in a Language Game, Lewis
• File Change Semantics and the Famliarity Theory of Definiteness, Heim
• A Theory of Discourse and Semantic Representation, Kamp
• Dynamic Predicate Logic, Groenendijk and Stokhof
• E-type Pronouns and Donkey Anaphora, Heim
• Modal Subordination and Pronominal Anaphora, Roberts
• Presuppositions, Stalnaker
• Pragmatic Presuppositions, Stalnaker
• On the Projection Problem for Presuppositions, Heim
• Presupposition Projectin as Anaphora Resolution, van der Sandt
• Epistemic Modals, Yalcin
• Epistemic Modality De Re, Yalcin
• On the Dynamics of Conversation, Rothschild and Yalcin
• Three Notions of Dynamicness in Language, Rothschild and Yalcin
• Do We Need Dynamic Semantics?, Lewis

Background/Optional Readings

• Formal Pragmatics (Ch.2), Kadmon
• Discourse Referents, Karttunen
• Defaults in Update Semantics, Veltman