Semantics Tea Reading Group

The Semantics Tea Reading Group is a forum hosted by the research group 'NPs in intensional contexts', in which we discuss recent and classic papers on topics pertaining to natural language semantics and its interfaces.

We are currently planning a series of summer meetings, some of which will be "virtual", in the sense that the discussion will take place by skype or by email. If you are interested in joining us, even sporadically for some of the papers, please contact Magdalena Kaufmann (previously Schwager) at magdalena.kaufmann@gwdg.de and we will keep you up to date with our plans. We are also open to suggestions for additional papers, provided they fit with the topic under discussion.

Current Topic: Modals and Mood

Planned Readings:


  • Hacquard, V. (to appear). 'Modality', in C. Maierborn, K. von Heusiger and P. Portner (eds.) Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Werner, T. (2011). 'Modal Entailments', Journal of Semantics, current issue available on-line.
  • Villalta, E. (2008). 'Mood and gradability: an investigation of the subjunctive mood in Spanish', Linguistics and Philosophy 31:467-522.





Semantics Tea Colloquia Series

Semantics Tea started out in 2008/2009 as a weekly meeting dedicated to joint study of recent literature in semantics and its interfaces to syntax and pragmatics, as well as presentations of own work or guest talks addressing these areas of linguistics.

For the winter semester 2009/2010, it was decided to split Semantics Tea into two slots:


  • a slot for invited talks and internal presentations (Semantics Tea colloquia series): Monday, 16-18, Seminarraum, Sprachwissenschaftliches Seminar
  • a slot for joint reading and very workshop-like internal presentations (Semantics Tea reading group): Wednesday, 10-12, room: Universitätsverwaltung HDW 1.122. External link: Semantics Tea Reading Group 2009/2010


The Monday slot is meant as a general platform to invite people who are of interest to the Göttingen semantics crowd and their fellow-travelers in neighboring fields.

Since the summer semester 2010, only the Monday slot is kept.


Semantics Tea Colloquia Series 2010/2011

Thursday, 14 July 2011
Malte Willer (University of Chicago)
Nonmonotonic Thoughts on Contrary-to-duty Oughts
14.00-16.00, Seminarraum (0.108) am Sprachwissenschaftliches Seminar

Monday, 4 July 2011
Ilaria Frana (University of Goettingen) and Kyle Rawlins (Johns Hopkins)
Unconditional Concealed Questions and the nature of Heim's ambiguity
16.00-18.00, Waldweg 26, Altbau ERZ 156

Monday, 2 May 2011
Sanae Tamura (Kyoto University)
Tense and Epistemic Perspectives in Japanese
16.00-18.00, Waldweg 26, Altbau ERZ 156

Monday, 21 February 2011
Keir Moulton (McGill University)
CPs don't saturate. Deriving the distribution of clausal complements
16.00-18.00, Seminarraum am Sprachwissenschaftliches Seminar

Tuesday, December 14 2010 (co-organized with the English department)
Thomas Graf (UCLA)
Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics: Where do we find Optimality?
16.00-18.00, Besprechungszimmer Linguistik, Englisches Seminar

Monday, 13 December 2010
Fabrizio Cariani (Northwestern University)
Ought and Resolution Semantics
16.00-18.00, Seminarraum am Sprachwissenschaftliches Seminar


Semantics Tea Colloquia Series 2009/2010

Monday June 14 2010
Brady Clark (Northwestern University)
Scavenging, the stag hunt, and the origin of symbolic communication
16.00-18.00, Heinrich Düker Weg, 16.00-18.00

Monday, 31 May 2010
Wolfgang Sternefeld (University of Tübingen)
Referential Indefinites in situ
16-18, Sprachwissenschaftliches Seminar

Monday, 17 May 2010
Paul Egré (Institut Jean-Nicod, Paris)
If-clauses and probability operators
16-18, Sprachwissenschaftliches Seminar

Thursday, 18 February 2010
Yuki Takubo (Kyoto University)
An Overt Marker for Individual Sublimination in Japanese (abstract)
16:00 - 18:00 Seminarraum am Sprachwissenschaftlichen Seminar

Friday, 5 February 2010
Sigrid Beck (University of Tübingen)
Ambiguous 'Than'-Clauses?
10:00 - 12:00 Seminarraum am Sprachwissenschaftlichen Seminar

Monday, 25 January 2010
Daniel Büring (UCLA)
Representation and Interpretation of Givenness and Focusing (abstract)
16:00 - 18:00 Seminarraum am Sprachwissenschaftlichen Seminar

Monday, 18 January 2010
Mailin Antomo (Universität Göttingen)
Anaphoric adverbials - A discourse analysis of asserted and presupposed adverbial clauses (abstract)
16:00 - 18:00 Seminarraum am Sprachwissenschaftlichen Seminar

Monday, 7 December 2009
Hans Kamp (Universität Stuttgart/UT Austin)
On Donnellan's referential/attributive distinction from a communication-theoretic point of view
16:00 - 18:00 Seminarraum am Sprachwissenschaftlichen Seminar

Monday, 9 November 2009
Arnim von Stechow (Universität Tübingen)
The interpretation of subordinate tense: the SOT-parameter (revised handout opens in new window)
16:00 - 18:00 Seminarraum am Sprachwissenschaftlichen Seminar
preparatory reading: PDF (external)


Semantics Tea Colloquia Series 2008/2009

Wednesday, Juli 1, 2009
Julie Hunter (University of Austin, Texas)
Indexicals and Demonstratives
12:00-14:00 Übungsraum am Sprachwissenschaftlichen Seminar

Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Hubert Truckenbrodt (University of Tübingen)
Title: TBA
14:00-16:00 Übungsraum am Sprachwissenschaftlichen Seminar

Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Rick Nouwen (Utrecht University)
How many linguists do you minimally need to solve this puzzle? On numeral modifiers and modals
14:00-16:00 Übungsraum am Sprachwissenschaftlichen Seminar

Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Manfred Kupffer (Universität Frankfurt)
Counterpart Semantics
14:00-16:00 Übungsraum am Sprachwissenschaftlichen Seminar

Wednesday, December 17, 2008
David Beaver (University of Texas at Austin)
Beyond the Logical Form of Action Sentences

Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Stefan Kaufmann (Northwestern University)
On the Temporal Interpretation of Japanese Temporal Clauses
14:00-16:00 Übungsraum am Sprachwissenschaftlichen Seminar

Wednesday, 26 November 2008
Manfred Krifka (ZAS, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Das Zählen ephemerer Entitäten
12:00-14:00 Übungsraum am Sprachwissenschaftlichen Seminar


Workshops

June 5-7, 2009: Frequently Asked Concealed Questions (FACQs)