Logic in Language and in Conversation 2016 (LogiCon 2016)
Location: Utrecht, Netherlands
Start Date: 19-Sep-2016 – 20-Sep-2016
Contact: Yaron McNabb
Workshop website: http://rose.wp.hum.uu.nl/logic-in-language-and-in-conversation-2016/

Invited Speakers:

Maria Aloni (UvA)
Emmanuel Chemla (ENS)
Luka Crnič (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Susan Rothstein (Bar Ilan University)

Nearly 50 years after Grice’s William James lectures on Logic and Conversation, the meaning and use of “logical” expressions in natural language (quantifiers, connectives, negation, modals) is a livelier topic than ever. A lot of ground has been covered over the past decades, but there are also still many disagreements. Progress lies not only in building on the existing debates, but also in shifting the focus to new and/or neglected logical phenomena in natural language semantics.

Theories of implicature hope to reconcile logical orthodoxy with linguistic reality, but there is emergent understanding that the discrepancy between logical and linguistic meaning is not a uniform phenomenon. There are diachronic effects such as fossilization (Grice 1975, Chierchia et al. 2008, Aloni et al. 2010), interpretation may at some points be mediated by typicality effect (van Tiel 2014) and implicatures generally do not appear to be a totally homogeneous phenomenon (Doran et al. 2009, 2012; Chemla & Bott 2014; Degen 2015; van Tiel et al. 2016). Our current understanding of the interplay between syntax, semantics and pragmatics is now richer than ever.

In this workshop, we hope to bring together new insights on, and directions in, the semantics and pragmatics of logical expressions.

Possible topics include:

– New theoretical or experimental approaches to implicatures, be they scalar implicatures, free choice implicatures or other
– New approaches to the semantics and/or pragmatics of standard logical expressions: quantifiers, connectives, and negation
– New theoretical or experimental approaches to modals and conditionals
– Theoretical and/or experimental studies of scalar items more generally (adjectives, numerals, modified numerals)

The workshop will take place on 19-20 September, 2016, in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and is funded by the ERC-funded project “Restriction and Obviation in Scalar Expressions” (ROSE).

Worksop organizers:

Rick Nouwen, Yaron McNabb, Dominique Blok, and Stavroula Alexandropoulou
Linguistic Subfield: General Linguistics; Linguistic Theories; Neurolinguistics; Pragmatics; Semantics

http://linguistlist.org/callconf/browse-conf-action.cfm?ConfID=244196

Call for Papers:

Abstracts are invited for 30 minute-long talks and/or posters. Please indicate whether you’d like your abstract to be considered as a talk, poster, or both. Abstracts, including references and data, should be limited to three single-spaced pages (A4 or US Letter) with 2.5cm (1-inch) margins and a minimum font size of 12pt. One person can submit at most one abstract as sole author and one abstract as co-author (or two co-authored abstracts). Abstracts in PDF format should be submitted through EasyChair by June 1 at the following URL: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=logicon2016

Abstract deadline: June 1, 2016  June. 8, 2016
Notification: July 1, 2016
Conference: September 19-20, 2016

Any questions about the workshop can be directed to Yaron McNabb at y.mcnabb@uu.nl