How do we combine words to build full propositions? How do we account for what people believe, not just what's definitely true? In this week's episode, we talk about type theory: how we can define terms by how they relate to the world and each other, what the difference is between sense and reference, and how we can use possible worlds to work out what people believe.
This is Topic #83!
This week's tag language: Estonian!
Related videos:
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Sheepish Semantics: Lambda Calculus - • How Can One Greek Letter Help Us Unde...
Downward Spiral: Negative Polarity Items - • Why Can't "Any" Go Just Anywhere? NPIs
Last episode:
The Optimal Solution: Constraints on Sounds and Optimality Theory - • What Constraints Are There on Linguis...
Other of our semantics and pragmatics videos:
Topic of Focus: How to Structure Information - • How Do We Signal What's Important Whe...
Building Common Ground: Connecting in Conversation - • How Do We Create a Shared World in Co...
Scoping Out the Truth: Semantic Scope Ambiguities - • Semantic Scope Ambiguity
Our website also has extra content about this week's topic, discussing how kids learn how to rank their constraints, at: www.thelingspace.com/episode-83/
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Sources:
The three main sources for this episode:
Irene Heim & Angelica Kratzer's textbook, Semantics in Generative Grammar
Anders Schoubye's online lecture notes (schoubye.org/teaching/Formal-Semantics/FormalSeman…)
Kai von Fintel's Intensional Semantics online textbook/lecture notes (web.mit.edu/fintel/fintel-heim-intensional.pdf).
Looking forward to next time!
The Ling Space