Undergraduate Course: Formal Semantics for Philosophers (PHIL10137)
Course Outline
| School | School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | Philosophy |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | Formal semantics is a subfield of linguistics and philosophy of language which aims at constructing a formal analysis of meaning. The goal in formal semantics is to develop a theory capable of representing sentence meaning as a function of the meaning of the sentence's constituents and the order in which these are combined. The purpose of this course is to provide an introduction to the mathematical and logical tools standardly utilized in model theoretic truth conditional semantics, but throughout the course, we will focus on topics that have traditionally occupied philosophers of language, namely quantification, reference, and various intensional phenomena (e.g. indexicality, modality, and conditionals). Formal semantics is now an essential part of the philosophy of language but it also impacts research in other philosophical areas such as (formal) epistemology, logic, philosophy of mind, and metaethics. |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Delivery period: 2012/13 Semester 1, Available to all students (SV1)
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Learn enabled: Yes |
Quota: 20 |
| Location |
Activity |
Description |
Weeks |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
| Central | Seminar | | 1-11 | 11:10 - 13:00 | | | | |
| First Class |
Week 1, Monday, 11:10 - 13:00, Zone: Central. Room G.06, Dugald Stewart Building |
| Exam Information |
| Exam Diet |
Paper Name |
Hours:Minutes |
|
|
| Main Exam Diet S2 (April/May) | | 2:00 | | |
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| Delivery period: 2012/13 Semester 1, Part-year visiting students only (VV1)
|
Learn enabled: Yes |
Quota: 6 |
| Location |
Activity |
Description |
Weeks |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
| Central | Seminar | | 1-11 | 11:10 - 13:00 | | | | |
| First Class |
Week 1, Monday, 11:10 - 13:00, Zone: Central. Room G.06, Dugald Stewart Building |
| No Exam Information |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
| To (a) provide students with a background and understanding of the mathematical and logical tools standardly employed in formal semantics, and (b) explicate key concepts in logic and philosophy of language such as recursion, compositionality, syntax, semantics, type theory, lambda abstraction thereby extending the students¿ philosophical knowledge acquired in previous courses. |
Assessment Information
Full Time Students - Bi-weekly (5) take home exercises (60%, 5x12%), class participation (10%), final exam (30%).
Visiting Students (here for only one semester) - Bi-weekly (5) take home exercises (60%, 5x12%), class participation (10%), final essay (30%).
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Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Not entered |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Kai von Fintel and Irene Heim (2007) ¿Intensional Semantics¿ (unpublished ms.)
Irene Heim and Angelika Kratzer (1998) ¿Semantics in Generative Grammar¿, Blackwell Publishing.
Michael Glanzberg (2006) ¿Quantifiers¿ In ¿The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language¿ (ch.31, p.794-822), Ed. Ernest Lepore and Barry Smith, Oxford University Press.
David Kaplan (1989) ¿Demonstratives¿ In ¿Themes From Kaplan¿ Ed. Joseph Almog, John Perry and Howard Wettstein, Oxford University Press.
David Lewis (1980) ¿Index, Context, and Content¿ In ¿Philosophy and Grammar¿ Ed. Stig Kanger, Sven Öhman, D. Reidel Publishing Company.
James McCawley (1993) ¿Everything that Linguists Have Always Wanted to Know about Logic ¿ But Were Ashamed to Ask¿ 2nd edition, The Chicago University Press.
Stephen Neale (1990) ¿Descriptive Pronouns and Donkey Anaphora¿ The Journal of Philosophy, LXXXVII, 3: 113-150.
L.T.F Gamut Logic, Language and Meaning (Vol. I and II) University of Chicago Press, 1990
Partee, ter Meulen, and Wall Mathematical Methods in Linguistics Springer, 1990
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| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Anders Schoubye
Tel:
Email: aschouby@exseed.ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Susan Richards
Tel: (0131 6)51 3733
Email: sue.richards@ed.ac.uk |
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