Semantics 1, WiSe 1718
General information
Course description
Semantics is the study of the (literal) meaning of words and sentences. The meaning of a sentence is usually predictable from the words in the sentence and its syntactic structure. Yet, this relationship between form and meaning is not a simple one-to-one mapping. Instead, it is rich in ambiguities, pleonastic marking and elements without any identifiable meaning contribution. We will work on an account that is founded on classical tools of semantic research but still directly addresses these empirical challenges. After the class, the participants will be able to identify - and partly analyze - interesting semantic phenomena in naturally occurring texts. They will have acquired a basic working knowledge in formal logic, which they will be able to apply in the description of meaning
Time and place
- Tuesday 08:15-9.45
- Starting: 17.10.2017
- Room: IG 3.201 (IG-Farben-Haus)
Modules
- Lehramt Englisch (L2/5, L3): FW2
- BA English Studies: 3.4(1)
- BA Empirische Sprachwissenschaft: K 6.1, En 4.1, DH 6.1
Contact
Manfred Sailer
e-mail: sailer@em.uni-frankfurt.de
office: IG 3.214
office hours: contact via e-mail!
www: http://user.uni-frankfurt.de/~sailer/index.htm
Course requirements
L2 and L5
- regular attendance
- pass all assignment sheets
- Modulprüfung (optional): 90 min written exem (2 CP)
L3
- regular attendance
- pass all assignment sheets
- Modulprüfung (optional):
- 20 min. oral exam
- not possible: kleine Hausabeit
BA English Studies
- regular attendance
- pass all assignment sheets
- literary scenario
BA Empirische Sprachwissenschaft
K 6.1
- regular attendance
- Modulprüfung (obligatory): 90min. written exam
En 4.2
- regular attendance
- pass all assignment sheets
- literary scenario
DH 6.1
to be added
Course Material
Meeting 2
- Literary scenario: The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fresh_Prince_of_Bel-Air
Towards a formal model
First steps
The following material is an adapted form of material created by student participants of the project e-Learning Resources for Semantics (e-LRS). Involved participants: Lisa, Marthe, Elisabeth, Isabelle.
You can think of building a formal model like being the producer of a film who has to collect everything that should be included in the film.
Here is a very simple story from which we can derive an example model.