SoSe23: Semantics 1

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

Meeting 1

Video

Challenging phenomena at the syntax-semantics interface

Literary scenario

Howl's moving castle:

• Wikipedia entry of the novel by Diana Wynne Jones (1986): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howl%27s_Moving_Castle
• Wikipedia entry of the 2004 movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howl%27s_Moving_Castle_(film)