Das Projekt SIGames am ZAS Berlin sucht eine studentische Hilfskraft (9,5 h/Woche) für die Programmierung kleiner, einfacher Computerspiele als Experimentumgebung. Die Stellenausschreibung finden Sie hier.

XPrag.de member Uli Sauerland from project SSI: The Strength of Scalar Inference: From Numbers to Strong Disjunction and Stephanie Solt from the associated project “Scales” are organizing the workshop "Proportions and Quantities". The workshop is organized as part of the Annual Conference of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS) to be held in Leipzig, Germany, March 4-6, 2015 (DGfS Meeting 2015)

Organizers:
Uli Sauerland, Stephanie Solt (ZAS Berlin)

Invited speaker:
Benjamin Spector (Paris)

Abstract:
Several current debates in syntax, semantics, and pragmatics concern expressions of proportion and quantity: bare numerals like “three women” and just “three”, complex numerals like “one hundred and twenty-two”, modified numerals like “at least three women” and “more than three”, pseudo-partitives “three liters of water”, and proportional quantifiers like “one third of the women”. Some of the controversial questions are the following:

• How does the ontology of quantity and proportion scales capture granularity? (e.g. Fox & Hackl, Ling & Phil. 2006, Krifka, CSLI Publ. 2009; Solt, Lang and Ling Comp.2014)
• What syntactic structures do numerals, modified numerals, (pseudo-)partitives, and quantity adjectives have? (e.g. Takahashi, Nat Lang Sem. 2003; Ionin & Matushansky, J o Sem. 2006; Gagnon, SALT 2013; Solt, J o Sem. 2014)
• When and how do quantity/proportion expressions get both an upper- and lower-bounded interpretation? (e.g. Geurts & Nouwen, Lang. 2007, Cummins et al., Ling & Phil. 2012; Kennedy, Camb UP. 2013; Spector, Lang Ling Comp. 2013; Cohen &Krifka, Ling & Phil. 2014).
• How does cross-linguistic variation in morphosyntax affect the interpretation of quantity and proportion specifications? (e.g. Chierchia, Nat. Lang. Sem. 1998; Herburger, MIT Press 2000; Bale & Khanjian, Ling. Inq. 2014)

This workshops invites contributions on syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of proportion and quantity expressions, either on the four questions mentioned or on other questions relating to the theme of proportion and quantity. We are particularly interested in research that cuts across the syntax-semantics-pragmatics boundaries. Evidence from language variation and/or formal experiments have played some role in these debates, but in both areas rapid progress seems still possible. Therefore, contributions using evidence from language variation and/or formal experiments are especially encouraged to submit.

I’m happy to announce that our Early-career Mentoring Program and our Women Mentoring Program have now been established.

The network meeting will take place at Göttingen University from September, 18th to September, 20th 2014. The program is available here!

The 6th biennial conference on Experimental Pragmatics will take place at the University of Chicago from July 16 to July 18, 2015. Save the date in your calendar!

XPrag.de members Petra Schumacher and Hanna Weiland from project InfoPer: Processing speaker’s meaning: Informativeness and perspective  are organizing the  workshop "Perspective-taking" at the Annual meeting of the DGfS 2015.

The workshop is organized as part of the Annual Conference of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS) to be held in Leipzig, Germany, March 4-6, 2015 (DGfS Meeting 2015)

Organizers:
Stefan Hinterwimmer, Petra B. Schumacher & Hanna Weiland; University of Cologne

Invited speakers:
Barbara Dancygier, University of British Columbia
Dale Barr, University of Glasgow

Pragmatic theories assign an important role to speakers and their intentions and beliefs. The perspective conveyed by a particular utterance impacts the interpretation of speaker meaning and it may even change the truth-values of an utterance (cf. e.g., Travis 1997). Theory of mind, which accounts for the ability to attribute mental states to oneself or others, and the notion of common ground think of perspective in a less restricted way. In language processing, the ability of shared mental states has been investigated with adults, children and in language disorders like Asperger Syndrome. These studies provide a first indication of the impact of perspective. Additionally, there are subtle variations in perspective in different pronominal forms. In this regard, typological research reveals intriguing effects of perspective.
The workshop will focus on the phenomenon of perspective-taking both from a processing and a theoretical view and address the following questions:

• Which aspects of perspective-taking are important for the interlocutors to succeed in daily communication?
• Which linguistic or general cognitive abilities are required to compute perspectival aspects during language processing?
• Are there default strategies that are adopted during processing (cf. e.g., Keysar et al. 2000 on the priority of egocentric perspective under certain conditions)?
• Is perspective-taking a marginal pragmatic phenomenon or a key aspect of human communication?
• How is perspective expressed linguistically (e.g., demonstratives or logophors may convey specific perspective cues)?
• Which distinctions are available (e.g., self-/hearer-/other-directed speech; self/source/pivot; speaker/location/thing as perspectival anchor)?
• How should perspective be represented (i.e. as unarticulated constituents of the sentence or as common ground)?

We are interested in contributions from researchers who work on perspective-taking from a theoretical or empirical stance. We welcome submissions from linguistics, cognitive sciences and philosophy.
References:
Keysar, B., Barr, D. J., Balin, J. A., & Brauner, J. S. 2000. Psychological Science, 11(1), 32-38.
Travis, C. 1997. Pragmatics. In B. Hale & C. Wright (Eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Language (pp. 87 – 106). Oxford: Blackwell.

Abstract submission:
Abstracts are invited for 30-minute talks (20 minutes presentation plus discussion). Abstracts should be anonymous and confined to 1-2 pages in pdf. Please note that accepted talks will have to provide short abstracts of 400 words length at a later point in time.
Please send a pdf-file to hanna.weiland@uni-koeln.de. The subject of the message should specify ‚Perspective Abstract’, and the body of the message should include author name(s), affiliation(s) and contact information (including email address), and the title of the abstract.
The languages of the conference are English and German, and abstracts should be written in the language of presentation. However, we encourage submission of papers in English.

Important dates:
August 20, 2014: Deadline for abstract submission
September 15, 2014: Notification of acceptance
March 4-6, 2015: DGfS Workshop in Leipzig

The schedule for our first XPrag.de meeting in July is online!
Kick-off Meeting (restricted to project members)
Methods workshop open for anyone interested in experimental pragmatics (please register via email)

New open positions have been posted on the Open Positions page!