Model Theoretic Semantics, Proof Theoretic Semantics, and Semantically Flavored Syntactic Features

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One of the fundamental goals of grammatical research is to explain how form and meaning relate in language. Semantics is the study of meaning. Semantic considerations come into play in at least three ways. First, grammar calculates the meaning of a sentence from the meanings of its component parts, defined typically with reference to truth in a modeled situation. For example, No whale flies is true if and only if the intersection of the sets of whales and things that fly is empty in the modeled situation. Second, the acceptability of a syntactic construction may depend on morpho-syntactic features with a semantic flavor. For example, Under no circumstances would a whale fly is acceptable, whereas Under some circumstances would a whale fly is not, corresponding to the negative vs. non-negative feature of the preposed phrase. Such features play a pervasive and theoretically prominent role in syntax. Third, speakers make various inferences based on semantic knowledge. For example, No whale flies entails No blue whale flies and No whale flies high. It is usually assumed that once a compositional model theoretic semantics is specified for all expressions, its fruits can be freely enjoyed by syntax and inferencing. But especially computational linguists and logicians have argued that this is not feasible, and have developed proof theoretical methods. Recent work has furthermore indicated that proof theoretical considerations may not only be computationally advantageous but may also be enlightening from the perspective of "pure" theoretical linguistics. The National Science Foundation will support a workshop, entitled "Model theoretic semantics, proof theoretic semantics, semantically-flavored syntactic features," to be held at the 2005 Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its central goal is to explore how the use of proof theory as a mediator between model theoretic semantics and generative syntax can lead to theoretically interesting insights at the syntax/semantics interface. Starting with a proof theoretic tutorial, it will achieve this goal by bringing together semanticists, syntacticians, and theoretically inclined computational linguists, possibly also psycholinguists, to investigate the relation between these three uses of semantics. The broader impacts of the workshop derive from (i) fostering the interaction between "pure" theoretical linguistics and computational linguistics, (ii) promoting international collaboration, (iii) being freely accessible to the large numbers of graduate and undergraduate students attending the Institute, and (iv) serving as a basis for seminars by Dr. Anna Szabolcsi at New York University and Dr. Edward Stabler at UCLA. Journal publications and a website dedicated to the workshop will help dissemination of the results inside and outside academia.