24.973 Advanced Semantics

(Course Web Page Spring 2001)

Place & Time: Room 56-180, Tuesday & Thursday 10 — 11:30

Instructor: Kai von Fintel, fintel@mit.edu, E39-233, 3-3228

E-Mail List: 24.973-students@mit.edu

Course Description

Lecture Notes (p. 1 - 124, posted on 4/25/01)

Homework Assignments

• Homework #1 (assigned on 2/6, due on 2/13)
• Do Exercise 2 on p. 11 and Exercise 4 on p. 12 of the lecture notes
• Read Ch. 12 of Heim & Kratzer
• Homework #2 (assigned on 2/13, due on 2/22 -- NB: No class on 2/20)
• Do Exercises 8 and 9 on p. 31 of the lecture notes
• Homework #3 (assigned on 3/1, due on 3/6)
• Do Exercises 10 (p. 37) and 12 (p.42) of the lecture notes
• Consider

  John falsely believes that Mary is a painter.

  a. Paraphrase the intuitive meaning of this sentence.
  b. Give an LF for the sentence.
  c. Specify a lexical entry for falsely.
  d. Compute the truth-conditions for the sentence.

• Homework #4 (assigned on 3/13, due on 3/20)
  • Do Exercises 17 (p. 50) and 18 (p.51) of the lecture notes
• Homework #5 (assigned on 3/20, due on 4/3)
  • Do Exercise 22 on p. 67 of the lecture notes
• Homework #6 (assigned on 4/3, due on 4/12)
  • Do Exercise 23 on pp. 78f of the lecture notes
• Homework #7 (assigned on 4/25, due on 5/1)
  • Do Exercises 28 and 29 on pp. 121-122 of the lecture notes

Relevant Links

• My list of web resources for semantics/pragmatics
• Robert Binnick's Bibliography of Tense and Aspect
• Richard Larson's Online Papers
  • "Olga is a Beautiful Dancer" (LSA 95)
  • "Semantics of Adjectival Modification" (LOT Summer School 1999)