Event Timeslots (1)
Wednesday
-
Compositionality is a key concept in linguistics, the philosophy of mind and language, and throughout the cognitive sciences. Understanding how it works is a central element of syntactic and semantic analysis, and a challenge for models of cognition. In this seminar, we will read papers on the state of the art in all aspects of the subject from every relevant field. They reveal the connections in different lines of research, and highlight its most challenging problems and opportunities. The force and justification of compositionality have long been contentious. First proposed by Frege as the notion that the meaning of an expression is syntax-dependently determined by the meaning of its parts, it has since been deployed as a constraint on the relation between theories of syntax and semantics, as a means of analysis, and, more recently, as underlying the structures of representational systems such as mental concepts, computer programs and neural architectures. This seminar explores these and many other dimensions of one of the most exciting fields in the study of language and cognition.
Aside from active participation, participants will be expected to give a presentation in English. Assistance regarding the English language will be provided.