June 25, 2004: Uli Sauerland

Time:

4:30pm, June 25, 2004

Place:

Conference room, 3rd floor, Building 10, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo Komaba campus.

Speaker:

Uli Sauerland, University of Connecticut

Title:

Binding in Language: A New Approach

Abstract:

Mainstream work on the semantics of binding has adopted the Tarskian
assumptions in (1) on the basis of an assignment dependent recursive
interpretation function.

(1) a. Assignments are sequences (functions from indices to objects).
    b. Bound elements are indices.

I argue that (1) should be replaced with (2):

(2) a. Assignment are sets of objects.
    b. Bound elements are definite descriptions.

Initial evidence for the proposal comes from phenomena that argue
that traces and pronouns are definite descriptions, in particular
Sauerland 2000 and 2004.  Then I show further evidence from agreement
licensing and restrictions on sloppy interpretations in ellipsis.

References:

Sauerland, Uli (2000). "The content of pronouns: Evidence from
focus." Proceedings of SALT 10.
Sauerland, Uli (2004). "The interpretation of traces." Natural
Lang. Semantics.

June 25, 2004: Uli Sauerland, Binding in Language: A New Approach