The 19th annual meeting of Sinn und Bedeutung will be held at the Georg August University at Göttingen from September 15 to 17, 2014.
From 1871 to 1873, Göttingen was the home of Gottlob Frege who first formulated the hypothesis that the content of natural language sentences is computed in a compositional manner. Proving the success of his vision, Sinn und Bedeutung 19 offers a platform for current research in natural language semantics, pragmatics, the syntax-semantics interface, psycholinguistic studies of meaning, and the philosophy of language.
The invited speakers are
Ashwini Deo (Yale)
Sabine Iatridou (MIT)
Sophia Malamud (Brandeis)
T. Ede Zimmermann (Frankfurt/M.)
Special session: Formal Theories of Meaning Change
Over the past years, there has been a rising interest in the connection between formal theories of semantics/pragmatics and language change. Certain phenomena such as the emergence of functional morphemes and words can be best investigated and understood in terms of semantic theories that allow for an explicit treatment of semantic composition. Another trend in meaning change is the change from situation-dependent meanings to situation-independent meanings, for instance when verbs of possession turn into future markers. Again, this trend can be put to test concisely in intensional semantics, where possible worlds are a visible parameter. The special session aims to intensify exchange between synchronic and diachronic investigations of meaning, and to explore new and fruitful connections.
The deadline for submitting abstracts is April 15, 2014. Please view the call for papers for details.
