[PLing] Talk by Jan Köpping (June 21)

[Viola Schmitt]

Dear all,

this Friday, Jan Köpping (Goethe Universität Frankfurt) will give a talk 
with the title `A single definite article: how to trivialize the 
uniqueness condition' (see below for the abstract).

Time: Friday, June 21, 4.30 pm
Place: Department of linguistics, Sensengasse 3a, Seminarraum 2

Everyone is cordially invited.

Martin Prinzhorn, Viola Schmitt






A single definite article: how to trivialize the uniqueness condition
Definite descriptions can be used in a multitude of ways: they can be 
used deictically and anaphorically, and they have de re as well as de 
dicto interpretations, etc. Some properties go hand in hand with several 
but not all of these uses, especially the infamous 'uniqueness 
condition' that seems to be present in 'presuppositional' but absent in 
anaphoric uses of the definite article. In this talk, I want to show 
what it needs to transform Irene Heim's File Change Semantics -- a 
system designed to account for anaphoric uses -- into a framework that 
captures definite descriptions in such a way that uniqueness-effects 
only arise when they should without postulating an ambiguity of the 
definite article.