Course syllabus

 

LINGUIST 724

 

Semantics and Pragmatics

 

Course Information

 

 

Lecturer and convenor:          Professor Yan Huang

                                                Room 429, Arts 1 Building

                                                Ph. 87809; Email yan.huang@auckland.ac.nz

                                                Office hours Monday 11-12

 

Prescribed text:          Huang, Yan (2014) Pragmatics. 2^nd edition, Oxford University Press.

Assessment:               Two 3,000-word essays, each worth 50% of the final grade

                                               

 

Lecture outline/topics and readings:

We’ll concentrate on the pragmatics part.

 

1 The domain of pragmatics

   What is pragmatics? A brief history of pragmatics, Two main schools of thought, Why pragmatics? Basic notions in semantics and pragmatics.

Huang ch 1.

 

2 Conversational implicature (I): classical Gricean theory of conversational implicature

   Co-operative principle and maxims of conversation, relationship between the speaker and the maxims, conversational implicatureO vs conversational implicatureF, GCI vs PCI, properties of conversational implicature.

Huang Secs 2.1.1-2.1.6.

 

3 Conversational implicature (II): neo-Griciean pragmatic theory

   Horn’s typology of conversational implicature, Levinson’s typology, interaction of conversational implicature, current debates, embedded implicature.

Huang Sec2.2.-2.4.

 

4 Conventional implicature

     What is conventional implicature? Properties of conventional implicature, conventional vs conversational implicature.

Huang sec 2.5.

 

5 Presupposition (I): the phenomenon

     What is presupposition? Properties of presupposition: (i) constancy under negation, (ii) defeasibility, projection problem

Huang sec 3.1-3.2

 

6 Presupposition (II): the analyses

     Filter-satisfaction analysis, cancellation analysis, accommodation analysis.

Huang sec 3.3.

 

7 Speech acts (I)

Performative vs. constative, explicit vs. implicit performative, syntactic and semantic properties of explicit performative, Austin’s felicity conditions.

Huang 4.1 - 4.4.

 

8 Speech acts (II)

Locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary speech acts, Searle’s felicity conditions, typology of speech acts, indirect speech acts, politeness, speech acts and culture.

Huang 4.5 – 4.7.

 

9 Pragmatics and the lexicon (I)

Lexical narrowing, lexical underspecification, two types of lexical narrowing, lexical broadening, lexical cloning.

Huang (2009): Neo-Gricean pragmatics and the lexicon, IRP 1:1 (to be distributed) Sections 4-5.

 

10 Pragmatics and the lexicon (II)

Lexical blocking, lexicalization asymmetry: logical operators.

Huang (2009): Neo-Gricean pragmatics and the lexicon, IRP 1:1 (to be distributed) Sections 6-7.

 

11 Pragmatics and syntax (I)

Chomsky’s views about language and linguistics, Chomsky’s binding theory, problems for Chomsky’s binding theory.

Huang Secs 9.1 – 9.3.

 

12 Pragmatics and syntax (II)

A revised neo-Gricean pragmatic theory of anaphora, Logophoricity, Typological and theoretical implications.

Huang Sec 9.4 - 9.5.

 

13 Deixis (I)

   What is deixis? Deitic vs. non-deictic expression, gestural vs. symbolic use, deictic centre, deictic projection, person deixis, time deixis.

     Huang 5.1 – 5.2.2.

 

12 Deixis (II)

                              Space deixis, frames of spatial reference, social deixis, discourse deixis, emotional deixis.

Huang 5.2.3 - 5.3.3.

Other readings will be indicated.

A reading list for pragmatics will be provided.

Handouts will be provided for some individual lectures.