Modules


Term 1

Language and Thought: an Introduction to Argument Structure (Zoom/hybrid)

Wenkai Tay

What is the difference between “Dog bites man” and “Man bites dog”? How do we know that these two sentences describe different events in the real world? In this module, we will learn how language enables us to talk about the world around us, focusing in particular on how it helps us keep track of who does what to whom.

Prerequisites: No prior background in syntax or semantics is assumed.

Slides

Zoom link

  • Week 1: How do we think about the world around us? (event structure)
  • Week 2: What is the link between language and the real world? (linking theories)
  • Week 3: What information about the world does language encode? (predicate-argument structure)
  • Week 4: Why are linguistic theories so complicated? (decompositional/configurational approaches)
  • Week 5: How do we know if our linguistic theories are right? (case study: resultatives)


The Eye-tracking Method and its Application in Language Research

Yiling Huo

Eye-tracking allows researchers to gain insight into human cognition and attention, and is becoming a very popular tool in psycholinguistics. In this course, I will give you an introduction to the eye-tracking method and its application in research on reading as well as spoken language processing. For the last day I might get a chance to show you a demo experiment!

Slides

  • Week 1: Introduction to the human visual system and the eye-tracking method
  • Week 2: Reading
  • Week 3: Spoken language processing in a visual context
  • Week 4: Eye-tracking with electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
  • Week 5: Demo experiment / Considerations in experiment designs


Term 2

Worlds of Possibilities: Intensional Semantics and Modality

Tim Jantarungsee

  • Week 1: Sinn und Bedeutung: An Introduction to Intensionality and Modal Logic
  • Week 2: What “must” and “can” must and can mean: Kratzer Modality and Ty2 Logic
  • Week 3: Measurement and Modality: Graded Modality and Dynamic Modal Logic
  • Week 4: A can-versation on ability: Research Seminar on “Ability”
  • Week 5: Intensionality: De re/De dicto and Propositional Attitudes


“Literal” Expressions and Their Uses

Yolanda García-Lorenzo, Teru Konishi, Xinxin Yan

There is a widely held belief that our language use is by default “literal”. At the same time, many cases of language use taught in Pragmatics deal with “non-literal” expressions and communication. Is there anything interesting to say about “literal” uses of language? This course aims to examine the concept of “literal” expressions and their uses in communication – questioning the very definition and distinction of this concept.

  • Week 1: What do we mean by “literal”? (Teru (tent.))

    This session introduces the concept of literal and non-literal uses of language and questions whether this distinction is really apt. Are metaphors really “non-literal”? What are “literal” uses, and are they useful at all in communication? The definitions and questions raised in this lecture should guide the rest of the course.

  • Week 2: Metaphor & Simile: Are they essentially the same? (Xinxin)

    In this session, we’ll take a step back and reconsider the commonly held assumption that metaphors and similes are interchangeable and essentially the same. Are metaphors implicit similes? Are similes hedged metaphors? Or could they be fundamentally different and only happen to be similar in some cases? Together, we’ll explore the arguments and empirical evidences supporting each perspective. The answer, as it turns out, may not be so straightforward…

  • Week 3: Irony, Lies, Mistakes: Exploring the Concept of Commitment (Yolanda)

    In this session, we will explore the distinctions between lies, irony, and mistakes—instances in which a speaker communicates something false. The discussion will centre on the concept of commitment and its critical role in distinguishing literal from non-literal uses of language.

  • Week 4: Irony (Yolanda)

    This session will delve into various theories of irony, examine the cues that signal ironic utterances, and explore the motivations behind using irony. Additionally, we will discuss whether the literal meaning of the utterance is processed during the interpretation of irony.

  • Week 5: Idioms, Proverbs and Interpretive Use (Teru)

    “You can’t put toothpaste back into the tube” “A rolling stone gathers no moss” – idiomatic and proverbial expressions like these express a situation that is semantically unrelated to the topic of the conversation on the surface yet communicate an important message that is structurally and logically connected to it. In this session, we examine the mechanisms of such expressions and the role “literal” meaning plays in their interpretation.


Topics in Experimental Pragmatics

Erying Qin, Shenshen Wang

Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics concerned with context-dependent meaning, compared to semantics that deals with the meaning of words and sentences in isolation. As a relatively new research area, experimental pragmatics is a subfield of pragmatics that uses empirical, experimental methods to study how meaning is shaped by factors like the speaker’s intentions, the listener’s interpretation, the context of the conversation, and social norms. In this module, we consider examples of research topics in experimental pragmatics and cognitive mechanisms (e.g., reaction time, working memory load) which are used to investigate theories in pragmatics research.

Zoom link

  • Day 1: Introduction to experimental pragmatics

    In the first half of this session, we will introduce experimental pragmatics and its research topics in general. If time permits, we will take a glance at the concept of Scalar Inference (or Scalar Implicature, if you like), which is one of the commonly-studied pragmatic phenomena.

  • Day 2: Scalar Inferences: what working memory tells us about pragmatic inferences

    This session will explore the studies on Scalar Inferences. We will take working memory as an example - to see how methods commonly used in psychology/psycholinguistics experiments can be applied to answer research questions in experimental pragmatics.

  • Day 3: Perspective-taking in implicature derivation: what developmental study tells us about pragmatic inferences

    In this session, we will discuss inferences in a more general way. As pragmatics focuses on how meaning can vary depending on the speaker’s and listener’s perspectives, and there is usually a developmental difference in perspective-taking between children and adults, research that incorporates these factors adds another piece to the puzzle of studies on pragmatic inferences.

  • Day 4: Why Are Negative Sentences Hard to Process?

    This session will present various experimental findings and review current accounts of negation processing. Why are negative sentences generally more demanding to process than affirmative ones? How can we explain this difficulty? Specifically, we will explore the extra cognitive effort required to interpret negative sentences and examine the role that positive arguments play in this process.

  • Day 5: Another Look from the Dynamic Pragmatic View: Evidence Across Different Tasks

    In this session, we will evaluate the dynamic pragmatic view of negation processing, drawing on evidence from various experimental pragmatics tasks. In particular, we will focus on one negation and the sentence-picture verification task. Additionally, we will review many factors at play in verification tasks when negation is involved, highlighting how these factors may influence processing.


Introduction to Event Semantics

Jiajia Wang

This short course aims to present the motivation and considerations in event semantics, with a focus on Davidsonian and neo-Davidsonian theories. First, we will establish foundational arguments for positing event arguments. Subsequent weeks will explore the finegrainedness of events, introduce the Unique Role Requirement, and apply these frameworks to phenomena such as passive-sensitive adverbs, passivisation, and plurality. Finally, we will critically assess some alternative approaches.

  • Week 1: Why do we need an event argument?
  • Week 2: Are ‘buying’ and ‘selling’ one event or two?
  • Week 3: Topic 1: passive-sensitive adverbs and passivisation
  • Week 4: Topic 2: multiple roles and plurality
  • Week 5: Any alternatives? (Tentative)


Syntax: NPs and DPs

Boyan Yin

Definiteness is a fundamental yet cross-linguistically diverse feature of noun phrase structure, shaping how languages encode reference, specificity, and discourse prominence. While many familiar languages mark definiteness overtly through articles, others rely on alternative strategies such as demonstratives, affixation, or even pragmatic inference. This short course will explore the syntactic and semantic encoding of definiteness, beginning with an overview of key theoretical perspectives and the DP hypothesis. We will then examine the cross-linguistic variation in definiteness marking through case studies: languages with multiple determiners, those lacking overt determiners, and experimental work on understanding DPs. Rather than aiming for a single conclusive account, this course encourages critical reflection on the diversity of definiteness encoding and its implications for our understanding of linguistic universals.

  • Week 1: Introduction
  • Week 2: The DP hypothesis and its universality
  • Week 3: Case study 1: multiple determiners
  • Week 4: Case study 2: no determiners
  • Week 5: Case study 3: experimental work on understanding DPs


Introduction to Morphology

Abdullah Almuhaysh

Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies words by asking questions such as: What are words? How are they structured? The aim of this course is to familiarize students with crosslinguistic morphological phenomena and terminology before tackling work on theoretical frameworks. We will also consider how syntax, semantics, and phonology are related to morphology. Thus, this class is a buffet that invites the students to sample the delicious dishes of morphology in hopes of indulging into them further in the future.

  • Week 1: What Is Morphology About?

    We will begin the first day by easing our way in and introducing key terminology about morphology. This should serve either as an appetizer to totally new students, or a refresher to students familiar with the different morphological units (such as morphemes). We will also briefly look at the inflection vs derivational dichotomy, as well as the concept of allomorphy.

  • Week 2: More Morphological Phenomena

    During the second week, we will explore general morphological phenomena, such as borrowing, compunding, and clipping. However, we will consider very interesting phenomena such as suppletion, syncretism, word classes (such as gender), and zero morphology.

  • Week 3: The Morphology and Phonology Interface: Autosegmental (Morpho)phonology

    During the third week, we will tackle the problem of non-concatenative morphology: Cases where morphological operations seem to be disjoined, unlike English’s dominantly concatenative morphology (base-suffix patterns). We will focus greatly on languages such as Arabic and how they employ templatic morphology in order insert disjoined affixes. We will see how morphological affixation is not restricted to consonants and vowels, but also to suprasegmental elements such as tone and stress, and subsegmentals such as phonological features (+nasal, -plosive, etc).

  • Week 4: Morphosyntax: The Morphology and Syntax Interface

    During the fourth week, we will ponder the status of morphology and syntax. We will see how they are similar in their structuring (constituents in words and sentences). We will also take a closer look at morphosyntactic phenomena such as agreement and concord, Mark Baker 1985’s mirror principle, verbal auxiliary data, and an interesting morphophonology constraint on the comparative and superlative morphosyntax of Hasawi Arabic.]

  • Week 5: Morphological Universals: * ABA and Greenberg Universal 20 in Morphology

    In the final session, we will consider two postulated universal constraints in morphology: Bobaljik 2012’s * ABA constraint and Kloudova 2020’s take of Greenberg Universal 20 in morphology. We will see how these constraints are related to phenomena such as syncretism, suppletion, and morphological containment. Finally, we will point towards an entrance to morphological theory before concluding the course.


Term 3

Seminar in Psycholinguistics and Neurolinguistics (hybrid)

Kayla Chen

This seminar explores classic and contemporary trends in psycholinguistics, focusing on key topics such as language comprehension and production, speech perception, and bilingualism. Each lecture will involve the discussion of two to three influential papers, providing an interactive format to examine both foundational ideas and recent advances. This course is perfect for those eager to expand their understanding of how language is processed in the human mind and engage critically with key research.

Course format: Hybrid (Zoom/In Person)

  • Week 1: tbc
  • Week 2: tbc
  • Week 3: tbc
  • Week 4: tbc
  • Week 5: tbc