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SUMMARY:The Role of Documenting Semantics and Pragmatics in Understudied L
 anguages - Tyler R.G. Peterson (Leiden)
DTSTART:20120516T161500Z
DTEND:20120516T180000Z
UID:TALK33518@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Illan Gonen
DESCRIPTION:Language grammars are becoming increasingly sophisticated and 
 comprehensive. Every day new kinds of primary language data from understud
 ied languages are brought to bear upon our current understanding of theori
 es of phonetics\, phonology\, morphology\, syntax\, and the various interf
 aces between these. In turn\, research in these domains has yielded many t
 ools that can be used the probe the phonological\, morphological\, syntact
 ic etc. properties of a language. However\, even the best language grammar
 s usually contain relatively little semantic or pragmatic information. Thi
 s is a very active frontier\, and in this talk I look at what is involved 
 in documenting the semantic and pragmatic features of words and utterances
  in understudied languages.\nWe have many highly articulated theories of m
 eaning that not only make testable empirical predictions\, but also provid
 e the fieldworker with many diagnostic tools that can greatly expand and d
 eepen the documentation of a language through adding a semantic component 
 to a grammar. We are now in a position to undertake the task of testing th
 ese predictions and applying these tools. I use evidentiality and modality
  as a case study\, but I also look at how semantic information from under-
 studied languages can reflect back on and contribute to what we know about
  areas fundamental to semantics and pragmatics\, such as presupposition an
 d metaphor.
LOCATION:CRASSH\, Alison Richard Building\, 7 West Road\, Cambridge\, CB3 
 9DP
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