Periodic Reporting for period 3 - ORISEM (Sources of Meaning: Grounding Formal Semantics)
Période du rapport: 2022-05-01 au 2023-10-31
(ii) We conducted an innovative study of the grammar of gestures in spoken language, inspired by properties of sign language grammar.
(iii) We conducted a comparative study of presuppositions in iconic gestures and in iconic signs. This also led to the development of a new ‘triggering algorithm’ for presuppositions.
(iv) Project members contributed to the development of ‘primate linguistics’, e.g. in the study of Titi monkey calls. Project members also synthesized key ideas in ‘animal linguistics’ for a cross-disciplinary audience. In addition, we formally investigated the conditions under which general calls (which are a precondition for the emergence of ‘implicatures’ in primate communication) can be stable in evolution.
(v) We developed a semantics for music that borrows two key insights from other areas of ‘Super Semantis’: the idea that iconic forms, such as pictures and in our case music, can introduce logical variables; the observation that music that accompanies films or gifs has a non-at-issue status, and specifically triggers ‘cosuppositions’, just like co-speech gestures.
(vi) New theoretical ideas were developed as a result of the project, especially in the area of formal pragmatics (e.g. presupposition theory, implicature theory).
(i) sign language semantics, especially with respect to the integration of pictorial and logical semantics;
(ii) gesture semantics
(iii) theoretical semantics/pragmatics
(iv) animal linguistics
(v) music semantics