John Cainoy

Course Description

This course provides students with an introduction to formal theories of compositional semantics and pragmatics or a wide range of issues of contemporary relevance to the study of meaning. Topics typically covered include how meaning is expressed in natural language and the principles that lie behind the interpretation of utterances in specific situations; how words and sentences (linguistic objects) relate to entities in the world; whether this relationship is mediated by concepts; how and why language differs from other communication systems; and how language is employed to communicate various types of meaning. Students are expected to have a firm grasp of studies that deal with semantics and pragmatics and produce an analysis out of a wide array of topics.

Course Outcomes

At the end of this course, the students must be able to:

• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of basic semantic relations
• Relate semantics to other levels of linguistic analysis;
• Gain technical mastery over the tools of linguistic analysis in pragmatics;
• learn the most important concepts and theories used by linguists to study meaning, and you’ll learn how to apply them: i.e. how to analyze the meanings of words, sentences, and utterances;
• Develop a sophisticated understanding of the relationship between language and meaning as it applies to words, sentences, and utterances; and
• Apply semantic and pragmatic concepts to linguistic expressions or data and formulate a research plan in the field.

Syllabus preview

First six weeks at a glance. View the full 18-week outline on the Syllabus page.