Pragmatics
Bachelor's study programme Slovene Studies (1st Level)
Objectives and competences
• Students are introduced to classical and current theoretical achievements in the linguistic field of pragmatics;
• They are acquinted with major topics like entailment, implicature and presupposition and their impact on sentence interpretation.
Prerequisites
The subject is related to the rest of the linguistic subjects on the program.
Content
This course gives an overview of classical and current theorizing in the field of pragmatics which studies the role of context in the interpretation of linguistic meaning. We will focus on phenomena like implicature and presupposition that will help us define the division of labor between semantics and pragmatics.
Intended learning outcomes
Students are introduced to classical and currently debated topis in the field of Pragmatics like:
Conversational implicature
- Gricean maxims
- Scalar implicature
- Implicature projection
Presupposition
- Presupposition and
presupposition accommodation
- Presupposition projection
- Definiteness and indefiniteness
Context dependency
- Domain restriction
- Deixis
Speech acts
- Locutionary act, illocutionary act, perlocutionary act
Readings
• Levinson, S. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Catalogue E-version
• Levinson, S. 2000. Presumptive meanings: The theory of generalizedconversational implicature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Catalogue
• Horn, L. and G. Ward (eds.) 2004. The handbook of pragmatics. Blackwell. Catalogue E-version
Assessment
• Class attendance and active participation during lectures and seminars, 2 homework assignments, • written or oral final examination.
Lecturer's references
SAUERLAND, Uli, STATEVA, Penka. Two types of vagueness. V: ÉGRÉ, Paul (ur.), KLINEDINST, Nathan (ur.). Vagueness and language use, (Palgrave studies in pragmatics, language and cognition). Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, str. 121-145.
STEPANOV, Arthur, STATEVA, Penka. When QR disobeys superiority. Linguist. inq., 2009, vol. 40, no. 1, str. 176-185.
STEPANOV, Arthur, STATEVA, Penka. Successive cyclicity as residual wh-scope marking. Lingua. [Print ed.], dec. 2006, vol. 116, no. 12, str. 2107-2153.
STATEVA, Penka, How different are different degree expressions? MIT Working papers in Linguistics, 2002.