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Experimental Semantics (2025/2026)

The course introduces empirical research on linguistic meaning in philosophy of language and linguistics. It combines a general introduction to the questions, methods and challenges of experimental semantics with the analysis of specific studies. Particular emphasis is placed on semantic issues of philosophical relevance.

Convenor: Wojciech Rostworowski

Teaching hours: 30 hours. Language of instruction: Polish.

Course code: 3800-SEM25-S. Course description in USOS.

Topics

  • Reference and proper names
  • Descriptions and presupposition
  • Conditionals
  • Quantification
  • Anaphora

Teaching methods

Classes combine short lectures, student presentations and discussion of readings. Participants examine the use of questionnaire-based and psycholinguistic methods in research on selected semantic problems.

Selected readings

  1. Machery, E., Sytsma, J., & Deutsch, M. (2015). “Speaker’s reference and cross-cultural semantics”. In A. Bianchi (ed.), On Reference, 62–76. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
  2. Devitt, M., Porot, N. (2018). “The reference of proper names: testing usage and intuitions”. Cognitive Science 42, 1552–1585.
  3. Abrusán, M., & Szendrői, K. (2013). “Experimenting with the king of France — topics, verifiability and definite descriptions”. Semantics and Pragmatics 6(10), 1–43.
  4. Schwarz, F. (2016). “False but slow: Rejecting statements with non-referring definites”. Journal of Semantics 33(1), 177-214.
  5. Gordon, P. C., Grosz, B. J., Gilliom, L.A., (1993), “Pronouns, names, and the centering of attention in discourse”, Cognitive Science 17, 311-347.
  6. Rostworowski, W., Kuś, K., Maćkiewicz, B., (2022). “Against Intentionalism: experimental study on demonstrative reference”, Linguistics and Philosophy 45, 1027-1061.
  7. Oberauer, K., Weidenfeld, A., & K. Fischer (2007). “What makes us believe a conditional? The roles of covariation and causality”, Thinking & Reasoning, 13:4, 340-369.
  8. Krzyżanowska, K., Collins, P., U. Hahn (2017). “Between a conditional’s antecedent and its consequent: discourse coherence vs. probabilistic relevance”. Cognition 164, 199–205.
  9. Douven, I., Elqayam, S., & Mirabile, P. (2022). “Inference strength predicts the probability of conditionals better than conditional probability does”. Journal of Memory and Language, 123(2). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2021.104302
  10. Geurts, B., Katsos, N., Cummins, Ch., Moons, J. and Noordman, L. (2010). “Scalar quantifiers: logic, acquisition, and processing”. Language and Cognitive Processes, 25: 130-148.
  11. Chemla, E. & Bott, L. (2013). “Processing presuppositions: dynamic semantics vs pragmatic enrichment”. Language and Cognitive Processes 38(3): 241–260.