121. Polly Jacobson | Formal Semantics

Polly Jacobson is Professor of Linguistics at Brown University, where she has been a professor for many years. Her work focuses on linguistics and formal semantics, and especially on the formal tools needed to model the syntactic and semantic systems of natural languages.

00:00 - Introduction
01:29 - Direct compositionality
10:29 - Misconception
13:30 - Direct vs. indirect compositionality
22:46 - Cross-serial dependencies and infixation
32:51 - Example with infixation
36:32 - Motivation for direct compositionality
40:51 - Language without direct compositionality?
52:10 - Language processing
57:32 - Complicated syntax and direct compositionality
1:00:59 - Degrees of direct compositionality?
1:01:44 - What more might be needed?
1:07:25 - Donkey sentences
1:12:42 - More motivations for direct compositionality
1:15:52 - Analogy to logic
1:18:10 - Idioms and locality
1:26:57 - Challenges to view
1:29:01 - Value of linguistics
1:33:31 - Idealization
1:35:38 - Conclusion

Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0

[Qumort]

Good to have you back with another banger interview :3

[papayathief]

This video is awesome so far, and there's so much more to watch.