Course content

This course investigates how meaning is expressed in natural language. It addresses how words and sentences (linguistic objects) relate to entities in the world; whether this relationship is mediated by concepts; the formal representation of meaning; how the study of meaning is relevant to other areas of linguistic analysis such as syntax; how and why language differs from other communication systems; how language is employed to communicate various types of meaning.

Learning outcome

Candidates who have passed this course
- have insight into basic issues of linguistic semantics, including how linguistic expressions relate to entities in the world, meaning relations between linguistic expressions, and the relation between meaning and truth.
- have insight into how semantic relates to neighbouring fields (pragmatics, lexical theory, morphology and syntax).
- are able to apply methods of formally representing meaning in the analysis of linguistic expressions, including the computation of the interpretation of complex expressions.
- understand how and why language differs from other communication systems, and how language is employed to communicate various types of meaning.
- are able to describe and analyse how people handle and exploit various semantic and pragmatic phenomena in everyday communication.

Learning methods and activities

Lectures/seminars, supervision. Students are required to use it’s learning regularly.

Compulsory assignments

• One written assignment approx. 2000 words / 5 pages

Recommended previous knowledge

Basic undergraduate courses in language and linguistics.

Course materials

Curriculum/reading list will be announced at the beginning of the semester.

Credit reductions