Topics in Semantics: Experimental Semantics and its Interfaces
Harvard LING 207R/MIT 24.979

1 Course information

Meeting Times Thursdays, 9:45-11:45AM
Meeting Locations Harvard: Boylston 303; MIT: 32-D461

2 Instructor information

Athulya Aravind (aravind@mit.edu) Kate Davidson (kathryndavidson@fas.harvard.edu)

3 Course Description

Experimental methodologies have increasingly been employed within the field of linguistics to collect data in service of theory building, especially understanding points of variation across languages, understanding the process of language acquisition, and understanding how linguistic representations interact with other aspects of cognition. In this course we’ll survey the field of experimental semantics and its interfaces with syntax and with pragmatics with an eye toward giving students coming in with foundational graduate-level background in theoretical linguistics a framework for reading current experimental literature in syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, and for developing their own experimental designs. We plan to explore experimental and developmental case studies from well-established areas of formal semantics, including quantification, modality, and anaphora, with the possibility of incorporating additional topics based on student interests.

Intended audience for this course are graduate students or advanced undergraduates in Linguistics. We assume a background in graduate-level formal semantics. While no prior experience with experimental methods or statistics is required, participants should be open to engaging with the technical aspects of the material.

4 Mailing list

There is a mailing list for this seminar: http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/expsem-spring2025. This mailing list will be used both for organizational purposes and for communication about seminar content. If you plan to participate in the seminar, please subscribe!

5 Course organization and requirements

We'll meet once a week, alternating between Harvard and MIT. Each week, seminar participants will take turns leading open discussions of recent papers, including technical/formal details with regards to linguistic theory and experimental set-up. Note that the first class date is 1/30 (a week before MIT start) and the last class date is 5/1 (a week after Harvard finish). During each institution's spring break, instead of meeting as a class, we will take the opportunity to meet with students individually. Requirements for this course are: do readings in advance, show up to class, lead discussions (2 people per paper), and do a final (optionally collaborative) project for the class. There will be ample opportunities to get guidance and advice from the instructors.

6 Schedule and Readings

To be determined in part based on the interests of seminar participants.

Date Location Topic Readings Presenters Related readings
1/30 Harvard Soft open Davidson (2020) Kate Sprouse et al. (2013)
2/6 MIT Doing experiments Firestone & Scholl (2014) Athulya Marty et al. (2020), Firestone & Scholl 2016 BBS + responses, Brody et al. 2024
2/13 Harvard Presuppositions Aravind et al. (2023), Bade et al. (2024) Juan & Christopher (Bade et al.); Nina & Hanna (Aravind et al.)
2/20 MIT Presuppositions Kalomoiros & Schwarz F. (2024), Chen & Aravind (2025) Yiqian & Johanna (K&S), Jad & Moeka (C&A) Chemla & Schlenker (2012)
2/27 Harvard Connectives Davidson (2013) Singh et al. (2016) Hanna & Yizhen (Davidson), Haoming & Christopher (Singh et al),
3/6 MIT Connectives Degano et al., (2024), Hochstein et al., (2014) Nina, Juan (Degano et al.), Ankana, Moeka (Hochstein et al.)
3/13 Harvard Non-acceptability judgment methods Mihoc & Davidson (2020), Jasbi et al. class
3/20 Individual meetings for MIT students Harvard Spring Break
3/27 Individual meetings for Harvard students MIT Spring Break
4/3 MIT Anaphora Saha et al., 2023, Champollion et al. (2023) Keely, Hanna (Saha et al.); Haoming, Yiqian (Champollion et al.)
4/10 Harvard Maximality/Homogeneity Tieu et al, Kriz et al.
4/17 MIT Polarity Denic et al., (2021), Agmon et al., (2019) Johanna
4/24 Harvard
5/1 MIT