BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//events.la.psu.edu//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20201101T020000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=11;BYDAY=1SU END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20200308T020000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=2SU END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:16976-4ff860147a8f19274c9d22f9b791b6ed@events.la.psu.edu DTSTAMP:20260514T204651Z DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20220902T090000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20220902T103000 SUMMARY:Dr. Jacopo Romoli (Heinrich Heine Universität in Düsseldorf) DESCRIPTION:\n“Children\, Adults\, and Choices”\n\nDr. Jacopo Romoli\, P rofessor of Semantics at Heinrich Heine University\, Düsseldorf\n\nFrida y\, September 2\, 2022\, 9:00-10:30 am\, in 127 Moore and via Zoom\n\nFr ee choice presents a well-known puzzle in the semantics and pragmatics o f modals and connectives in natural language\, going back to Kamp (1974) \, among many others. In its classical form\, the problem has to do with the interpretation of sentences with a disjunction embedded under a pos sibility modal. For instance\, a sentence like “Kung Fu Panda can push e ither the green car or the orange car” strongly suggests that he can pus h the green car and he can push the orange one. In other words\, it conv eys that Kung Fu Panda can choose between the two cars. This conjunctive interpretation is surprising because it does not follow from the standa rd meaning of modals and disjunction\, and is absent in the correspondin g sentence without the modal (i.e. “Kung Fu Panda pushed the green car o r the orange car” doesn’t at all suggest that he pushed both). There are different approaches to the problem of free choice\, which\, for our pu rposes\, can be divided into two main camps: One based on implicatures a nd one not. The two approaches are quite successful in covering the basi c empirical landscape related to free choice\, but make different predic tions in different areas. The processing and acquisition of free choice have been used as important testing grounds for those predictions. Dr. R omoli will go back to a study comparing free choice and implicatures wit h four 6-year-old children (Tieu et al. 2016)\, the results of which cha llenge the implicature approach to free choice. He will then discuss the main response in the literature to the challenge and will outline a fur ther prediction it makes\, having to do with non-classical configuration s of free choice involving negated universal modals embedding conjunctio ns\, such as “Kung Fu Panda doesn’t have to push both the blue car and t he yellow car.” He will present a series of experiments testing this fur ther prediction and the challenge coming from their results. Overall\, e xperimental work and the comparison between children and adults’ behavio r with free choice remains a critical perspective for refining our under standing of this fascinating long-standing puzzle.\n\nFor more details: https://events.la.psu.edu/event/dr-jacopo-romoli-heinrich-heine-universi tat-in-dusseldorf/ X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:

“Childr en, Adults, and Choices”

Dr. Jacopo Romoli, Profe ssor of Semantics at Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf

< p>Friday, September 2, 2022, 9:00-10:30 am, in 127 Moore and via Zoom

Free choice presents a well-known puzzle in the sem antics and pragmatics of modals and connectives in natural language, goi ng back to Kamp (1974), among many others. In its classical form, the pr oblem has to do with the interpretation of sentences with a disjunction embedded under a possibility modal. For instance, a sentence like “Kung Fu Panda can push either the green car or the orange car” strongly sugge sts that he can push the green car and he can push the orange one. In ot her words, it conveys that Kung Fu Panda can choose between the two cars . This conjunctive interpretation is surprising because it does not foll ow from the standard meaning of modals and disjunction, and is absent in the corresponding sentence without the modal (i.e. “Kung Fu Panda pushe d the green car or the orange car” doesn’t at all suggest that he pushed both). There are different approaches to the problem of free choice, wh ich, for our purposes, can be divided into two main camps: One based on implicatures and one not. The two approaches are quite successful in cov ering the basic empirical landscape related to free choice, but make dif ferent predictions in different areas. The processing and acquisition of free choice have been used as important testing grounds for those predi ctions. Dr. Romoli will go back to a study comparing free choice and imp licatures with four 6-year-old children (Tieu et al. 2016), the results of which challenge the implicature approach to free choice. He will then discuss the main response in the literature to the challenge and will o utline a further prediction it makes, having to do with non-classical co nfigurations of free choice involving negated universal modals embedding conjunctions, such as “Kung Fu Panda doesn’t have to push both the blue car and the yellow car.” He will present a series of experiments testin g this further prediction and the challenge coming from their results. O verall, experimental work and the comparison between children and adults ’ behavior with free choice remains a critical perspective for refining our understanding of this fascinating long-standing puzzle.

For mo re details: https://events.la.psu.edu/event /dr-jacopo-romoli-heinrich-heine-universitat-in-dusseldorf/

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