Date:
Friday, November 17, 2017, 10:30am to 12:00pm
Location:
2 Arrow St, Rm 420
Speaker: Emar Maier (University of Groningen)
Abstract: Inspired by Schlenker’s (2003) seminal 'Plea for Monsters', linguists have been analyzing every occurrence of a shifted indexical by postulating a monstrous operator. I will show that Kaplan’s (1989) original strategy of explaining apparent shifting in terms of a quotational use/mention distinction offers a much more intuitive, parsimonious and empirically superior analysis of many of these phenomena. In this talk I focus on role shift in signed languages and free indirect discourse in literary narratives. The main ingredients of the formal analysis will be a semantics of direct quotation as event modification, and a pragmatic account of unquotation. On the empirical side I will discuss data from controlled elicitation tasks with DGS and NGT signers.