Modals and Conditionals - Einzelansicht

In this class we will discuss the semantics and pragmatics of modal and conditional statements. The first half is concerned with the semantics of modality.
After laying out theoretical foundations and issues, we will discuss some empirical, especially cross-linguistic, observations and studies. The second half is looking into the semantics of different types of conditional statements. We will discuss their interaction with tense and aspect, as well as some issues with reasoning with
conditionals. 

Students who want to register for this class are required to have a background in compositional semantics in the framework of Heim & Kratzer (1998), .e.g., have taken the Introduction to Semantics/Einführung in die Semantik. We will repeat the basics of extensional semantics in the beginning of the class.