LX502: Course info

Course information

Professor. Paul Hagstrom, 718 Commonwealth Ave. (Dept. of Modern Foreign Languages & Literatures), Office 401D. Email: hagstrom@bu.edu (likely to get a quick response). Phone: 617-353-6220 (x3-6220). Office hours: Mondays and Tuesdays 2-3pm, Thursdays 11am-noon.

Prerequisites. CAS LX 250 (a.k.a. CAS LX 253) ("Foundations of Language"–Intro to linguistics), EN 511, or equivalent.

Meeting time. Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:30-11am in CAS 233.

Course goals. Semantics is the study of linguistic meaning. In this course, we will examine meaning from a variety of perspectives, including: how it is encoded in words and sentences, how native speakers interpret language, and how truth and falsehood can emerge from the complexity of the grammar. We will also touch on various aspects of pragmatics - the function of meaning in a communicative setting..

Course Requirements. Homework. Homework assignments will be assigned every class for the following class; homeworks due on Tuesdays will be handed in an evaluated, homeworks due on Thursdays will be discussed in class. Midterm exam. There will be a midterm exam Thursday March 6 during class time. Final exam. Wednesday May 7, 9-11am.

Email. Whenever feasible, homework can be emailed to me at hagstrom@bu.edu. Text-only is preferred, but you may also send PDF, RTF, or Microsoft Word files. Postscript files are less welcome, and don’t even bother sending Word Perfect, TeX or LaTeX files. Wherever email won’t work for any reason, homework can be turned in at the beginning of class. Be aware that if you use any special fonts, I may not be able to read your homework–be sure you know how to "include" nonstandard fonts (or send it to me early, so I can let you know if I was unable to read it).

Late assignments. Late assignments will not be accepted without prior arrangement.

Grading scheme	Regular attendance and class participation	10%
	Homework problem sets (lowest score dropped)	35%
	Midterm exam	25%
	Final exam	30%

Textbooks (required):

De Swart, Henriëtte (1998). Introduction to Natural Language Semantics. Stanford: CSLI Publishers. Publisher's page.
Chierchia, Gennaro, and Sally McConnell-Ginet (2000). Meaning and Grammar: An Introduction to Semantics (2nd edition). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Publisher's page.

Readings. Occasionally, supplemental readings may be assigned. These readings will be available in the hallway outside my office suite, in a folder labeled LX502. You may take the readings out for no more than an hour to make a personal photocopy, and then they should be returned to the folder so that others may photocopy them.

CAS Student Academic Conduct Code. As a member of a CAS course, it is essential that you read and adhere to the CAS Student Academic Conduct Code. In particular, several types of plagiarism (any attempt to represent the work of another as your own) are defined by this academic conduct code. A copy is available in CAS 105.

Announcements:

Fri May 9. That's it, we're finished. The grades (final and course grades) are posted on the Courseinfo site, and the key for the final is also available (the username and password that was given out over email is needed to download it).

Sat May 3. The practice final has been posted. Feel free to try it out and check yourself against the key.

Mon Feb 3. Some of you were unfortunate enough to get copies of the Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet book missing a certain number of pages near the beginning. You can download and print them (as PDF files) by clicking the previous link (and providing the same username and password that is used to access the homeworks).

Tue Jan 28. I failed to announce the homework in class, due (for discussion) on Thu Jan 30. It is now listed on the syllabus (CMG, ch. 2, ex. 2).

Sun Jan 26. I have added a Courseinfo site for this course, to allow you to look at the scores I have for you as well as to use the chat room and message boards there. The main course information will remain on this site.