EL4203 Semantics 2025–2026 Sem 1

Michael Yoshitaka ERLEWINE (mitcho)

mitcho@nus.edu.sg

Office: AS5 06-09

Office hours: Tuesdays 10am–noon

Classes are Wednesdays at 9am (?), AS6 02-12

Syllabus PDF; all other materials on Canvas

Semantics is the study of meaning in natural language. How can we formalize the meaning of a linguistic utterance? How does the meaning of a sentence relate to its structure? How do we understand sentences which we have never heard before? How is the interpretation of an utterance related to the conversational context? These are basic questions which this course will attempt to answer, using primarily examples from English as data.

We will develop a concrete proposal for the mapping between linguistic expressions and their interpreted meaning for a fragment of English, based on the Principle of Compositionality. Particular emphasis will be placed on precise descriptions and computations of meanings, using notation from mathematical logic which will be covered in the class. Students will complete the class with both the technical expertise and theoretical foundation to comfortably approach a range of work in contemporary semantic literature.