Workshop: Tolerance Principle (7–8 April 2022, University of Stuttgart)

By Charles Yang

Programme

Thursday 14:00–(no longer than)18:00: Charles Yang: A Discovery Procedure

This is the continuation of Charles’s Mannheim talk “A decision procedure”

  • Discussion of the talk
  • Exchange on questions where the TP will matter in H1, H2 and other SILPAC projects. Suggestions and additions to the programme on Friday.

Early dinner (in a restaurant or from a take-away, according to our preferences).

Friday 10:00–(no longer than)18:00: Form and meaning

There is no precise schedule (apart from a lunch break 13:00–14:30): we propose to start from the literature and approach the ‘meaning’ issue in two steps:

  1. Many TP-related studies focus on learning formal rules (e.g. regular past tense, N+N compounds, empty subject position). The more we subscribe to a view where verb classes are primarily semantically defined (with semantic features constraining syntactic realizations), the more difficult it will be be to apply the TP. Irani’s 2019 thesis (see link below) is an example of a purely structure-based approach (for a brief look, read the introduction and ch. 2 on control and raising verbs). A critical presentation of this approach will be our point of departure towards semantic verb classes and the TP. Some general questions are:
  • How is the type-token distinction carried over to semantic classes?
  • How is the class N defined for verb classes?
  1. Kodner’s (2019) article (link below) is relevant for the historical questions studied in H1 and H2. We would like to discuss e.g. how we can relate acquisitional data to our historical data. The general questions is how Kodner’s approach can be applied to verb classes?
  2. Carola’s and Tom’s unpublished study on Middle English psych verbs (in contact with French) is an example of applying the TP to a historical verb class. They will give a brief presentation which should lead to further discussion.

Venue

University of Stuttgart, Keplerstrasse 17 (K2), 70174 Stuttgart, first floor, room 17.14. Our offices/secretary are on the same floor. [This is the city campus, at a 10 min. walk from Stuttgart main station, not the Vaihingen campus!]

Preparatory Reading