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WHASC Newsletter May 17, 2005
("What's Happening at Santa Cruz")
WHASC is the weekly electronic newsletter of the UCSC Linguistics Department and the Linguistics Research Center. We welcome your news items, comments and feedback. Please submit news items by noon on Tuesdays to lrc@ling.ucsc.edu.
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Congratulations to Linguistics major Nicholas Reynolds who has been selected to receive a 2005 Dean's Undergraduate Award for his project, "The preterite and Spanish statives". Nick will be honored at an awards presentation ceremony and reception on Friday, June 3 during "Student Achievement Celebration week.
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THIS WEEK'S EVENTS
Thursday, May 19 11:00 a.m. Vera Lee-Schoenfeld dissertation defense, Silverman
Thursday, May 19 4:00 p.m. Scott Soames (see below)
Thursday - Sunday, May 19-22  International Playhouse 
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THE PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT
UC SANTA CRUZ
PRESENTS
Scott Soames
USC Department of Philosophy
"Ambitious 2D"
4:00 pm
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Silverman Conference Room
Stevenson College
Abstract:
In the talk I discuss the conceptual origins of ambitious two-dimensionalism in philosophical semantics, and subject the different varieties of the view - held by such philosophers as Robert Stalnaker, David Lewis, Gareth Evans, Frank Jackson, and David Chalmers - to critical evaluation. As I explain, the impetus behind two-dimensionalism has been provided by three main factors: (i) certain commonly held philosophical and semantic commitments of yesteryear that are threatened by the anti-descriptivism about meaning and reference pioneered by Saul Kripke, David Kaplan, and Hilary Putnam, (ii) certain genuine problems facing the new anti-descriptivist view, and (iii), puzzles about the necessary aposteriori and the contingent apriori. These factors have led both to an attempted revival of descriptivism in semantics, and to a two-dimensionalist strategy of deflating the Kripkean categories of the necessary aposteriori and the contingent apriori so as to drain them of their far-reaching significance. I argue that neither the descriptivist revival, nor the deflationist reinterpretation, can succeed. To that end I state precise formulations of four different two-dimensionalist views - a pragmatic version, based on Stalnaker's 1978 article "Assertion," plus three semantic versions (strong, weak, and hybrid two dimensionalism) between which Jackson and Chalmers vacillate, with studied inexplicitness. All are refuted.
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Linguistics Programs Abroad
(This list was compiled by Angelika Kratzer, professor of Linguistics at U Mass, Amherst.)
Brazil
University of São Paulo
Syntax, Semantics, Phonetics, Indigenous languages of Brazil
France
University of Paris VII
Syntax
Germany
University of Stuttgart
Baden Württemberg Program: Semantics, Syntax
University of Tübingen
Baden Württemberg Program: Semantics, Syntax
University of Konstanz
Baden Württemberg Program: Phonology, Phonetics, Processing.
Humboldt University, Berlin
Semantics, Pragmatics
University of Potsdam
Syntax, Semantics, Psycholinguistics, Phonology
Ireland
Trinity College Dublin
Irish and other Celtic Languages
University College Dublin
Syntax, Phonology, Irish
Italy
University of Milan
Semantics
University of Milan-Bicocca
Semantics, Syntax, Acquisition, Processing, Cognitive Science
University of Siena
Syntax, Acquisition
Japan
International Christian University, Tokyo
Japanese Linguistics
Nanzan University
Japanese Linguistics, Syntax
The Netherlands
University of Leiden
Syntax, Chinese Linguistics, Egyptology
University of Amsterdam
Semantics, Computational Linguistics
University of Utrecht   
Syntax, Semantics
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Connie M. Creel
Linguistics Research Center
University of California Santa Cruz
(831) 459-2386 (afternoons)
(831) 459-1380 (FAX)
(831) 459-5836 (mornings)