Logic, Language and Meaning

The 2009 edition of the Amsterdam Colloquium was the 17th in a series which started in 1976. The Amsterdam Colloquia aim at bringing together linguists, philosophers, logicians and computer scientists who share an interest in the f- mal study of the semantics and pragmatics of natural and formal languages. Originally an initiative of the Department of Philosophy, the colloquium is now organized by the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (illc)ofthe University of Amsterdam. These proceedings contain revised extended abstracts of most of the articles presented at the 17th Amsterdam Colloquium. The ?rst section containsextended abstractsof the talks givenby the invited speakers of the general program. The second, third and fourth sections contain invited and submitted contributions to the three thematic workshops that were hosted by the colloquium: the workshoponImplicature and Grammar organized by Maria Aloni and Katrin Schulz; the workshop on Natural Logic organized by Jan van Eijck; and the workshop on Vagueness, organized by Robert van Rooij and Frank Veltman. The ?nal section consists of the submitted contributions to the general program. For the organization of the 17th Amsterdam Colloquium ?nancial support was received from: the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (knaw); the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (illc); thenwo-funded project Ind- inites and Beyond: Evolutionary pragmatics and typological semantics (co- dinator: Maria Aloni); the nwo-funded project Vagueness and how to be precise enough (coordinators: Robert van Rooij and Frank Veltman); and the Municipality of Amsterdam. This support is gratefully acknowledged.

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Invited Speakers.- Empirical Evidence for Embodied Semantics.- Natural Color Categories Are Convex Sets.- Concealed Questions with Quantifiers.- Specific, Yet Opaque.- Workshop on Implicature and Grammar.- Affective Demonstratives and the Division of Pragmatic Labor.- Experimental Detection of Embedded Implicatures.- Local and Global Implicatures in Wh-Question Disjunctions.- Supplements within a Unidimensional Semantics I: Scope.- Workshop on Natural Logic.- Natural Logic and Semantics.- NL from Logic: Connecting Entailment and Generation.- An Analytic Tableau System for Natural Logic.- The Data Complexity of the Syllogistic Fragments of English.- Extending Syllogistic Reasoning.- Workshop on Vagueness.- Internal and Interval Semantics for CP-Comparatives.- Temporal Propositions as Vague Predicates.- Vagueness Is Rational under Uncertainty.- Restricted Quantification over Tastes.- Vagueness Facilitates Search.- General Program.- Meaning of 'Now' and Other Temporal Location Adverbs.- Logical Consequence Inside Out.- Modified Numerals as Post-Suppositions.- Cumulative Readings of Every Do Not Provide Evidence for Events and Thematic Roles.- Restricting and Embedding Imperatives.- A First-Order Inquisitive Semantics.- There Is Something about Might.- Incommensurability.- Distributivity in Reciprocal Sentences.- A Logic for Easy Linking Semantics.- Rivalry between French -age and -ée: The Role of Grammatical Aspect in Nominalization.- Free Choice from Iterated Best Response.- A Formal Semantics for Iconic Spatial Gestures.- On the Scopal Interaction of Negation and Deontic Modals.- Projective Meaning and Attachment.- Adverbs of Comment and Disagreement.- Two Puzzles about Requirements.- Two Sources of Again-Ambiguities: Evidence from Degree-AchievementPredicates.- Equatives, Measure Phrases and NPIs.- Squiggly Issues: Alternative Sets, Complex DPs, and Intensionality.- Disjunctive Questions, Intonation, and Highlighting.- The Semantics of Count Nouns.- Donkey Anaphora in Sign Language I: E-Type vs. Dynamic Accounts.- Modality and Speech Acts: Troubled by German Ruhig.- German Noch So: Scalar Degree Operator and Negative Polarity Item.- Some New Observations on 'Because (of)'.- Much Support and More.- Quantifiers and Working Memory.- Pluractionality and the Unity of the Event.