Tsinghua University – University of Amsterdam Joint Research Centre for Logic

TLLM III

The Third Tsinghua Interdisciplinary Workshop on Logic, Language, and Meaning

Dynamics in Logic and Language

 

[Tutorials]: March 31.

[Workshop]: April 1–4, 2022.

Venue:  Online 

Program

All the time slots below are based on Beijing Time (UTC+08:00).

Tutorials

Maria Aloni 
(University of Amsterdam)
Topic: Dynamics in Language
Details
Johan van Benthem 
(Stanford University and Tsinghua University)
Topic: Dynamics in Logic
Details

Invited Speakers

Maria Aloni
(University of Amsterdam)
Title and Abstract
Johan van Benthem
(Stanford University and Tsinghua University)
Title and Abstract
Hans Kamp
(University of Texas, Austin and University of Stuttgart)
Title and Abstract
Haihua Pan
(The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Title and Abstract

Registration

  • Notice:  participation is free, but registration is required, in particular to get the instruction and zoom links.

Call for Papers

Dynamics in Logic and Language 

3rd Tsinghua Interdisciplinary Workshop on Logic, Language and Meaning

April 1–4, 2022, Tsinghua University, Beijing+Virtual

The ‘dynamic turn’ in logic and language is now almost fifty years old. The mid- to late 1970s and early 80s saw the appearance both of adaptations of logics for reasoning about programs in computer science to the setting of modal logic and Kripke semantics, such as Propositional Dynamic Logic (PDL, Pratt, Fischer and Ladner, Segerberg, and others), and of proposals in natural language semantics, such as the Discourse Representation Theory (DRT) of Kamp and the File Change Semantics of Heim, to extend ‘static’ truth-conditional semantics for propositions to a dynamic semantics for discourse. Of course, ‘dynamic’ is a vague term. Kripke style semantics, with its rich repertoire of relations between states (of information, of program execution, of belief, of common ground, …), is well suited as a framework for describing dynamic processes. Such descriptions can still take the meaning of a sentence, classically, to be the set of states in which it is true. Kamp and Heim style semantics changes the notion of meaning itself, now viewed as an instruction for how to update the current set of states when the sentence is accepted; put differently, as a context/information change potential. 

Since then, logical dynamics and dynamics in linguistic semantics have each developed into vast and fairly well-defined areas of research, largely independent of each other although there have also been points of contact. In logic, besides describing the behavior of programs, systems modeling the actions of agents based on their attitudes (knowledge, belief, goals, …) have been developed by scholars at the interface of logic, philosophy, computer science, artificial intelligence, and social sciences. The basic setting is still modal; Dynamic Epistemic Logic (DEL) brings updating actions like announcements with various degrees of persuasive power explicitly into the object language syntax, while other approaches keep a more standard syntax but assign new dynamic meanings. In linguistics, Kamp and Heim style dynamic semantics was originally introduced to deal with anaphora, quantification, and presupposition projection. It has since been applied to an array of linguistic phenomena, such as epistemic modals, conditionals, plurals, tense and aspect, generalized quantifiers, propositional attitudes, vagueness, and discourse relations. Other approaches to extending classical truth-conditional meaning to a dynamic setting include situation semantics, dynamic predicate logic (DPL), variants of game-theoretic semantics, and more recently, inquisitive semantics which treats statements and questions on a par. Do these two distinct perspectives on dynamics have something to learn from each other? That is one theme of this workshop, which brings together scholars from both traditions. But we welcome contributions on any general or particular aspect of dynamics in logic and/or language, for example, along the following lines: 

  • original contributions to, or applications to specific phenomena of, dynamic approaches in a broad sense, in logic
  • applications of dynamic approaches (of various kinds) to specific phenomena across languages (English, Chinese, etc.)
  • questions about the extent of the overlap, in content, methods, or motivation, between the two frameworks
  • philosophical/conceptual contributions concerning, for example, what is essential to a dynamic approach, and how one can define the dynamic/static contrast more generally
  • relatedly, in both frameworks, questions about in what ways dynamic approaches essentially extend or replace static ones, and to what extent this is desirable
  • issues related to the semantics/pragmatics distinction, for example, where this distinction is properly located between the two extremes of (i) relegating all dynamic phenomena to pragmatics, and (ii) seeing dynamic semantics as incorporating most of pragmatics
  • issues about static vs. dynamic meaning, in particular about compositionality

Contributed PapersWe invite submissions of 2-page abstracts (including references) on any of the broad themes related to dynamics in logic and language as suggested above. After a review procedure, authors of accepted abstracts will have the opportunity to present their papers at the workshop. After the workshop, a volume of full papers (properly refereed) will be published. Details on submission of full papers will follow. Abstracts should be submitted via Easychair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=tllm2022 The workshop is planned to take place on site at Tsinghua University, Beijing. If travel restrictions still make this difficult, we plan to postpone it until the fall of 2022, and/or hold the workshop online. Important dates

  • November 20, 2021 December 5,  2021: deadline for 2-page abstracts
  • December 20, 2021 January 10, 2022: notification of acceptance
  • March 31, 2022: tutorials
  • April 1-4, 2022: workshop 

Committees

  • Chairs
Dun Deng
(Tsinghua University)
Dag Westerståhl
(Stockholm University, Tsinghua University)
Mingming Liu
(Tsinghua University)

 

Kaibo Xie (Local Chair)
(Tsinghua University)
  • Program Committee
Gennaro Chierchia
(Harvard University)
Dun Deng 
(Tsinghua University)
Thomas Icard
(Stanford University)
Xuping Li
(Zhejiang University)
Jowang Lin
(Academia Sinica)
Fenrong Liu
(Tsinghua University, University of Amsterdam)
Mingming Liu
(Tsinghua University)
Larry Moss
(Indiana University Bloomington)
Stanley Peters
(Stanford University)
Floris Roelofsen
(University of Amsterdam)
Martin Stokhof 
(University of Amsterdam, Tsinghua University)
Jakub Szymanik
(University of Amsterdam)
Frank Veltman
(University of Amsterdam)
Yingying Wang
(Hunan University)
Dag Westerståhl
(Stockholm University, Tsinghua University)
Yicheng Wu
(Zhejiang University)
Tomoyuki Yamada
(Hokkaido University)
Linmin Zhang
(New York University Shanghai) 
  • Local Organizing Committee
Zhenkun Hu
(Tsinghua University)
Kaibo Xie
(Tsinghua University)
Jialiang Yan 
(Tsinghua University)