Lecture (LEC)

• Topic: The grammar of attitude reports

Topic: The grammar of attitude reports. A cross-linguistically pervasive property of natural language is the ability it gives us to report contentful mental attitudes such as beliefs (¿Al thinks it¿s raining¿), desires (¿Pat wants everyone to get along¿), and intentions (¿Bo intends to leave soon¿). In this seminar, we will ask: What grammatical resources do languages harness to encode such reports? Chief among our concerns will be how the syntax of the embedded clause in an attitude report interacts with the semantics of the attitude report as a whole, and the extent to which this interaction may reflect higher-level principles governing the grammar of modality in general. While many of the course readings will concern English and other major languages, students will be encouraged to pursue research projects that bring in relevant data from other languages as well. Prerequisites: At least one prior course in semantics.