160146 SE Seminar aus Grammatiktheorie (2017S)

The seminar is an introduction to the basic techniques needed to analyze intensional constructions in terms of possible world semantics. After a short characterization of the core phenomena (substitutivity in attitude reports, de re/de dicto, unspecificity), the method of extension and intension is developed and applied to account for them. In the second part we will turn to the representation of intensionality in terms of bound (world- or index-) variables vs. implicit parameters. Time permitting, the course will end with a quick look at questions of general theoretical architecture, like the relation between possible worlds and models, or the purported confinement of intensionality to clausal embedding.