General Linguistics Colloquium (SoSe 2025)
Day, place: tuesdays, 16:15-17:45,
in presence at SPW 0.108, in zoom (registration in stud-ip, goettingen, for further details)
organized by Götz Keydana and Stavros Skopeteas
15.04.2025. Start-up meeting
22.04.2025. Yasaman Sanei (Göttingen):
Titel
22.04.2025. Marie Benzerrak (Göttingen):
(Clause) Nominalization in Bokotá
abstract29.04.2025. Lifeng Zhang (Nanjing):
The Logic of Natural Kind Terms
abstractThe essentialist thesis of Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam takes the truth of necessary a posteriori propositions as one of its main premises. The latter requires that both proper names and general names be rigid designators. The rigidity of general names for natural kinds has stimulated much wider debates than that of proper names.
Applying the indeterminacy thesis to the whole process of natural kind terms’ reference-fixing, Chenyang Li argues that natural kind terms are not rigid designators and then it is unwarranted that there is necessary a posteriori truths about natural kinds.
My aim in this paper is to explain the indeterminacy phenomena in fixing the reference of natural kind terms articulated by Li, to argue that natural kind terms are rigid in a relative sense, and to elaborate their rigidity mechanism. In section I, I will examine Li’s argument in detail and present his conventionalist conception of natural kind terms’ reference. Then in section II, I will clarify the indeterminacy thesis and argue in what sense terms are determinate. Finally in section III, I will illuminate the rigidity mechanism of natural kind terms and defend an updated version of the causal theory.
06.05.2025. Zahra Abolhassani Chimeh (Tehran):
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abstract13.05.2025. Ivona Ilic (Göttingen):
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abstract20.05.2025. Dieter Gunkel (Los Angeles):
Tone-melody matching plus a look at some ancient Greek vocal music
abstract27.05.2025. RTG Review Process
no meeting
abstract03.06.2025. Reading Group, organized by MA student (Göttingen):
We want to read an exciting paper in typology and a mind-boggling paper in psycholinguistics and enjoy a lively discussion in an intellectual atmosphere
abstract10.06.2025. Christine Teichert (Göttingen):
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abstract10.06.2025. Diana Kakashvili (Göttingen/Tbilisi):
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17.06.2025. Vassilios Spyropoulos (Athens):
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abstract24.06.2025. PHD (Göttingen):
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abstract01.07.2025. Caroline Féry (Frankfurt):
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abstract08.07.2025. Götz Keydana (Göttingen):
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abstract15.07.2025. Ioanna Sitaridou (Cambridge):
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