{"id":18256,"date":"2026-09-28T06:03:46","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T10:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whamit.mit.edu\/?p=18256"},"modified":"2026-09-25T13:05:57","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T17:05:57","slug":"colloquium-philippe-schlenker-institut-jean-nicod-cnrs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/2026\/09\/28\/colloquium-philippe-schlenker-institut-jean-nicod-cnrs\/","title":{"rendered":"Colloquium - Philippe Schlenker (Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS)"},"content":{"rendered":"
Speaker<\/b>: Philippe Schlenker (Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS)<\/div>\n
Title<\/b>: “The Iconic Frontier of Formal Grammar<\/span>“\u00a0<\/div>\n
When<\/b>: Friday, October 2nd, 3:30-5pm\u00a0<\/div>\n
Where<\/b>: 32-141<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Abstract:<\/strong><\/div>\n
\n
\n

Iconicity has long been known to be pervasive in sign language. But how does it interact with grammar?\u00a0 On the basis of ASL data, we propose a modular framework with three key features.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Semantics: Logical semantics must be extended with an iconic component. The result, which we call \u0093Iconological Semantics\u0094, has Logical Forms that combine standard logical operators with an iconic component (inspired by formal pictorial semantics). The \u0093glue\u0094 between them is viewpoint manipulation.\u00a0<\/li>\n
  2. Syntax: Certain expressions with a designated iconic behavior, called\u00a0 \u0091classifiers\u0092, have not just an iconic semantics but also an iconic syntax: they take their arguments in the order in which they would appear in a simplified comic. To say that \u0093a crocodile ate up a ball\u0094, the normal word order in ASL is SVO if the verb (EAT) is not a classifier. But if one uses a classifier instead,\u00a0 the order becomes SOV or OSV. This is because one typically sees the eating after one has seen the event participants.<\/li>\n
  3. Pragmatics: The iconic content of classifiers is not an unstructured whole. It is divided among traditional slots of the inferential typology, such as assertions, presuppositions, implicatures, and more. Since this\u00a0 iconic content is determined by classifier movement and could not be listed in the lexicon, there must be an algorithm that productively divides this iconic content among these slots.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    (These claims extend from sign with iconicity to speech with gestures, but for reasons of time we will focus on sign.)<\/p>\n

    Brief survey: “Meaning after the Multimodal Revolution: Seven Things Signs and Gestures Teach Us about Meaning<\/a>”, to appear in WIREs Cognitive Science<\/i>.<\/p>\n

    Technical: “Iconological Semantics<\/a>” “Iconic Syntax<\/a>” “The Inferential Typology of Language: Insights from Sign Langage (ASL)<\/a>”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Speaker: Philippe Schlenker (Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS) Title: “The Iconic Frontier of Formal Grammar“\u00a0 When: Friday, October 2nd, 3:30-5pm\u00a0 Where: 32-141 \u00a0 Abstract: Iconicity has long been known to be pervasive in sign language. But how does it interact with grammar?\u00a0 On the basis of ASL data, we propose a modular framework with three key features. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18257,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18256\/revisions\/18257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}