Title: Modalities in the realm of questions

　　Speaker:  Ivano Ciardelli (LMU)

　　Time: 15:00 ~ 17:00  (Jun. 7)

　　Zoom Meeting Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87964312574?pwd=RU93bm55SGtJYmZvekpvTnRuSmdUdz09

　　Meeting ID: 879 6431 2574    Passcode: 215697

　　Abstract:  Standard modal logic allows us to formally analyze a vast array of notions which can be viewed as properties of propositions. As we will discuss, however, there are also a variety of interesting modal notions whose argument is not a proposition, but a question. These notions include, among others, inquisitive attitudes like wondering, affective attitudes like caring, and various modal flavors of dependence, independence, influence, and supervenience. 

　　In order to subject such question-directed modal notions to formal analysis, the research program on inquisitive modal logic generalizes standard modal logic by drawing on ideas from inquisitive semantics. Systems of inquisitive logic comprise, in addition to standard formulas that stand for declaratives like “that Smith was elected”, also formulas that stand for interrogatives such as “whether Smith was elected”, “whether Smith or Jones was elected”, or “who was elected”. Within these systems we can then introduce and investigate modalities that operate on questions. Like standard modal logic, inquisitive modal logic comes in many varieties, differing in the underlying class of models and repertoire of modalities. 

　　In this talk I will introduce the general framework of inquisitive modal logic and present some specific incarnations of it, discussing their intuitive interpretation and reviewing results about their expressive power and axiomatization. I will close by mentioning a number of future directions for this research program.