Title: Mini-Course on Update Semantics (Session II)

Speaker: Frank Veltman (UvA)

Time: 2025/11/11 (Tuesday) 15:10-18:00 

Location: Room 211, Natural Sciences Teaching Building (理教), Peking University 

Abstract:

This talk introduces update semantics, a dynamic approach to meaning. 

Update semantics departs from standard truth-conditional semantics by equating the meaning of a sentence not with its truth conditions, but with its potential impact on the cognitive state of an addressee. 

Building on a critical look at the classic analysis developed of David Lewis, I will develop an alternative account that gives a dynamic twist to the Premise Semantics for counterfactuals proposed independently by Angelika Kratzer and myself in the 1970s and 1980s.

In the final part, Identity and Identification, we will explore how names, demonstratives, definite descriptions, and pronouns differ in their logical behavior, especially when they occur in identity statements within or outside the scope of epistemic and alethic modalities.