This workshop will explore the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties of cognition verbs from a plurality of perspectives. The emergence of cognition verbs in a language might be one of the first symptoms of meta-cognitive reasoning (Recanati 2000, Sperber 2000). These verbs are involved in a variety of complex constructions, which partly mirror the intricate interaction between language and thought. Investigating cognition verbs from a scientific perspective enables us to understand how we stage our own ideas, and how linguistic forms encode our attitudes toward the conceptual worlds of others.

Friday 15^th April 2016, at Ecole Normale Supérieure – 45 rue d’Ulm 75005 Paris

Organisation

• Organised by Eric Melac (Université de Montpellier 3 - EMMA)
• LaTTiCe-CNRS UMR8094
• Coordinated by Myriam Bouveret - Projet ENS Labex Transfers

Keynote Speaker

• Jan Nuyts (University of Antwerp)

Argument

The emergence of cognition verbs in a language might be one of the first symptoms of meta-cognitive reasoning (Recanati 2000, Sperber 2000). These verbs are involved in a variety of complex constructions, which partly mirror the intricate interaction between language and thought. Investigating cognition verbs from a scientific perspective enables us to understand how we stage our own ideas, and how linguistic forms encode our attitudes toward the conceptual worlds of others. Urmson (1952) reinvestigated the philosophical and linguistic questions these verbs raise, and Nuyts (2001) proposed to distinguish two types of meaning: the qualificational and non-qualificational uses. The latter use refers to the mental state indicated by the verb, whereas the former is an expression of the speaker’s stance. Phrases such as I think are extremely common in English, but its subtle meaning can only be fully understood if we take into account the pragmatic and discursive levels of language. This has led scholars to adopt a variety of methods – parallel corpus research, discourse analysis, statistical research – in order to shed light on the ever-evolving behaviour of these verbs (Aijmer 1997, Kaltenböck 2009, Kärkäinnen 2003, Dehé & Wichmann 2010, and  Krawczak & Glynn 2011 inter alia).

This workshop will delve into the intricacies of cognition verbs from a cross-linguistic perspective. We will analyse the near-synonymity of phrases such as I think, I believe, I guess, I suppose, I imagine and I assume. We will explore the challenge they pose to semantic analysis, and their ambiguous modal and evidential status (Gosselin 2014).  We will try to explain what motivates this evolution pattern (Cappelli 2007 and Melac 2014), and describe further the processes of grammaticalisation and cooptation that are at stake (Heine 2013). Finally, we will investigate whether the phenomena surrounding the use of cognition verbs in English are relevant cross-linguistically by looking at the data from a sample of languages.

Submission guidelines

Authors are invited to submit contributions in English or French based on their personal research on cognition verbs and the questions confronted in the workshop presentation. Their abstracts will be evaluated by two members of the scientific committee.

• The abstract should be anonymous
• The abstract should be no longer than 2 pages including references (word or PDF format)
• The abstract should specify clearly the research question, the methodology and some of the results
• The email should contain the title of the abstract, 5 keywords, the name of the author and their affiliation

Please submit the abstract to eric.melac@univ-montp3.fr

Scientific Committee 

• Jacques Brès (Montpellier 3),
• Eric Corre (Paris 3),
• Dylan Glynn (Paris 8),
• Eric Mélac (Montpellier 3)
• Debra Ziegeler (Paris 3).

Dates

• Workshop 15^th April 2016 (at ENS-Ulm)

• Submission 25^th February 2016

• Notification 5^th March 2016

Registration and Attendance

The attendance to the workshop is free for anyone. No registration required.