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Language Science Lunch Talk - Omar Agha

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Language Science Lunch Talk - Omar Agha

Linguistics | Maryland Language Science Center Thursday, April 24, 2025 12:15 pm - 1:30 pm HJ Patterson, 2130

Focus and QUDs in the interpretation of plurals

Abstract: Sentences with plural definite noun phrases tolerate exceptions depending on the Question Under Discussion (QUD). This talk investigates the pragmatics of plurals under focus, as in "This film only impressed the critics." In such cases, it appears that the presence of focus interacts with the QUD to facilitate exception tolerance, which can be seen as a consequence of QUD accommodation driven by focus.

Lunch served at 12:15 PM.

About: "I am a linguist, and I work on the semantics and pragmatics of natural languages. I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. My research is on homogeneity effects, and sentences and inferences that are known to tolerate exceptions. The expressions I study include conditionals, temporal adverbs, and weak necessity modals. I also work on focus, discourse structure, and QUD relevance."

Add to Calendar 04/24/25 12:15:00 04/24/25 13:30:00 America/New_York Language Science Lunch Talk - Omar Agha

Focus and QUDs in the interpretation of plurals

Abstract: Sentences with plural definite noun phrases tolerate exceptions depending on the Question Under Discussion (QUD). This talk investigates the pragmatics of plurals under focus, as in "This film only impressed the critics." In such cases, it appears that the presence of focus interacts with the QUD to facilitate exception tolerance, which can be seen as a consequence of QUD accommodation driven by focus.

Lunch served at 12:15 PM.

About: "I am a linguist, and I work on the semantics and pragmatics of natural languages. I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. My research is on homogeneity effects, and sentences and inferences that are known to tolerate exceptions. The expressions I study include conditionals, temporal adverbs, and weak necessity modals. I also work on focus, discourse structure, and QUD relevance."

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