Games and Proofs
LING 554
Fall Term, 2005
Not really what Wittgenstein had in mind.
By popular(?) demand, I am reviving this course for the fall term, under a
new title---"Games and Proofs." Given my research load, though, the course
this term will be run as a reading group and we will be spending virtually
all our time on games and no time on proofs. By reading group, I mean that
I'll present some material on game theory for the first couple of classes
to get everyone started. After that, volunteers will present the readings.
There will be class discussion. I mean "volunteer" in the military sense.
Volunteering is not optional. By "reviving...for the fall term" I mean
that this course will probably not be taught this way again and I may
not teach it again for a few years in any event.
As many of you know, I've been toying with game theoretic semantics and
classical game theory for some time. This course will be devoted to
reading about applications of classical game theory to linguistics.
We will start with applications to pragmatics and move on to a
radical reinterpretation (I hope!) of semantics. Later in the
course, Prashant Parikh and I may take over again to present some of
our joint work.
To start our discussion, we will read:
Prashant Parikh (2000). Language in Use. CSLI
Publications, Standford, CA.
It's available at the usual place. As implied above and unlike courses at
lesser institutions, the author will be in attendance. This does not,
however, get you off the hook when it comes to presenting his work! We'll
move on to some as yet unpublished papers on game theory and
language. Finally, as above, Prashant and I will probably present
some of our work.
Since this material is new and quite different from most of what's out
there, I invite anyone with an interest in game theory and language
to attend. We won't presuppose much.
Your grade will be contingent on (1) your in-class presentation; (2) your
in-class participation; (3) a paper you write on games and language.
If you don't have ideas about (3) then come and see me. I'll knock
you upside your head and you'll get an idea.
Check here for updates. I'll try to keep a record of the goings on.
Radical Semantics
Here's a
paper by van Rooy that we should read for the November 4th meeting.
[Linguistics Department]
[Robin Clark's Homepage]
