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Meaning Meeting - Yunhui Bai / Force of "Will"

A young man in glasses, standing on a Californian beach: it's Philosophy PhD student, Yunhui Bai!

Meaning Meeting - Yunhui Bai / Force of "Will"

Linguistics | Philosophy Tuesday, February 13, 2024 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm Marie Mount Hall

Tuesday February 13, Yunhui Bai develops his proposal on the semantics of "will", which treats it as having the force of an existential quantifier.

In certain constructions, will show an existential force. In particular, it seems that will can license free choice any. This supports an analysis where will is underlyingly existential but gets strengthened in UE contexts. That said, not every instance of will supports this exact analysis. So I will also discuss the possibility of ambiguity, too. But to the extent that we want will to always have the same force, we have some evidence for the existential analysis.

Add to Calendar 02/13/24 12:30:00 02/13/24 14:00:00 America/New_York Meaning Meeting - Yunhui Bai / Force of "Will"

Tuesday February 13, Yunhui Bai develops his proposal on the semantics of "will", which treats it as having the force of an existential quantifier.

In certain constructions, will show an existential force. In particular, it seems that will can license free choice any. This supports an analysis where will is underlyingly existential but gets strengthened in UE contexts. That said, not every instance of will supports this exact analysis. So I will also discuss the possibility of ambiguity, too. But to the extent that we want will to always have the same force, we have some evidence for the existential analysis.

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