Peter Nathan Lasersohn
Director of Graduate Studies, Undergraduate Program Advisor, Professor of Linguistics
Professor of Philosophy
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Address: University of Illinois
Dept. of Linguistics, MC-168
707 South Mathews Avenue
Urbana, IL 61801
USA
Office: 4096 Foreign Languages Bldg. - Telephone: (217) 333-1206
- Email: lasersoh@illinois.edu
Research Interests
My main interest is in formal semantic theory for natural language. More particularly, my work has focussed on "event-based" semantic theories, on the semantics of plural and coordinate constructions, pragmatic vagueness, and relative truth. I also have broader interests in logic, pragmatics, mathematical linguistics, and the philosophy of language.
Education
- Ph.D., Ohio State University 1988
- M.A., Ohio State University 1985
- B.A., Earlham College 1981
Current Projects
Publications
Books
- Plurality, Conjunction and Events. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995. <http://www.springer.com/education+%26+language/linguistics/book/978-90-481-4494-5>.
- A Semantics for Groups and Events. New York: Garland Publishing, 1990. <http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=744749981&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=36305&RQT=309&VName=PQD >.
Book Contributions
- "Compositional Interpretation in which the Meanings of Complex Expressions are not Computable from the Meanings of their Parts." Theory and Evidence in Semantics. Ed. John Nerbonne and Erhard Hinrichs. Stanford, Calif.: CSLI Publications, 2009. 133-158. <http://cslipublications.stanford.edu/site/9781575865775.shtml>.
- "'Same', Models and Representation." Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory X. Ed. Brendan Jackson and Tanya Matthews. Ithaca, N.Y.: CLC Publications, 2000. 83-97.
- "Events in the Semantics of Collectivizing Adverbials." Events and Grammar. Ed. Susan Rothstein. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998. 273-292. <http://www.springer.com/education+%26+language/linguistics/book/978-1-4020-0289-2?changeHeader>.
- "Adnominal Conditionals." Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory VI. Ed. Teresa Galloway and Justin Spence. Ithaca, N.Y.: CLC Publications, 1996. 154-166. <http://elanguage.net/journals/index.php/salt/article/view/6.154>.
- "Lexical Distributivity and Implicit Arguments." Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory III. Ed. Utpal Lahiri and Adam Wyner. Ithaca, N.Y.: CLC Publications, 1993. 145-161. <http://elanguage.net/journals/index.php/salt/article/view/3.145/0>.
- "Collective Nouns and Distributive Determiners." Papers from the 23rd Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Part One: The General Session. Ed. Barbara Need, Eric Schiller, and Anna Bosch. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, 1987. 215-229. <http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/WYzOWYyY/collective%20nouns%20and%20distributive%20determiners.pdf>.
- "The Semantics of Appositive and Pseudo-Appositive NP’s." ESCOL 86: Proceedings of the Third Eastern States Conference on Linguistics. Ed. Fred Marshall. Columbus, Oh.: Ohio State University, 1986. 311-322. <http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/TM2Mjk2M/AppositiveNPs.pdf>.
Journal Articles
- "Contextualism and Compositionality." Linguistics and Philosophy 35.2 (2012): 171-189. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10988-012-9115-z>.
- "Context, Relevant Parts and (Lack of) Disagreement over Taste." Philosophical Studies 156.3 (2011): 433-439. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9625-x>.
- "Relative Truth, Speaker Commitment, and Control of Implicit Arguments." Synthese 166.2 (2009): 359-374. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-007-9280-8>.
- "Quantification and Perspective in Relativist Semantics." Philosophical Perspectives 22 (2008): 305-337. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1520-8583.2008.00150.x>.
- "Expressives, Perspective and Presupposition." Theoretical Linguistics 33.2 (2007): 223-230. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/TL.2007.015>.
- "Context Dependence, Disagreement, and Predicates of Personal Taste." Linguistics and Philosophy 28.6 (2005): 643-686. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10988-005-0596-x>.
- "The Temperature Paradox as Evidence for a Presuppositional Analysis of Definite Descriptions." Linguistic Inquiry 36.1 (2005): 127-134. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/0024389052993646>.
- "Parts, Wholes and Atemporal 'Still'." Studies in the Linguistic Sciences 29.1 (1999): 81-85. <https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/9668>.
- "Pragmatic Halos." Language 75.3 (1999): 522-551. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/417059>.
- "Generalized Distributivity Operators." Linguistics and Philosophy 21.1 (1998): 83-93. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1005317815339>.
- "Bare Plurals and Donkey Anaphora." Natural Language Semantics 5.1 (1997): 79-86. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1008295326010>.
- "Sounds Like 'Like'." Linguistic Analysis 25.1-2 (1995): 70-77.
- "Existence Presuppositions and Background Knowledge." Journal of Semantics 10.2 (1993): 113-122. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jos/10.2.113>.
- "Generalized Conjunction and Temporal Modification." Linguistics and Philosophy 15.4 (1992): 381-410. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00627682>.
- "Group Action and Spatio-Temporal Proximity." Linguistics and Philosophy 13.2 (1990): 179-206. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00630733>.
- "Inclusion-Checking, Exclusion-Checking, and Cumulativity." Texas Linguistic Forum 31 (1989): 55-70.
- "On the Readings of Plural Noun Phrases." Linguistic Inquiry 20.1 (1989): 130-134. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/4178619>.
Encyclopedia Entries
- "Mass Nouns and Plurals." Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning. Berlin: DeGruyter, 2011. <http://www.degruyter.com/view/books/9783110255072/9783110255072.fm/9783110255072.fm.xml>.
- "Plurality." Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. 2nd ed. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2006. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B0-08-044854-2/01062-2>.
- "Event-Based Semantics." Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. 2nd ed. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2006. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B0-08-044854-2/01037-3>.
Reviews
- Rev. of Complex Demonstratives: A Quantificational Account, by Jeffrey C. King. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences 32.2 (2005): 91-94.
- Rev. of Flexibility Principles in Boolean Semantics, by Yoad Winter. Applied Psycholinguistics 24.2 (2003): 317-319. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0142716403210122>.