Floris Roelofsen
It is fascinating that by producing a sequence of sounds, gestures, or written symbols people can successfully communicate highly complex ideas and subtle feelings. How does that work?
Linguists, philosophers, cognitive scientists, and computer scientists have made tremendous progress in addressing this question. And insights emerging from these investigations have led to many practical applications in language technology and education.
However, more attention has been paid to certain forms of communication than to others. The truth-conditional content of declarative sentences has been investigated in much more depth than the semantic content of other sentence types, such as questions. Spoken languages have been studied much more extensively than signed languages. My research interests center on these lesser explored forms of communication.
How should theories of meaning be generalised beyond truth-conditional content?
And what can we learn about communication by looking beyond spoken languages?
My work is currently supported by a VIDI grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (2015-2020) and a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (2016-2021).
Short Bio
Main appointments
2015-now Associate Professor. ILLC, Amsterdam
2013-2015 Assistant Professor. ILLC, Amsterdam
2010-2013 Postdoc. ILLC, Amsterdam
2009-2010 Vis. Assistant Professor, UMass Amherst
2008-2009 Postdoc. ILLC, Amsterdam
Visiting appointments
2015 (1 mth) CSLI, Stanford.
2012 (3 mth) Linguistics, UC Santa Cruz
2011 (3 mth) Linguistics, UC Santa Cruz
2006 (6 mth) Computer Science, Harvard
Main grants
2016 ERC Starting Grant (1400k euro)
2015 NWO VIDI Grant (800k euro)
2012 NWO VENI Grant (250k euro)
Publications
1 textbook
> 20 top-tier journal articles
> 30 top-tier conference articles / book chapters
> 2850 citations (see Google Scholar)
Teaching
> 15 courses at ILLC Amsterdam
2 courses at UMass Amherst Linguistics
1 course at Harvard Computer Science
3 mini-courses at San Diego, Göttingen & Beijing
5 courses at international summer schools
Advising
3 Postdocs
5 PhD students
> 10 Master students
Editorial work
Associate Editor, Journal of Semantics
2 special issues (Synthese & Topoi)
5 conference proceedings and 1 festschrift
Frequent reviewing for journals and conferences
Service
2018-2019 NWO VIDI selection panel
Organized 5 international conferences
Organized 8 international workshops
Built the inquisitive semantics website
Meaning beyond truth-conditions
Truth-conditional semantics
It is a commonplace idea that a child has learned the meaning of a sentence like ''The book is on the table'' if it can tell whether the sentence is true or false in any given situation. This truth-conditional notion of meaning has been very fruitful but also has clear limitations. Namely, while declarative sentences can be judged true or false in a given situation, this does not hold for other types of sentences, such as questions.
Inquisitive semantics
Generalising the truth-conditional notion of meaning to overcome this limitation has been one of the main aims of my work over the last ten years. Together with several colleagues and students, I have developed a semantic framework called inquisitive semantics, which is based on a more general notion of meaning. This opens up new horizons for all disciplines concerned with linguistic interpretation. We are currently exploring these horizons in linguistics, logic, and philosophy, and are also looking toward applications in computer science.
Interacting alternatives
Besides questions, there are various other constructions that require a refinement of the truth-conditional notion of meaning. What many of these constructions have in common is that they generate alternatives. A question like ''Where is Mary?'' asks the addressee to choose between alternative locations. An indefinite referential expression like ''somewhere in the south of France'' does not refer to a specific location but introduces multiple referential alternatives. In a statement like ''Mary only likes FRENCH wine'', the emphasis on ''French'' generates so-called focus alternatives (Italian, Spanish, etcetera) which together form the quantificational domain of ''only''. Alternatives are everywhere.
An important open issue in the field is how the various types of alternatives (question alternatives, referential alternatives, focus alternatives, among others) relate to each other and how they interact in the interpretation process. This general question is one I want to address over the next couple of years.
