Floris Roelofsen
How do people communicate? How do they decode the meaning of complex linguistic expressions? This question has been approached from many different angles in several scientific disciplines, ranging from linguistics and philosophy to logic and cognitive science. And these theoretical investigations have led to many practical applications in computer science and education.
At the heart of this enterprise is a simple notion of meaning as truth-conditional content: you know what a sentence means if you can tell when it's true and when it's false. This conception of meaning, however, has a fundamental limitation: while suitable for statements, it does not straightforwardly apply to other sentence types, like questions. After all, it does not make sense to say of a question that it is true or false.
The main aim of my work over the last ten years has been to overcome this limitation. 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 and 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.
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
> 2750 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
Publications
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