Between 2017 and 2019, I was the PI of the project LLANG (Logically speaking: Language as an inferential system), funded by the Région Pays de la Loire (Etoiles Montantes 2017). The project studies the logical/functional vocabulary underlying speakers’ semantic competence, focusing on various natural language phenomena. A substantial part of the project investigates wh-expressions and the various paradigms and constructions where they occur cross-linguistically. Below, details on two workshops on this topic, which I co-organized together with Ivano Caponigro (UC San Diego) .  

Description:
Wh-words appear in various constructions within and across languages (e.g., interrogatives, headed and free relative clauses, correlatives, clefts), raising the question of how their denotation varies and relates across these constructions. This project addresses this question by focusing on the semantics of multiple wh- constructions, containing two and more wh-phrases (e.g., interrogative clauses, correlatives, modal existential constructions, free relative clauses), or closely related wh-constructions (e.g. interrogative/relative clauses involving quantifiers, constructions triggering pair-list readings and/or functional readings).

Participants:
Adrian Brașoveanu (University of California Santa Cruz)
Ivano Caponigro (University of California San Diego)
Gennaro Chierchia (Harvard University)
Veneeta Dayal (Yale University)
Patrick D. Elliott (MIT)
Anamaria Fălăuș (Laboratoire de Linguistique de Nantes – CNRS/Nantes University)
Andreea C. Nicolae (Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft)
Radek Šimík (Charles University, Prague)
Yimei Xiang (Rutgers University)

Workshop 2: Complex multiple wh– constructions

This second meeting focuses on more complex multiple wh–, involving (i) 2 and more wh-phrases or (ii) 2 wh-phrases plus a quantifier:

Monday, November 25, 2019 
9:45-10:00 Coffee and welcome
10:00-11:00 Ivano Caponigro & Anamaria Fălăuş: (Re)introducing multiple wh- constructions: where we were, what we did, who still needs to take care of what
11:00-11:15 Coffee break
11:15-12:15 Andreea C. Nicolae: Functional multiple wh- relatives
12:15-14:00 Lunch break
14:00-15:00 Patrick D. Elliott: Nesting habits of flightless wh-phrases
15:00-15:15 Coffee break
15:15-16:15 Veneeta Dayal: On the role of Skolem functions in modeling multiple wh- dependencies 

Tuesday, November 26, 2019 
10:00-11:00 Radek Šimík: Multiple wh- MECs and their interaction with quantifiers
11:00-11:15 Coffee break
11:15-12:15 Yimei Xiang: A variable-free approach to composing questions with functional dependency
12:15-14:00 Lunch break
14:00-15:00 Gennaro Chierchia: More crossover issues in questions 
15:00-15:30 Open general discussion
15:30-15:45 Coffee break
15:45-16:30 Discussion and project meeting

Workshop 1: Multiple wh– constructions and their kin

Monday, September 17, 2018
9:15-9:45 Welcome and Introductory remarks
9:45-10:45 Ivano Caponigro & Anamaria Fălăuş: Multiple wh- free relatives and related issues
10:45-11:15 Coffee break
11:15-12:15 Radek Šimík: Tutorial on the syntax-semantics of modal existential constructions
12:15-14:00 Lunch break
14:00-15:00 Adrian Braşoveanu: The semantics and processing of correlatives
15:00-16:00 Yimei Xiang: Tutorial on questions with quantifiers
16:00-16:30 Coffee break
16:30-17:30 Patrick Elliott & Andreea Nicolae: Tutorial on the semantics of coordinated vs non-coordinated wh-constructions

Tuesday, September 18, 2018
10:00-11:00 Radek Šimík: The correlative nature of free relatives: Issues and prospects 
11:00-11:15 Coffee break
11:15-12:15 Patrick Elliott: Comparing static and dynamic approaches to intervention effects
12:15-14:00 Lunch break
14:00-15:00 Yimei Xiang: A hybrid categorial approach to question composition
15:00-15:15 Coffee break
15:15-16:15 Veneeta Dayal: Multiple wh- and wh-quantifier dependencies in correlatives and interrogatives
16:15-17:15 Discussion and project meeting