Thematic Session: Semantics and Cognition

The Amsterdam Colloquium will feature a special session on `Language and cognition', with five invited speakers. Traditionally, the Amsterdam Colloquium is mostly concerned with formal approaches to the semantics of natural language. We now aim to broaden our focus by bringing important cognitive aspects of language into the spotlight. This year's topics are the evolution of language, addressed by

• Ted Briscoe (syntax),
• Jonathan Ginzburg (semantics),
• Pieter Muysken (typology),

and (spatial) prepositions, addressed by

• Simon Garrod.

One important goal of the special session is to investigate to what extent formal methods are also useful in studying cognitive aspects of language.

Organization: Michiel van Lambalgen and Frank Veltman