Rajvinder Singh

Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science, Carleton University, as of 1 July 2009 (Website to be updated soon)

Papers:

On the Structure Sensitivity of the Alternatives for Accommodation (Submitted)
Maximize Presupposition and Local Contexts (In press, Natural Language Semantics)
A Note on Presupposition Accommodation (with Roni Katzir) (Submitted, Revised Version)
Symmetric and Interacting Alternatives for Implicature and Accommodation (In N. Klinedinst and D. Rothschild (eds.), Proceedings of ESSLLI 2009 Workshop: New Directions in the Theory of Presupposition)
Maximize Presupposition and Informationally Encapsulated Implicatures (In Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 13, Stuttgart)
VP-Deletion, Obligatory `too,' and Focus Semantics (Submitted, Linguistic Inquiry)
A Note on the Absence of XOR in Natural Language (with Roni Katzir), In P. Egre and G. Magri (eds.), Proceedings of MIT-France Workshop on Scalar Implicature and Presupposition
On the Interpretation of Disjunction: Asymmetric, Incremental, and Eager for Inconsistency (Linguistics and Philosophy, 31, p. 245-260, 2008)
Formal Alternatives as a Solution to the Proviso Problem (In Proceedings of SALT 17, p. 264-281, 2007)

Manuscripts/Handouts:

Presuppositions: Ambiguity, Accommodation, and Cancellation (Handout of Manuscript in Progress, 2010)
Oddness and Ignorance Inferences (Slightly revised version of handout for talk presented at MOSAIC 2, McGill University, Montreal, June 1 2010)
On Some Missing Logical Operators in Natural Language (with Roni Katzir) (Handout of colloquium presentation delivered to the Institute of Cognitive Science, Carleton University, Nov 19 2009)
Symmetric and Interacting Alternatives for Implicature and Accommodation (Extended Handout of Manuscript in Progress, 2009)
Assertability Constraints and Absurd Assertions (Manuscript, 2007)
Presupposition and Selectional Restrictions (A squib on McCawley's idea that selectional restrictions should be treated as presuppositions, 2007)

I occasionally get requests for access to some of my handouts on implicature from the joint linguistics/brain and cognitive sciences Modularity Reading Group held at MIT, 2008-2009. I have posted some of these notes below for ease of reference. Warning: These notes are not in any way comprehensive, in some places are incorrect, and are by now in many ways outdated.

Grammar, Meaning, and Scalar Implicature (Discussion of ambiguities and pragmatic inferences, and where SIs might fit)
Alternatives and Implicature (Discussion of the importance of being clear about the alternatives that enter into implicature computation, specifically, the interaction of principles of relevance and syntax)
Maxims of Language Use (Discussion of maxims postulated by pragmatic and grammatical theories, along with sketch of some arguments in favour of grammatical approach)

Mailing Address:
Carleton University, Institute of Cognitive Science
1125 Colonel By Drive, Dunton Tower
Ottawa, ON
CANADA K1S 5B6

Office Number: 2207
email: singhr@connect.carleton.ca
tel: 613-520-2600x1778