Syntax and Semantics Circle
schedule

PAST MEETINGS:

13 december
RRR week: TBD

6 december
TBA

29 november
no meeting- thanksgiving

22 november
TBA

18 november
TBA

1 november
TBA

25 october
TBA

18 october
TBA

18 october
TBA

11 october
CUSP 6: The 6th California Universities Semantics and Pragmatics Conference

4 october
TBA

27 september

20 september
Stephanie Farmer (UCB) on classifiers in Maijiki

13 september
Vera Gribanova (Stanford): Subject position, case and agreement in Uzbek

6 september
Alexander Tokar (UCB): The Semantics and Pragmatics of Euphemism-Formation

In this talk I will argue that quasi-idiomatization, which can be defined as adding covert idiomatic meanings to overt constituents’ meanings (Mel‘čuk 1995: 183; cf. Tokar 2012: 150–152), represents the default euphemism-formation mechanism in German and many other languages. This claim is based on my analysis of the diachronic history of 1037 German euphemisms that deal with four prominent taboo topics: economic and financial problems, death, sexuality, and reproductive organs. Of 1037 euphemisms from http://euphemismen.de/, a freely available online collection of German euphemisms that has served as a database of euphemistic expressions for the current study, 579 could be analyzed as instances of quasiidiomatization, while only 421 have come into existence via metaphorization. Of the 579 quasi-idiomatic euphemisms, 471 are products of hypernymization, i.e., their covert idiomatic meanings specify in some way their overt constituents’ meanings (e.g., the idiomatic meaning “sex with a third party” specifies the meaning “deceive” of the euphemism deceive in My girlfriend deceived me), and 90 are euphemisms that have been created with the help of an antecedent–consequent strategy (Warren 1992: 131, 143–146), i.e., expressions like sleep with somebody whose overt constituents’ meanings denote events that either immediately precede or follow taboo events (e.g., having sex is often followed by lovers falling asleep together in the same bed). While both economic and sexual euphemisms are usually instances of hypernymization, the taboo meanings “to die,” “to be dead,” and “to kill” are euphemized almost exclusively with the help of the antecedent–consequent strategy. Metaphorization plays an important role in the euphemization of reproductive organs and other sexualityrelated concepts, but its role in the euphemization of death and economic problems is almost negligible.

30 august
Clara Cohen (UCB): Advanced LaTeX Tutorial