Philippe Schlenker
phschlenker.bsky.social
Philippe Schlenker
@phschlenker.bsky.social
Senior Researcher, Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS, Paris
Views expressed are my own. Retweet ≠ endorsement.
We took viewpoints to be static. But this fails to account for remarkable cases in which, say, a tree classifier moves to represent apparent motion relative to a moving viewpoint. We propose 2 possible refinements of Iconological Semantics to account for such 'traveling shots'.
September 24, 2025 at 2:08 PM
In earlier work, we proposed a new framework, Iconological Semantics, to account for the interaction between logic and iconicity in sign language classifiers. The 'glue' between logic and iconicity was viewpoint variables, referring to 'camera positions'. ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/007...
Iconological Semantics - lingbuzz/007048
We argue that sign language requires a radical extension of formal semantics. It has long been accepted that sign language employs the same logical machinery as spoken language (occasionally making it...
ling.auf.net
September 24, 2025 at 2:08 PM
We hope that this work will have relevance at the intersection of the philosophy of language, sign language semantics, and the formal analysis of iconicity.
September 14, 2025 at 3:24 PM
We find that it arguably leaves some facts unaccounted for, and consider an alternative in which Role Shift involves both context shift and viewpoint shift, hence a new take on Super Monsters.
September 14, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Building on the formal framework of Iconological Semantics, which has an explicit pictorial component (https://
ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/007048), we develop a minimal analysis in which Role Shift only involves overt viewpoint shift.
Iconological Semantics - lingbuzz/007048
We argue that sign language requires a radical extension of formal semantics. It has long been accepted that sign language employs the same logical machinery as spoken language (occasionally making it...
ling.auf.net
September 14, 2025 at 3:24 PM
We argue that a key observation, familiar from informal descriptions, has been missed by formal analyses: in ASL, Role Shift usually shifts the viewpoint ('camera position') relative to which iconic elements are evaluated.
September 14, 2025 at 3:24 PM
an operation in which the signer visibly adopts someone else's perspective. But Role Shift has special properties that have motivated non-standard operators, called “Super Monsters”, which forces elements within its scope to be interpreted in a maximally iconic fashion.
September 14, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Such operators were correspondingly called “monsters”. In the last 20 years, cross-linguistic semantic research has uncovered multiple monsters across spoken languages. In addition, some have claimed that context shift is overtly realized in sign language by Role Shift—
September 14, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Seminar site: sites.google.com/site/philipp...
Zoom link: us06web.zoom.us/j/8153577927...
Co-organizers: Emmanuel Chemla (Earth Species Project), Lucie Ravaux (Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS)
philippeschlenker/teaching - LINGUAE-AL-Animal Linguistics Seminar
FORMAT On an experimental basis, we will try an online seminar on animal linguistics, entirely on Zoom, open world-wide: 1 hour including questions followed by 15 minutes of individual Q&A (optional, ...
sites.google.com
July 15, 2025 at 4:01 PM