CURRICULUM VITAE - Benjamin SPECTOR Chargé de Recherche

CURRICULUM VITAE - Benjamin SPECTOR
Chargé de Recherche, Institut Jean Nicod– CNRS - ENS –EHESS
spector-dot-benjamin-@-gmail-dot-com
PREVIOUS AFFILIATIONS
2006-2008: ‘Junior Fellow’, Harvard Society of Fellows.
2003-2006: Lecturer at Ecole Normale Supérieure
EDUCATION
PhD, University of Paris 7., January 2006. Defended on January 6, 2006, Mention Très Honorable avec les
félicitations du jury (à l’unanimité).
2001-2006: PhD Student, University of Paris 7
September 2000: Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies in Philosophy, U. of Paris 1. Mention Très Bien.
September 1998: Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies in social sciences, E.N.S. Mention Très Bien
1997: Ranked 9th for the agrégation of philosophy (National Competitive Exam)
1994-2000: Student at ENS.
PUBLICATIONS
PUBLICATIONS IN INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS.
• Accepted with revisions - with E. Chemla. Experimental Evidence for Embedded Scalar
Implicatures. Journal of Semantics.
• To appear - with M. Abrusan. A Semantics for Degree Questions Based on Intervals: Negative
Islands and their Obviation. Journal of Semantics
• 2008 - An unnoticed reading for wh-questions: elided quantified answers and weak islands.
Linguistic Inquiry 39: 4: 677-686
• 2004 - Indefinites in subject position are positive polarity items. Snippets 9, 2004,
http://www.ledonline.it/snippets/.
PEER-REVIEWED CHAPTERS IN BOOKS
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To appear – with G. Chierchia and D. Fox, The Grammatical View of Scalar Implicatures and the
Relationship between Semantics and Pragmatics. In An International Handbook of Natural
Language Meaning Semantics, eds. P. Portner, C. Maienborn et K. von Heusinger, Mouton de
Gruyter
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2009 – with G. Chierchia and D. Fox, Hurford’s Constraint and the Theory of Scalar Implicatures. In
Presuppositions and Implicatures, ed. Paul Egré & Giorgio Magri, MIT Working Papers in
Linguistics
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2007- Aspects of the pragmatics of plural morphology: on Higher-Order Implicatures. in U.
Sauerland & P. Stateva (éds.), Presuppositions and Implicatures in Compositional Semantics,
Palgrave-Macmillan.
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2007 - Scalar implicatures: exhaustivity & gricean reasoning. in M. Aloni & P. Dekker (éds.),
Questions in Dynamic Semantics, Current Issues in the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface 17, Elsevier
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2003 - Plural indefinite DPs as PLURAL-polarity items; in Romance Languages & Linguistic
Theory 2001, ed. Josep Queer et al., John Benjamins.
IN PROCEEDINGS OF INTERNATIONAL PEER-REVIEWED CONFERENCES 2009
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(with E. Chemla). Detecting Embedded Scalar Implicatures : Experimental Evidence. To appear in
Proceedings of the Amsterdam Colloquium 2009, Springer
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2008 - An Interval-based Semantics for Degree Questions: Negative Islands and their Obviation,
Proceedings of the 27th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics
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2007 - Modalized Questions and Exhaustivity”, in Proceedings of SALT 17.
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2006 - (with Ora Matushansky) Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. in E. Maier, C. Bary & J. Huitink (éds.),
Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 9
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2004 - Distributivity & Specific Indefinites. in S. Blaho et al (éds), Proceedings of CONSOLE XII.
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2004 - Pseudo Weak Crossover in French relative clauses & global economy. in Actes des Journées
d’Etudes Linguistiques 2004.
OTHER TALKS PRESENTED AT SELECTIVE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES (excluding
talks which were published in Proceedings, mentioned above)
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(with Clemens Mayr), “Not Too Strong! Generalizing the Scope Economy Condition”, Sinn und
Bedeutung 14, Vienna, October 28-30, 2009
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(with Martá Abrusán), “An Interval-based Semantics for Degree Questions: Negative Islands and
their Obviation”, Journées Sémantique et Modélisation 2008, Toulouse, April 3-4, 2008
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(with Paul Egré) “Embedded questions revisited: An answer, not necessarily The answer”, Journées
Sémantique et Modélisation 2007, Paris, March 29-30, 2007
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“Modalized questions and exhaustivity”, Journées Sémantique et Modélisation 2007, Paris, March
29-30, 2007
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“Exhaustive Interpretations : what to say and what not to say”, Colloque de Syntaxe et de
Sémantique de Paris, Paris October 1st, 2005
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“Exhaustive Interpretations : what to say and what not to say”, LSA Institute workshop on Context
and Content, Cambridge, July 15, 2005
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“Intervention effects in how-many questions and the syntax/semantics interface”, Sinn und
Bedeutung 9, November 1-3, 2004
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“Scalar implicatures: a global account of local effects”, workshop on Polarity, scalar phenomena,
implicatures: at the interface between Grammar and the Cognitive System, Milan, June 20, 2003
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with Ora Matushansky, CNRS, “Predicative structures in French and in Russian. To be (a) human.”,
Journées Sémantique & Modélisation, Paris, March 20, 2003
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“Plural Indefinite DPs as PLURAL-polarity items”, Going Romance 2001, Amsterdam, December
8, 2001.
INVITED TALKS
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UCLA Linguistics Colloquium, “Experimental Evidence for Embedded Scalar Implicatures”, joint
work with E. Chemla, February, 12, 2010.
Invited Comments on G. Magri’s paper “A theory of individual-level predicates based on blind
mandatory scalar implicatures'', Workshop on ‘The individual/stage-level distinction’, organized in
Paris by Angelike Kratzer and Frederike Moltmann, 2009.
“Experimental Evidence for Embedded Scalar Implicatures” (presenting joint work with E. Chemla),
University of Maryland, Linguistics Colloquium, 2009.
Comments on O. Percus’ talk at the Workshop on Markedness and Underspecification in the
Morphology and Semantics of Agreement, Harvard University, 2008.
“The grammatical theory of scalar implicatures”, Columbia University, NY, January 29, 2008.
With Paul Egré (CNRS), “Embedded Questions Revisited: An answer, not necessarily the answer”,
Ling-Lunch seminar, M.I.T, 2007.
“Numerals are ambiguous…or maybe not”, reply to Richard Breheny (University College London),
“Local effects, Global implicatures: the case of two and some”, Shared Content Workshop on
Implicatures, Oslo, Center for the Study or Mind and Nature, 2007.
“Hurford’s constraint and the theory of scalar implicatures” (joint work with G. Chierchia and D.
Fox), UCLA syntax-semantics seminar, 2007.
“Degree-questions and negative islands: an interval-based semantics for degree questions” (joint
work with M. Abrusan), UCLA, seminar on Presuppositions, 2007.
“Hurford’s constraint and the theory of scalar implicatures” (joint work with G. Chierchia and D.
Fox), MIT-Paris workshop, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 2007.
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“Plural morphology and higher-order implicatures”, Harvard University, 2006. ** “Modalized
Questions and Exhaustivity”, MIT, Questions Reading Group, 2006.
“Pragmatique de la morphologie plurielle et implicatures d’ordre supérieur”, Laboratoire de
Linguistique Formelle (Paris 7), 2006.
“Exhaustive interpretations: what to say and what not to say”, Tübingen, 2006.
“Exhaustive Interpretations : what to say and what not to say”, first Paris-Amsterdam meeting,
Amsterdam, 2005.
“Exhaustive Interpretations: preference for positive information and principle of epistemic
symmetry”, workshop on “Implicature and Presupposition within Compositional Semantics”, Berlin,
2004.
“Lectures plurielles et lectures numériquement neutres des indéfinis pluriels : une analyse
pragmatique”, workshop on plurals organized by the ‘Groupe de Travail Sémantique et
Modélisation’ (CNRS), 2004.
“Functional readings and thematic structure”, Syntax-Semantics Reading Group, MIT, Dept of
Linguistics & Philosophy, 2004.
“Scalar implicatures: exhaustivity & gricean reasoning”, Ling-Lunch Seminar, MIT, Dept of
Linguistics & Philosophy, February 12, 2004.
“Pseudo Weak Crossover in French relative clauses & global economy”, workshop on relative
clauses, Fall School in Linguistics, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 2003.
“Scalar implicatures: exhaustivity & gricean reasoning”, UCLA/Institut Jean-Nicod workshop on
linguistic interfaces, 2003.
“Scalar implicatures: the debate between localism and globalism”, UCLA philosophy of language
workshop, 2003.
“Predicative structures in French and in Russian. To be (a) human.” (joint work with O.
Matushansky), UCLA Syntax-Semantics seminar, UCLA, Dept of Linguistics, 2003.
“Scalar implicatures: a global account of local effects”, Dip Colloquium, Institute for Logic,
Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam, 2003.
VISITING PROFESSORSHIPS
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Visiting Professor at the University of Vienna, two weeks in 2010.
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Visiting Professor at the University of Vienna, June 2009.
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Mini-course at UCLA, February 2010.
TEACHING AT SUMMER SCHOOLS
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European Summer School in Language, Logic, and Information, 2010 (ESSLLI10): ‘Scalar
implicatures and Grammar’ (with D. Fox)
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European Summer School in Language, Logic, and Information, 2009 (ESSLLI09): ‘Topics in the
semantics of interrogative clauses’.
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Ecole d’automne en linguistique de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure, 2009 (EALING09): ‘Scalar
implicatures and Grammar’.
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Ecole d’automne en linguistique de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure, 2003 (EALING03):
‘Presupposition projection and the semantics/pragmatics interface’.
TEACHING AND ADMINISTRATIVE WORK AT ECOLE NORMALE SUPERIEURE (since 2008)
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2008- 2009:
Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics (joint course with Dominique Sportiche).
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2009-2010:
First Semester:
- Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics (joint course with Dominique Sportiche and Luigi Rizzi).
- Introduction to Cognitive Science (Course organized by Vincent Homer; responsible for 2
sesssions: “Logic and Grammar”, “Linguistic competence”.)
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Second Semester:
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Course on the Syntax and Semantics of Interrogative Clauses.
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Research Seminar on Formal Semantics.
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Directeur des études du Département d’Etudes Cognitives (Spring 2010).
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Member of the pedagogical council of the “Master de sciences cognitives”.
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Advising for Master Students
SERVICE
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Memberships in Journal Editorial Boards: Journal of Semantics, Semantics and Pragmatics.
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Reviewer for scientific journals: Linguistics and Philosophy, Linguistic Inquiry Natural Language
Semantics, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, Journal of Semantics, Semantics and
Pragmatics, Journal of Morphology, Journal of Linguistics, Dialectica
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Reviewing for international scientific conferences: Colloque de syntaxe et de sémantique de Paris
(CSSP), Journées Sémantique et Modélisation (JSM), Meeting of the North-Eastern Linguistics
Society (NELS), Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT), Sinn und Bedeutung, West Coast
Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL).
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Member of Emmanuel Chemla’s PhD defense committee. Defended on January 4, 2008. EHESS.
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