Agency / Expectation / Intention / Opposition / Unpredictability: How language makes sense of influences on our actions

PIs:

• Heidi Harley, Linguistics, UArizona
• Bridget Copley, Structures Fomelles du Langage

Our actions are influenced not only by our own intentions and expectations but also by circumstances, feelings, and norms. Language provides a window into how we conceptualize opposing and congruent influences; moreover, different languages reveal different ways minds can package these concepts. Yet state-of-the-art formal semantic frameworks do not permit a rich representation of influences. Instead, this project's starting point will be a formal framework (causal models) that originated outside of linguistics. Testing this framework against cross-linguistic data, the team will mold it into a linguistically informed model of underlying human representations of influence. Since this framework is new, student and early researcher training during the model creation is essential. The model is expected to provide new possibilities for the causal semantics of indigenous languages, especially for reclamation efforts by indigenous communities, in line with the University of Arizona's Land Grant mission.