Workshop "Questions and the Discourse": Introductory words

The workshop "Questions and the Discourse" aims to celebrate Valentin D. Richard's defense and gather colleagues working on topics related to his PhD dissertation. This presentation introduces the talks of the three speakers and connections between their work and Richard's thesis.The unity behind the talks rely on the pervasive presence of alternatives in natural language structures and models. Alternatives construed as Questions under Discussions can help us keep track of conversation topics. Regarding indefinites, modeling their interpretation with sets of possible values allows us to capture variation and dependence between individuals. Finally, modeling disjunction with truthmakers provides a finer model for certain subtle effects.