59 research outputs found
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Free choice and presuppositional exhaustification
No full textSentences such as Olivia can take Logic or Algebra (‘♢∨-sentences’) are typically interpreted as entailing that Olivia can take Logic and can take Algebra. Given a standard semantics for modals and disjunction, those ‘Free choice’ (FC) readings are not predicted from the surface form of ♢∨-sentences. Yet the standard semantics is appropriate for the ‘double prohibition’ reading typically assigned to ¬♢∨-sentences like Olivia can’t take Logic or Algebra. Several extant approaches to FC can account for those two cases, but face challenges when ♢∨, ¬♢∨ and related sentences appear embedded in certain environments. In this paper, we present a novel account of FC that builds on a ‘grammatical’ theory of scalar implicatures — proposed by Bassi et al. (2021) and Del Pinal (2021) — according to which covert exhaustification is a presupposition trigger such that the prejacent forms the assertive content while any excludable or includable alternatives are incorporated at the non-at issue, presuppositional level. Applied to ♢∨, ¬♢∨, and similar sentences, ‘presuppositional exhaustification’ predicts that their default interpretations have an assertive component (roughly, the classical interpretation of the prejacent) and a homogeneity presupposition which projects in standard ways. Those predictions, we then show, support a uniform account of the puzzling behavior of ♢∨, ¬♢∨, and related sentences when embedded under (negative) factives (Marty & Romoli 2020), disjunctions (Romoli & Santorio 2019), and in the scope of universal, existential (Bar-Lev & Fox 2020) and non-monotonic quantifiers (Gotzner et al. 2020)
The Logicality of Language: A new take on Triviality, “Ungrammaticality”, and Logical Form*
Full text linkRecent work in formal semantics suggests that the language system includes not only a structure building device, as standardly assumed, but also a natural deductive system which can determine when expressions have trivial truth‐conditions (e.g., are logically true/false) and mark them as unacceptable. This hypothesis, called the ‘logicality of language’, accounts for many acceptability patterns, including systematic restrictions on the distribution of quantifiers. To deal with apparent counter‐examples consisting of acceptable tautologies and contradictions, the logicality of language is often paired with an additional assumption according to which logical forms are radically underspecified: i.e., the language system can see functional terms but is ‘blind’ to open class terms to the extent that different tokens of the same term are treated as if independent. This conception of logical form has profound implications: it suggests an extreme version of the modularity of language, and can only be paired with non‐classical—indeed quite exotic—kinds of deductive systems. The aim of this paper is to show that we can pair the logicality of language with a different and ultimately more traditional account of logical form. This framework accounts for the basic acceptability patterns which motivated the logicality of language, can explain why some tautologies and contradictions are acceptable, and makes better predictions in key cases. As a result, we can pursue versions of the logicality of language in frameworks compatible with the view that the language system is not radically modular vis‐á‐vis its open class terms and employs a deductive system that is basically classical.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/152002/1/nous12235_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/152002/2/nous12235.pd
Dual character concepts in social cognition: Commitments and the normative dimension of conceptual representation
Full text linkThe concepts expressed by social role terms such as artist and scientist are unique in that they seem to allow two independent criteria for categorization, one of which is inherently normative (Knobe et al., 2013). This paper presents and tests an account of the content and structure of the normative dimension of these ‘dual character con- cepts’. Experiment 1 suggests that the normative dimension of a social role concept represents the commitment to fulfill the idealised basic function associated with the role. Background information can a↵ect which basic function is associated with each social role. However, Experiment 2 indicates that the normative dimension always represents the relevant commitment as an end in itself. We argue that social role concepts represent the commitments to basic functions because that information is crucial to predict the future social roles and role-dependent behavior of others
Dual Content Semantics, privative adjectives, and dynamic compositionality
Full text linkThis paper defends the view that common nouns have a dual semantic structure that includes extension-determining and non-extension-determining components. I argue that the non-extension-determining components are part of linguistic meaning because they play a key compositional role in certain constructions, especially in privative noun phrases such as fake gun and counterfeit document. Furthermore, I show that if we modify the compositional interpretation rules in certain simple ways, this dual content account of noun phrase modification can be implemented in a type-driven formal semantic framework. In addition, I also argue against traditional accounts of privative noun phrases which can be paired with the assumption that nouns do not have a dual semantic structure. At the most general level, this paper presents a proposal for how we can begin to integrate a psychologically realistic account of lexical semantics with a linguistically plausible compositional semantic framework.
http://dx.doi.org/10.3765/sp.8.7
BibTeX info</a
Meaning, modulation, and context: a multidimensional semantics for truth-conditional pragmatics
Full text linkConceptual centrality and implicit bias
Full text linkPeer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142467/1/mila12166_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142467/2/mila12166.pd
ABORDAJE PARA DIAGNÓSTICO DEL NEONATO CON CARDIOPATÍA Y SU CORRELACIÓN ECOCARDIOGRÁFICA
No full textEl estudio de las cardiopatías congénitas en los libros de texto de cardiología pediátrica, de neonatología y de pediatría, son siempre abordados como entidades nosológicas, es decir, se parte del diagnostico hacia el cuadro clínico.
Se decidió realizar un protocolo para abordar al neonato con signos y síntomas que sugieren alguna cardiopatía. Ya sea congénita ó adquirida en dicha etapa. Se hace énfasis en el abordaje por la clínica que presenta el recién nacido, y se engloban en 5 grupos:
Por Hidrops Fetalis de origen cardiogénico.
Dificultad respiratoria con y sin cardiomegalia.
Choque de origen cardiogénico.
Por cianosis severa con desaturación importante.
Por cianosis ligera con insuficiencia cardiaca
Se define en cada grupo que signos y síntomas presentan, se continua por una vía de diagnostico, para continuar posteriormente con el tratamiento y el momento adecuado para solicitar interconsulta y/o valoración por cardiología pediátrica.
Se realizó una ruta diagnostica sobre la base de los síntomas con los que ingresa el RN a las salas de neonatos, se sugirieron diagnósticos diferenciales, pruebas de diagnostico final y se mencionaran, los principios del tratamiento específico de estos pacientes. Posteriormente, se solicitará ecocardiograma y se buscara su correlación - diagnostico clínico – ecocardiograma.
De abril a octubre (7 meses), nacieron en el hospital de Gineco – Pediatría
No. 48 del IMSS en la Ciudad de León, Guanajuato; un total de 13 920 neonatos.
Se define en cada grupo que signos y síntomas presentan, se continua por una vía de diagnostico, para continuar posteriormente con el tratamiento y el momento adecuado para solicitar interconsulta y/o valoración por cardiología pediátrica.
Se realizó una ruta diagnostica sobre la base de los síntomas con los que ingresa el
RN a las salas de neonatos, se sugirieron diagnósticos diferenciales, pruebas de diagnostico final y se mencionaran, los principios del tratamiento específico de estos pacientes. Posteriormente, se solicitará ecocardiograma y se buscara su correlación - diagnostico clínico – ecocardiograma.
De abril a octubre (7 meses), nacieron en el hospital de Gineco – Pediatría
No. 48 del IMSS en la Ciudad de León, Guanajuato; un total de 13 920 neonatos
The Logicality of Language: Contextualism versus Semantic Minimalism
Full text linkThe logicality of language is the hypothesis that the language system has access to a ‘natural’ logic that can identify and filter out as unacceptable expressions that have trivial meanings—that is, that are true/false in all possible worlds or situations in which they are defined. This hypothesis helps explain otherwise puzzling patterns concerning the distribution of various functional terms and phrases. Despite its promise, logicality vastly over-generates unacceptability assignments. Most solutions to this problem rest on specific stipulations about the properties of logical form—roughly, the level of linguistic representation which feeds into the interpretation procedures—and have substantial implications for traditional philosophical disputes about the nature of language. Specifically, contextualism and semantic minimalism, construed as competing hypotheses about the nature and degree of context-sensitivity at the level of logical form, suggest different approaches to the over-generation problem. In this paper, I explore the implications of pairing logicality with various forms of contextualism and semantic minimalism. I argue that to adequately solve the over-generation problem, logicality should be implemented in a constrained contextualist framework
Probabilistic semantics for epistemic modals: Normality assumptions, conditional epistemic spaces and the strength of must and might
Full text linkThe epistemic modal auxiliaries must and might are vehicles for expressing the force with which a proposition follows from some body of evidence or information. Standard approaches model these operators using quantificational modal logic, but probabilistic approaches are becoming increasingly influential. According to a traditional view, must is a maximally strong epistemic operator and might is a bare possibility one. A competing account—popular amongst proponents of a probabilisitic turn—says that, given a body of evidence, must \ entails that \\) is high but non-maximal and might \ that \\) is significantly greater than 0. Drawing on several observations concerning the behavior of must, might and similar epistemic operators in evidential contexts, deductive inferences, downplaying and retractions scenarios, and expressions of epistemic tension, I argue that those two influential accounts have systematic descriptive shortcomings. To better make sense of their complex behavior, I propose instead a broadly Kratzerian account according to which must \ entails that \ = 1\) and might \ that \ \u3e 0\), given a body of evidence and a set of normality assumptions about the world. From this perspective, must and might are vehicles for expressing a common mode of reasoning whereby we draw inferences from specific bits of evidence against a rich set of background assumptions—some of which we represent as defeasible—which capture our general expectations about the world. I will show that the predictions of this Kratzerian account can be substantially refined once it is combined with a specific yet independently motivated ‘grammatical’ approach to the computation of scalar implicatures. Finally, I discuss some implications of these results for more general discussions concerning the empirical and theoretical motivation to adopt a probabilisitic semantic framework
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