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Genitives, relational nouns, and the argument-modifier distinction
No full textThe argument-modifier distinction is less clear in NPs than in VPs; nouns do not typically take arguments. The clearest cases of arguments in NPs are in certain kinds of nominalizations which retain some "verbal" properties (Grimshaw 1990). The status of apparent arguments of non-deverbal relational nouns like sister is more controversial.
Genitive constructions like 'John's teacher', 'team of John's' offer a challenging testing ground for the argument-modifier distinction in NPs, both in English and cross-linguistically. On the analyses of Partee (1983/97) and Barker (1995), the DP in a genitive phrase (i.e. 'John' in 'John's') is always an argument of some relation, but the relation does not always come from the head noun. On those "ambiguity" analyses, some genitives are argument-like and some are modifier-like. Recent proposals by Jensen and Vikner and by Borschev and Partee analyze all genitives as argument-like, a conclusion we are no longer sure of.
In this paper we explore a range of possible analyses: argument-only, modifier-only, and ambiguity analyses, and consider the kinds of semantic evidence that suggest that different analyses may be correct for different genitive or possessive constructions in different languages
Identity in Epistemic Semantics
No full textThis paper is a contribution to the semantical theory of different types of knowledge ascription, in particular the semantics of `knowing who' and of the interaction between quantifiers and epistemic modal expressions. In possible world semantics, the truth conditions of such sentences depend on the way that identity across possible worlds is modeled. The main argument of this paper is that the context-dependence of such sentences can be modeled as a dependence on the identity relation between objects in possible world
Bisimulations on Planet
No full textinstitute for logic, language and computation For further information about ILLC-publications, please contac
The Surprise Examination
No full textWe examine a version of the surprise examination paradox using dynamic epistemic logic. We claim that the di#culties in the puzzle arise from the assumption that announcements are in general successful: the hearer will come to believe that they are true. This principle fails in certain specific cases, and we show that the announcement in the surprise exam paradox is an example. In dynamic epistemic logic, announcements that are not successful can be informative anyway. This analysis explains how sentences that are true but cannot consistently be believed, can be informative anyway, resolving many of the puzzling aspects of the puzzle
Identity in Epistemic Semantics
No full textThis paper is a contribution to the semantical theory of di#erent types of knowledge ascription, in particular the semantics of `knowing who' and of the interaction between quantifiers and epistemic modal expressions. In possible world semantics, the truth conditions of such sentences depend on the way that identity across possible worlds is modeled. The main argument of this paper is that the context-dependence of such sentences can be modeled as a dependence on the identity relation between objects in possible world
Distributed Knowledge
No full textIn this paper, two definitions for the notion of distributed knowledge in possible worlds semantics are discussed and compared. In the first definition distributed knowledge is characterized by intersection of information states, the second defines the concept as `those sentences that are logical consequences of the beliefs of the agents.' I will argue that the effect of the first kind of definition depends on the ontological view one has about possible worlds, and that the second kind of definition depends on the expressive power of the language. I will also show that the logic of the two operators is the same, in the sense that the logics have the same weakly sound and complete axiom system
Epistemic Equivalence and Bisimulation
No full textBisimulation is an equivalence relation over Kripke models. It is often claimed, but little argued for, that bisimulation captures a `natural' notion of similarity in epistemic semantics, in the sense that the di#erences between bisimilar models are, from an epistemic point of view, irrelevant. In this paper we examine three types of arguments pertaining to the view that bisimilar models are `epistemically equivalent.' We start with examining an `ontological arguments' having to do with what a Kripke model is, or is meant to do, and use a theorem from co-algebra to argue that bisimilar models should, under certain assumptions, represent the same epistemic situations. We then examine the relationship between bisimulation and the expressive power of epistemic logic, and conclude that the two notions do not fit in any precise way. Finally, we identify a number of desirable properties of a notion of epistemic equivalence, and conclude that although bisimulation satisfies all of these properties, the properties themselves do not characterize bisimulation
Logics of Propositional Control
No full textThe `Cooperation Logic of Propositional Control', cl-pc, of van der Hoek and Wooldridge is a logic for reasoning about the ability of agents and groups of agents to obtain a certain state of a#airs in a situation in which each of the agents controls a number of propositional variables. We presen
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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