10,319 research outputs found
Compositionality and Concepts in Linguistics and Psychology
No full textcognitive science; semantics; languag
Compositionality and Concepts in Linguistics and Psychology
No full textcognitive science; semantics; languag
Review of "Flexibility principles in Boolean semantics" by Yoad Winter
No full textAn 8 page review of Yoad Winter’s book on plurality and conjunction, based on his dissertation and published by MIT Press
Review of "Flexibility principles in Boolean semantics" by Yoad Winter
No full textAn 8 page review of Yoad Winter’s book on plurality and conjunction, based on his dissertation and published by MIT Press
On Some Problems of (In)definiteness within Flexible Semantics
No full textThis paper studies the ramifications of the flexible semantics in Winter (2001) for the analysis of some of the facts in ”the core set ” for this special issue. Within this framework, it argues (i) for a general ”anti-economy ” principle in the application of choice functions to (non-)specificity markers; (ii) for DP structure as the main trigger of different scope potentials; (iii) for lexical structure as characterizing the common/proper noun distinction and the special class of bare “presidentlike” nominals; and (iv) for Danon’s (2001) notion of purely-syntactic ”definiteness spreading ” in Hebrew construct states
Semantic Universals and Choice Function Theory
No full textthis paper. One of conceptual problems for a theory with choice functions is that, even given that the semantics of indefinites involves functions, it still does not follow that these have to be choice functions. The common practise is to stipulate this restriction in order to get existential semantics right. However, a so-far open question is whether there is any way to derive choice function interpretation from more general properties of natural language. In order to answer this question, this paper proposes a revision in the treatment of choice functions in Winter (1997), leaving its linguistic predictions unaffected but changing slightly the compositional mechanism. This modification opens the way for proving the following theorem: function variables in the analysis of the noun phrase must denote only choice functions and can derive only the standard existential analysis by virtue of the conservativity, logicality and non-triviality universals of Generalized Quantifier Theory as proposed in Barwise and Cooper (1981), van Benthem (1984), Thijsse (1983) and others. In other words, if the semantic relation that the indefinite expresses between the noun and the main predicate is to satisfy the universals of generalized quantifier theory then quantification over functions must be restricted to choice functions. The investigation of the problem starts in section 2 by briefly reviewing the motivation for choice function semantics and introducing a basic problem for its formalization: the treatment of indefinites with a common noun that denotes the empty set. The solution of Winter (1997) to this problem is reviewed in section 3. Section 4 modifies this solution. After reviewing some universals of generalized quantifier theory in section 5, section 6 shows that the revised ..
Closure and Telicity across Categories
No full textOne of the fascinating aspects of telicity is its relations with non-verbal categories. Whether a given predicate is telic or atelic does not only depend on the verb, but can also be affected by the count/mass quantification in the NP object, by the lexical semantics of related adjectives, and by the prepositions that the predicate may con
A type-logical account of quantification in event semantics
No full textInternational audienceIt has been argued that Davidson's event semantics does not combine smoothly with Montague's compositional semantics. The difficulty, which we call the event quantification problem, comes from a possibly bad interaction between event existential closure, on the one hand, and quantification, negation, or conjunction, on the other hand. The re-cent literature provides two solutions to this problem. The first one is due to Champollion, and the second one to Winter and Zwarts. The present paper elaborates on this second solution. In particular, it provides a treatment of quantified adverbial modifiers, which was absent from Winter and Zwarts
Non-Existential Indefinites and Semantic Incorporation of PP Complements
No full textThis paper studies some newly observed phenomena with indefinite descriptions when they appear as complements of prepositional phrases (PPs). We show that in many such cases the indefinite does not receive the traditional existential interpretation, and its quantificational force is sensitive to the identity of the preposition. Such cases of quantificational variability are explained by elaborating previous theories of semantic incorporation. In our proposal, predicative indefinites are direct arguments of the spatial component in the semantics of the PP. The semantics of spatial prepositions is directly responsible for the quantificational interpretation of predicative indefinites that appear as PP complements. Using earlier studies of locative prepositions, especially (Zwarts and Winter 2000), we analyze the effects that monotonicity and (anti-)additivity of prepositions have on the quantificational interpretation of predicative indefinites in their complement. These semantic observations are supported by standard tests from entailments and acceptability with negative polarity items. 1
The poems of William Winter.
No full text"This edition ... on hand-made Japan vellum, and containing as original print of a portrait of the author made especially for this edition, is limited to one hundred and fifty copies.... For George A. Armour, Allison House. [Signed] William Winter."Mode of access: Internet
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