Types and Meanings in Intensionality, Selection and Quantifi er Scope (original) (raw)
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Ambiguities in Intensional Contexts, 1980
This paper presents some possible germs of a theory of intentionality, scope of quantified expressions, specificity, etc., and their representation in grammar. A reclassification of a set of well-known phenomena is offered, based on the introduction of a new primitive concept, 'snapping' NP. The introduction of this new concept results in a reduction in the total number of primitive semantic notions (Section 4). Assuming a form of representation involving what we will call 'scope-reversal' rules for these phenomena, it is furthermore shown, contrary to what most current theories assume, that their semantic description will take a 'split' or 'branching' form (Section 2-4). We fmally (Section 6) argue that these scope-reversing rules, if adopted, do not belong to the syntactic part of a grammar of the languages considered (English and Norwegian). Bya 'scope-reversal' rule we will understand a process relating a structure schematically like (Ia) to a semantically 'disambiguated' representation like (Ib):
Type-shifting in formal semantics of natural languages
In type theoretical approaches to formal semantics of natural languages, a lexical item in a sentence is assigned a type and using a number of composition rules and based on the syntactic structure of the sentence, the types compose to converge to a single type called t, the semantic type for sentences, together with a statement specifying the conditions under which the sentence is true. For example consider the example (1-a) below (1) a. Every linguist offended Fred. b. Fred offended every linguist. The syntactic structure of the sentence, its type assignments and the compositions are as follows(we omit the obvious truth conditions since it does not concern our discussion of type shifting): (2) t DP < et, t > < et, < et, t >> every < e, t > linguist < e, t > V < e, et > offended NP e N e Fred So the above type system correctly predicts that the example (1-a) is semantically interpretable. Consider the word every which has been assigned the type <et , ett>. We say the type <et , ett> is a locally correct type for the word every since this type assignment gives the expected result for a context, namely example (1-a). We call a type assignment, a globally correct assignment if the type assignment converges in all contexts containing the word. Whether there exist globally correct type assignments for lexical entries or not is a challenging question. There are at least four possibilities to be considered: (1) (Hypothesis A) Lexical items have globally correct type assignments. If the type assignment for a lexical item does not converge in a given interpretable context, then either the syntactic structure of the context needs to be changed or a new lexical entry needs to be defined. (2) (Hypothesis B) Some lexical items do not have globally correct type assignments but their locally correct assignments are systematically related.
Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 2015
This paper proposes a unified analysis of the 'respective' readings of plural and conjoined expressions, the internal readings of symmetrical predicates such as same and different, and the summative readings of expressions such as a total of $10,000. These expressions pose significant challenges to compositional semantics, and have been studied extensively in the literature. However, almost all previous studies focus exclusively on one of these phenomena, and the close parallels and interactions that they exhibit have been mostly overlooked to date. We point out two key properties common to these phenomena: (i) they target all types of coordination, including nonconstituent coordination such as Right-Node Raising and Dependent Cluster Coordination; (ii) the three phenomena all exhibit multiple dependency, both by themselves and with respect to each other. These two parallels suggest that one and the same mechanism is at the core of their semantics. Building on this intuition, we propose a unified analysis of these phenomena, in which the meanings of expressions involving coordination are formally modelled as multisets, that is, sets that allow for duplicate occurrences of identical elements. The analysis is couched in Hybrid Type-Logical Categorial Grammar. The flexible syntax-semantics interface of this framework enables an analysis of 'respective' readings and related phenomena which, for the first time in the literature, yields a simple and principled solution for both the interactions with nonconstituent coordination and the multiple dependency noted above.
On the Predicate-Argument Structure: Internal and Absorbing Scope
2017
Valency filling is considered a major mechanism for constructing the semantic structure of the sentence from semantic structures of words. This approach requires a broader view of valency and actant, covering all kinds of actant-bearing words and all types of valency filling. We introduce the concept of scope as a generalization of actant: it is any fragment of a Syntactic (SyntScope) or Semantic Structure (SemScope) that fills a valency of a predicate. Actant is a particular case of scope. We discuss two classes of situations, mostly on the material of Russian, that manifest nonisomorphism between SyntScope and SemScope: (a) meaning α that fills a valency of word L constitutes only a part of the meaning of word L′ (internal scope); (b) predicate π is an internal component of the meaning of word L; π extends its valency (distinct from valencies of L) to words different from L (absorbing scope).
On the interface of syntax and semantics in the interpretation of1
The purpose of this article is to study the behavior of two grammatical modules, syntax and semantics in order to analyze and interpret the sequence of "to be +past participle" (Etre +participle passé) in French grammar. With presenting numerous examples in different contexts, we showed that lots of factors intervene in the syntactic and semantic analysis of this grammatical sequence. These are mainly due to the lexical and semantic properties of the main verb and the adjectival behavior of the essential element of this sequence that is past participle. The choice of past participle as an adjectival form or verbal one would result in passive, aspectual or resultative interpretations or constructions. To distinguish notions such as passive, resultative or aspectual, we applied adverbial test. It is necessary to note that these distinctions are not always clear-cut. What is of great importance is that this analysis places at the intersection of syntax and semantics of French language.
A Mechanism to Restrict the Scope of Clause-Bounded Quantifiers in ‘Continuation’ Semantics
2011
This paper presents a formal mechanism to properly constrain the scope of negation and of certain quantificational determiners to their minimal clause in continuation semantics framework introduced in Barker and Shan (2008) and which was subsequently extended from sentential level to discourse level in Dinu (2011). In these works, type shifting is employed to account for side effects such as pronominal anaphora binding or quantifier scope. However, allowing arbitrary type shifting will result in overgenerating interpretations impossible in natural language. To filter out some of these impossible interpretations, once the negation or the quantifiers reach their maximal scope limits (that is their minimal clause), one should force their scope closing by applying a standard type shifter Lower. But the actual mechanism that forces the scope closing was left underspecified in previous work on continuation semantics. We propose here such a mechanism, designed to ensure that no lexical ent...
Certain Verbs Are Syntactically Explicit Quantifiers / 2010
Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication, 2010
Quantification over individuals, times, and worlds can in principle be made explicit in the syntax of the object language, or left to the semantics and spelled out in the meta-language. The traditional view is that quantification over individuals is syntactically explicit, whereas quantification over times and worlds is not. But a growing body of literature proposes a uniform treatment. This paper examines the scopal interaction of aspectual raising verbs (begin), modals (can), and intensional raising verbs (threaten) with quantificational subjects in Shupamem, Dutch, and English. It appears that aspectual raising verbs and at least modals may undergo the same kind of overt or covert scopechanging operations as nominal quantifiers; the case of intensional raising verbs is less clear. Scope interaction is thus shown to be a new potential diagnostic of object-linguistic quantification, and the similarity in the scope behavior of nominal and verbal quantifiers supports the grammatical plausibility of ontological symmetry, explored in Schlenker .
A Higher-Order Theory of Presupposition
So-called 'dynamic' semantic theories such as Kamp's discourse representation theory and Heim's file change semantics account for such phenomena as crosssentential anaphora, donkey anaphora, and the novelty condition on indefinites, but compare unfavorably with Montague semantics in some important respects (clarity and simplicity of mathematical foundations, compositionality, handling of quantification and coordination). Preliminary efforts have been made by Muskens and by de Groote to revise and extend Montague semantics to cover dynamic phenomena. We present a new higher-order theory of discourse semantics which improves on their accounts by incorporating a more articulated notion of context inspired by ideas due to David Lewis and to Craige Roberts.