Parts and Wholes in Semantics (Oxford UP, 1997) (original) (raw)
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A new notion of part structure for natural language
Data and K nowledge Engineering 20(3):323-345, 1996
In this paper a new notion of part structure for the semantics of natural language is presented: a notion of part structure that is relative to a situation and unlike extensional mereological notions, crucially involves conditions of integrity. The notion is motivated by a variety of different constructions of natural language.
Some features of the part-of relation with respect to verbal predication
Paris, 15-16 décembre 2008 -Colloque PEPSRelations 1 Parthood Relation: an historical point of view Theories based on relations between parts and wholes are currenty named mereologies (from the Greek µǫρoς, part). The roots of mereology can be traced back to the early stage of western philosophy, beginning with the Presocratic. Four notions are connected : part versus bit, whole versus unit.
Partitivity in natural language
In this paper I will look at two analyses of partitives that incorporate the anti-uniqueness constraint in the semantics: [2] and [21] and . I will show that they present both conceptual and empirical problems and I will present a novel, pragmatic alternative. The main focus is on Zamparelli's and my own analysis. Special attention is paid to a particular kind of partitive, viz. the faded partitive ([10]).
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The analysis of types of part-whole relations in common sense reasoning is focused on the question how people in their everyday reasoning conceptualize and categorize part-whole relationships. This question is related to, but as such distinct from, the diversity of part-whole relationships defined by formal mereological systems. By the same token, the question is not which or how different types of part-whole relations are explicitly coded linguistically (e.g., grammatically or lexically) across languages. Of course, language is an important part of human behaviour and hence linguistic coding does certainly provide us with information about common-sense reasoning of part-whole relations. But one should not assume a one-toone mapping between linguistic coding and conceptualization of part-whole relational types.
Grazer Philosophische Studien, 1990
Although the relationship of part to whole is one of the most fundamental there is, this is the first full-length study of this key concept. Showing that mereology, or the formal theory of part and whole, is essential to ontology, Simons surveys and critiques previous theories-especially the standard extensional view-and proposes a new account that encompasses both temporal and modal considerations. Simons's revised theory not only allows him to offer fresh solutions to long-standing problems, but also has far-reaching consequences for our understanding of a host of classical philosophical concepts.