Download or read book Anaphora and Semantic Interpretation written by Tanya Reinhart and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-11-25 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1983, this book examines anaphora — a central issue in linguistic theory as it lies at the crossroads of several major problems. On the one hand it is believed that the same conditions that govern the interpretation of anaphora also govern syntactic movement rules but on the other, while anaphora is known to interact with various discourse and semantic considerations, it also provides a clear instance of the dependency of the semantic interpretation of sentences upon semantic properties of natural language. This book has two major goals: the first is a comprehensive analysis of sentence-level anaphora that addresses the questions posed above, and the second is an examination of the broader issues of the relations between the structural properties of sentences and their semantic interpretation within the hypotheses of the autonomy of syntax and of interpretative semantics shown by Chomsky.

Download or read book Dynamics of Meaning written by Gennaro Chierchia and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-02-20 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Dynamics of Meaning, Gennaro Chierchia tackles central issues in dynamic semantics and extends the general framework. Chapter 1 introduces the notion of dynamic semantics and discusses in detail the phenomena that have been used to motivate it, such as "donkey" sentences and adverbs of quantification. The second chapter explores in greater depth the interpretation of indefinites and issues related to presuppositions of uniqueness and the "E-type strategy." In Chapter 3, Chierchia extends the dynamic approach to the domain of syntactic theory, considering a range of empirical problems that includes backwards anaphora, reconstruction effects, and weak crossover. The final chapter develops the formal system of dynamic semantics to deal with central issues of definites and presupposition. Chierchia shows that an approach based on a principled enrichment of the mechanisms dealing with meaning is to be preferred on empirical grounds over approaches that depend on an enrichment of the syntactic apparatus. Dynamics of Meaning illustrates how seemingly abstract stances on the nature of meaning can have significant and far-reaching linguistic consequences, leading to the detection of new facts and influencing our understanding of the syntax/semantics/pragmatics interface.

Download or read book The Syntax of Anaphora written by Ken Safir and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-04-08 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this work, Ken Safir develops a comprehensive theory on the role of anaphora in syntax. First, he contends that the complementary distribution of forms that support the anaphoric readings is not accidental, contrary to most current thinking, but rather should be derived from a principle, one that he proposes in the form of an algorithm. Secondly, he maintains that dependent identity relations are always possible where they are not prohibited by a constraint. Lastly, he proposes that there are no parameters of anaphora - that all anaphora-specific principles are universal, and that the patterns of anaphora across languages arise entirely from a restricted set of lexical properties. This comprehensive consideration of anaphora redirects current thinking on the subject.

Download or read book Anaphora written by Andrew Barss and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anaphora: A Reference Guide is a collection of essays that report on the major results of recent research in anaphora and set the stage for further inquiry. Reports on the major results of recent research in anaphora and sets the stage for further inquiry. Features contributions from among the world's leading researchers on anaphora. Presents an exciting picture of how broad the phenomenon of anaphora is and how it can reveal many mysterious properties of language. Includes articles of interest to many disciplines, including philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, cognitive science, linguistics, language studies, cognitive psychology, and psycholinguistics.

Download or read book Reference to Abstract Objects in Discourse written by Nicholas Asher and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reference to Abstract Objects in Discourse presents a novel framework and analysis of the ways we refer to abstract objects in natural language discourse. The book begins with a typology of abstract objects and related entities like eventualities. After an introduction to `bottom up, compositional' discourse representation theory (DRT) and to previous work on abstract objects in DRT (notably work on the semantics of the attitudes), the book turns to a semantic analysis of eventuality and abstract object denoting nominals in English. The book then substantially revises and extends the dynamic semantic framework of DRT to develop an analysis of anaphoric reference to abstract objects and eventualities that exploits discourse structure and the discourse relations that obtain between elements of the structure. A dynamic, semantically based theory of discourse structure (SDRT) is proposed, along with many illustrative examples. Two further chapters then provide the analysis of anaphoric reference to propositions VP ellipsis. The abstract entity anaphoric antecedents are elements of the discourse structures that SDRT develops. The final chapter discusses some logical and philosophical difficulties for a semantic analysis of reference to abstract objects. For semanticists, philosophers of language, computer scientists interested in natural language applications and discourse, philosophical logicians, graduate students in linguistics, philosophy, cognitive science and artificial intelligence.

Download or read book Resource Sensitivity Binding and Anaphora written by Geert-Jan M. Kruijff and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geert-Jan Kruijff & Richard T. Oehrle A categorial grammar is both a grammar and a type inference system. As a result of this duality, the categorial framework offers a natural setting in which to study questions of grammatical composition, both empirically and abstractly. There are affinities in this perspective, of course, to basic questions in formal language theory. But the fact that categorial grammars are type in ference systems makes possible intrinsic connections among syntactic types, syntactic type inference, semantic types, and semantic type inference, a con nection less apparent in the standard constructions of formal language theory. Fixing a system of grammatical type inference T, we may explore what gram matical phenomena are compatible with T-and equally, what grammatical phenomena are not. Equally, fixing a class of grammatical phenomena g, we may seek to ascertain what systems of type inference characterize g. This dual perspective is a strong current in the categorial literature, going back to the classical papers of Ajdukiewicz, Bar-Hillel, Curry, and Lambek.

Download or read book Functional Inheritance Anaphora and Semantic Interpretation in a Generalized Categorial Grammar written by Beom-mo Kang and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Anaphora in Generative Grammar written by Thomas Wasow and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1979-01-01 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intuitively, it is clear why languages have anaphoric relations: anaphora reduces redundancy, thereby shortening (and hence simplifying) sentences. In order for this simplification to be possible, however, it is necessary that the speaker of a language be able to identify correctly the elements participating in an anaphoric relation and to determine correctly the meaning of the anaphor on the basis of meaning of the antecedent. If a grammar is to reflect the linguistic competence of a native speaker of a language, it must include mechanisms of associating anaphor and antecedent. In this volume the following questions will be considered: What sorts of mechanisms are best suited for representing anaphora in a grammar? What are the conditions on the rule(s) associating anaphors with antecedents? Do the various cases of anaphora form a linguistically significant class of phenomena, and, if so, how can the grammar capture this fact? And what do these answers entail for linguistic theory?

Download or read book Anaphora and Language Design written by Eric Reuland and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-11-15 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study on anaphoric dependencies that derives the conditions on anaphora in natural language from the design properties of the language system. Pronouns and anaphors (including reflexives such as himself and herself) may or must depend on antecedents for their interpretation. These dependencies are subject to conditions that prima facie show substantial crosslinguistic variation. In this monograph, Eric Reuland presents a theory of how these anaphoric dependencies are represented in natural language in a way that does justice to the the variation one finds across languages. He explains the conditions on these dependencies in terms of elementary properties of the computational system of natural language. He shows that the encoding of anaphoric dependencies makes use of components of the language system that all reflect different cognitive capacities; thus the empirical research he reports on offers insights into the design of the language system. Reuland’s account reduces the conditions on binding to independent properties of the grammar, none of which is specific to binding. He offers a principled account of the roles of the lexicon, syntax, semantics, and the discourse component in the encoding of anaphoric dependencies; a window into the overall organization of the grammar and the roles of linguistic and extralinguistic factors; a new typology of anaphoric expressions; a view of crosslinguistic variation (examining facts in a range of languages, from English, Dutch, Frisian, German, and Scandinavian languages to Fijian, Georgian, and Malayalam) that shows unity in diversity.

Download or read book Essays on Anaphora written by H. Lasnik and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The articles collected in this book are concerned with the treatment of anaphora within generative grammar, specifically, within Chomsky's 'Ex tended Standard Theory' (EST). Since the inception of this theory, and virtually since the inception of generative grammar, anaphora has been a central topic of investigation. In current research, it has, perhaps, become even more central, as a major focus of study in such areas as syntax, semantics, discourse analysis, and language acquisition. Beginning in the early 1970's, and continuing to the present, Chomsky has developed a comprehensive syntactic theory of anaphora. The articles here are all related to stages in the development of that theory, and can best be understood in relation to that development. For that reason, Chapter 1 presents a historical survey of Chomsky's EST proposals on anaphora, along with brief indications of how the present articles fit into that history. Some of the articles here (e.g. Chapters 4, 8, and 9) proposed extensions of Chomsky's basic ideas to a wider range of phenomena.

Download or read book Anaphora Discourse and Understanding written by Francis Cornish and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This was a different man," said Mr Welbecker. "Listen! This man was called Hamlet and his uncle had killed his father because he wanted to marry his mother.""What did he want to marry his mother for?" said William. "I've never heard of anyone wanting to marry their mother."*In almost any conversation the meaning of what is said depends on the listener seeing how some words refer to what has already been said, and that others must be related to the characteristics of time, place, or person of the situation around which the conversation revolves. These modes ofreference, anaphora and deixis respectively, involve surprisingly complicated cognitive and syntactic processes, which people (normally) perform easily and unerringly. But they present formidable problems for the linguist and cognitive scientist trying to explain precisely how comprehension isachieved. Anaphora and deixis are thus a central research focus in syntactic theory, while understanding and modelling their operation in discourse are important targets in computational linguistics and cognitive science. In this ambitious work, Francis Cornish sets out an original theory ofanaphora and deixis, and proposes a new and elegant theoretical model to represent the transfer of meaning in discourse.Dr Cornish considers anaphoric reference in discourse from both psychological and linguistic perspectives. He argues that anaphora and deixis are essentially parts of integrative discourse procedures that facilitate the linking of representations held in working memory. He brings together work bylinguists, formal semanticists, psychologists, and researchers in artificial intelligence, as well as drawing on his own extensive experimental work on a variety of corpora of different genres in French and English.Anaphora, Discourse, and Understanding will interest researchers and advanced students in a variety of fields within and outside linguistics, including cognitive science, artificial intelligence, syntactic theory, formal semantics, and the analysis of discourse.[* from William - The Pirate by Richmal Crompton, London, Macmillan, 1932]

Download or read book Anaphora Resolution and Text Retrieval written by Helene Schmolz and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2015-03-30 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book covers anaphora resolution for the English language from a linguistic and computational point of view. First, a definition of anaphors that applies to linguistics as well as information technology is given. On this foundation, all types of anaphors and their characteristics for English are outlined. To examine how frequent each type of anaphor is, a corpus of different hypertexts has been established and analysed with regard to anaphors. The most frequent type are non-finite clause anaphors - a type which has never been investigated so far. Therefore, the potential of non-finite clause anaphors are further explored with respect to anaphora resolution. After presenting the fundamentals of computational anaphora resolution and its application in text retrieval, rules for resolving non-finite clause anaphors are established. Therefore, this book shows that a truly interdisciplinary approach can achieve results which would not have been possible otherwise.

Download or read book Implicatures in Discourse written by Sarah E. Blackwell and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2003 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Implicatures in Discourse" examines Spanish conversations and oral narratives in order to seek support for a pragmatic theory of anaphora. Blackwell argues that the use of anaphoric expressions may be considered conversational implicatures that give rise to inferences of coreference and non-coreference. Her analysis shows how speakers abide by Levinson's 'neo-Gricean' principles of Quantity, Informativeness, and Manner, but that grammatical, semantic, cognitive, and pragmatic constraints interact with the neo-Gricean principles, influencing anaphora use and interpretation. The study also reveals how mutual knowledge, including familiarity with Spanish social and cultural norms, enables interlocutors to use and comprehend minimal referring expressions, which cultural outsiders may not be able to interpret. While drawing on earlier work on anaphora and reference, this book offers a fresh look at discourse anaphora, and sheds light on the ways in which speakers felicitously use and interpret anaphoric expressions in a variety of communicative contexts.

Download or read book Anaphora and Type Logical Grammar written by Gerhard Jäger and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2005-12-08 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Type Logical Grammar is a framework that emerged from the synthesis of two traditions: Categorial Grammar from formal linguistics and substructural logics from logic. Grammatical composition is conceived as resource conscious logical deduction. Such a grammar is necessarily surface oriented and lexicalistic. The Curry-Howard correspondence supplies an elegant compositional mapping from syntax to semantics. Anaphora does not seem to fit well into this framework. In type logical deductions, each resource is used exactly once. Anaphora, however, is a phenomenon where semantic resources are used more than once. Generally admitting the multiple use of lexical resources is not possible because it would lead to empirical inadequacy and computational intractability. This book develops a hybrid architecture that allows to incorporate anaphora resolution into grammatical deduction while avoiding these consequences. To this end, the grammar logic is enriched with a connective that specifically deals with anaphora. After giving a self-contained introduction into Type Logical Grammar in general, the book discusses the formal properties of this connective. In the sequel, Jäger applies this machinery to numerous linguistic phenomena pertaining to the interaction of pronominal anaphora, VP ellipsis and quantification. In the final chapter, the framework is extended to indefiniteness, specificity and sluicing.

Download or read book Anaphora and Distributivity written by Jakub Dotlačil and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Syntax of Anaphora written by Ken Safir and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2004-04-08 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this work, Ken Safir develops a comprehensive theory on the role of anaphora in syntax. First, he contends that the complementary distribution of forms that support the anaphoric readings is not accidental, contrary to most current thinking, but rather should be derived from a principle, one that he proposes in the form of an algorithm. Secondly, he maintains that dependent identity relations are always possible where they are not prohibited by a constraint. Lastly, he proposes that there are no parameters of anaphora - that all anaphora-specific principles are universal, and that the patterns of anaphora across languages arise entirely from a restricted set of lexical properties. This comprehensive consideration of anaphora redirects current thinking on the subject.

Download or read book Mental Models and the Interpretation of Anaphora written by Alan Garnham and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2013-06-17 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The interpretation of anaphora - how we interpret expressions such as definite pronouns (he, she, it) and verbal elliptical phrases (such as "did so, too") in the course of ordinary conversation or reading - is an important aspect of language comprehension. In this book the author examines the research and evidence on anaphor interpretation within the context of the mental models theory of comprehension, arguing that the notion of a mental model is essential to the detailed description of the processes of anaphor resolution. The general philosophy of the mental models approach and the nature of mental models themselves and their role in language processing is discussed, followed by a review of methodological issues that bear on the interpretation of psychological research findings. Against this background, the author's own research on areas such as deep and surface anaphora, reference into anaphoric islands, the role of implicit causality in anaphor resolution and the use of pronouns to refer to characters introduced by stereotyped role names is presented. At all times the author's research is set within the context of the general literature on anaphor resolution derived from the disciplines of linguistics, psycholinguistics, philosophy and computational linguistics, ensuring that the book will be of interest to advanced students and researchers in these fields.