Chapter 11 - Partiality

Abstract

This chapter aims to survey issues in partiality that are of possible relevance to theoretical and computational linguistics. The chapter surveys the various sources of partiality arising from grammatical form, the structure of knowledge, the complexities of rule-following, and the paradoxical properties of self–referential possibilities in natural languages. The chapter presents a model for linguistic structure. The chapter discusses partiality and the structure of knowledge, focusing on the logic and model theory of partial structures, both propositional, first order, and higher types. It includes a distinction between two modules in linguistic analysis, grammatical form and semantical content. Partiality enters at a structural level in both components, complex feature-value structures in connection with representational form and “situations” or partial models in connection with the theory of meaning.