Explicit Negation Research Articles

China’s New School of Thought-Masters (Xinzixue): An Alternative to Sinologism?

Abstract As is well known, identity studies have always to do with drawing boundaries. In Western sinological works as in the debates of Chinese intellectuals concerning their cultural identity, there are a number of fields which are again and again demarcated against some corresponding fields in other cultures: Chinese philosophy, Chinese literature, Chinese history etc. The practice of drawing boundaries is not limited to the work of the so called cultural relativists. Universalists, who display a critical attitude towards cultural relativism and advocate the equality of cultural phenomena in the world as a matter of principle, construct their argumentation also on the basis of a crucial boundary, i. e. the conception of their own program – their own academic identity – as opposing the program of cultural relativism. The present study defends the idea that any discussion of questions concerning identity constructions, any act of drawing boundaries, as any criticism against drawing them can be interpreted as a political statement and that they become every time problematic when they are accompanied by an explicit negation of politics or when they are not reflected upon as participating in politics. The focus will lie on Chinese readings of Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) and on current Chinese debates about the issue of national identity.

Semantic and pragmatic processes in the comprehension of negation: An event related potential study of negative polarity sensitivity

Abstract Most previous studies on negation have generally only focused on sentential negation ( not ), but the time course of processing negative meaning from different sources remains poorly understood. In an ERP study (Experiment 1), we make use of the negation-sensitivity of negative polarity items (NPIs) and examine the time course of processing different kinds of negation. Four kinds of NPI-licensing environments were examined: the negative determiner no , the negative determiner few , the focus marker only , and emotive predicates (e.g., surprised ). While the first three contribute a negative meaning via semantic assertion (explicit negation), the last gives rise to a pragmatic negative inference via non-asserted content (implicit negation). Under all these environments, an NPI elicited a smaller N400 compared to an unlicensed NPI, suggesting that negation, regardless of its source, is rapidly computed online. However, we also observed that explicit negative meaning (i.e., semantic, as contributed in the assertion) and implicit negative meaning (contributed by pragmatic inferences) were integrated into the grammatical representation in different ways, leading to a difference in the P600, and calling for a separation of semantic and pragmatic integration during sentence processing (and NPI licensing). The qualitative differences between these conditions were also replicated in a self-paced reading study (Experiment 2).

The acquisition of the Dutch discourse particle wel

Abstract Dutch is known for its large inventory of discourse particles. Discourse particles are very frequent and highly important in conversation. Yet, not much research has been conducted on how children acquire them. In this paper we focus on the acquisition of the Dutch discourse particle wel. In earlier work, it was argued that despite the apparent diversity of the different uses of the particle wel, it has a core meaning, namely that it functions as a denial of an implicit or explicit negation in the context. In this paper we show that this core meaning is also reflected in the acquisition pattern of wel by Dutch children. Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of the occurrences of wel are not used as a response to an explicit negation, children seem to acquire wel as the positive counterpart of niet ‘not’.

Sentential Negative Markers as Pro-Forms of Negative Sentences in Modern Mongolian

Negation in modern Mongolian was analyzed by scholars namely : Luvsanvandan Sh (1968, 2000), Wonsoo Yu (1991), Monkh-Amgalan Yu (1998), Purev-Ochir B. (1998, 2001), Byambasan P. (2006), Kunihiko Hasimoto (2008), Bat-Ireedui J.(2009), Ravdan E. (2009), Monkh-Amgalan Yu & Kan Shin (2014). Sentential negation in modern Mongolian is not sufficiently studied in sentential and discourse level s . The tendency of modern linguistic requires us to conduct more comprehensive and deeper research than previous scholars did. Our research is considered to be the first intended research on negation in modern Mongolian, because it is one part of Ph.D dissertation on negative meaning of modern Mongolian. There are two forms of sentential negation s in modern Mongolian language, namely: explicit and implicit. Explicit negation is expressed by negative markers, but implicit negation is expressed by form s without negative markers, positive form s , intonation s , structure s with interrogative word s and phrase s . Negative markers have preverbal and postverbal positions in sentences. Preverbal negative markers are all particles ( buu, bitgij, ul, es, alga) and have SONegV sentential type, but postverbal negative markers are particles ( uguj , bis, bus ) and negative grammatical morphemes (- guj, -udzaj 2 , -lguj, -ltguj, -mguj, -sguj ) which have SOVNeg type. Particles, which are used as preverbal and postverbal negative markers in modern Mongolian, have more specific features than negative markers in other languages. Their unique features are to be used not only as negative markers in negative sentences, but also to substitute for verb phrases in c-command and sentences in the discourse level. This paper aims to consider how sentential negative markers in modern Mongolian are used as pro-forms of negative sentences. Keywords: modern Mongolian, preverbal, postverbal, negative marker, pro-verb, pro-clause, pro-sentence

Why-provenance information for RDF, rules, and negation

The provenance (i.e., origins) of derived information on the Web is crucial in many applications to allow information quality assessment, trust judgments, accountability, as well as understanding the temporal and spatial status of the information. On the other hand, the inclusion of negative information in knowledge representation both in the form of negation-as-failure and explicit negation is also important to allow various forms of reasoning, provided that weakly negated information is associated with the sources (contexts) in which it holds. In this work, we consider collections of g-RDF ontologies, distributed over the web, along with a set of conflict statements expressing that information within a pair of g-RDF ontologies cannot be combined together for deriving new information. A g-RDF ontology is the combination of (i) a g-RDF graph G (i.e., a set of positive and strongly negated RDF triples, called g-RDF triples) and (ii) a g-RDF program P containing derivation rules with possibly both explicit and scoped weak negation. Information can be inferred through the g-RDF graphs or the derivation rules of the g-RDF ontologies, or through the RDFS derivation rules. We associate each derived grounded g-RDF triple [¬] p(s, o) with the set of names S of the g-RDF ontologies that contributed to its derivation. To achieve this, we define the provenance stable models of a g-RDF ontology collection. We show that our provenance g-RDF semantics faithfully extends RDFS semantics. Finally, we provide an algorithm based on Answer Set Programming that computes all provenance stable models of a g-RDF ontology collection and provides the answer to various kinds of queries. Various complexity results are provided.

Translation Assessment of Arabic Implicit Negation into English

Unlike explicit negation, which is grammatically or morphologically signalled, implicit negation is a syntactico-semantic concept referring to those sentences that are semantically negated by the presence of some adverbials, quantifiers, conjunctions, particles, etc. The present study is concerned with assessing the English translations of implicit negatives as found in Qura’nic ayas and Arabic literary texts to uncover whether or not the translations of this type of negation are accurately produced. It is hypothesized that inaccuracies in the translation of implicit negation seem to be more recurrent than the accurate renditions as far as the linguistic area under study is concerned. The assessment of the translated texts has proved that translation of implicit negatives is difficult to process and convey from Arabic into English due basically to the linguistic differences between both languages. This sometimes has led to translate Arabic implicit negatives into English explicit negatives.

MWeb

We present a principled framework for modular Web rule bases, called MWeb. According to this framework, each predicate defined in a rule base is characterized by its defining reasoning mode, scope, and exporting rule base list. Each predicate used in a rule base is characterized by its requesting reasoning mode and importing rule base list. For legal MWeb modular rule bases S , the MWebAS and MWebWFS semantics of each rule base s ∈ S with respect to S are defined model-theoretically. These semantics extend the answer set semantics (AS) and the well-founded semantics with explicit negation (WFSX) on ELPs, respectively, keeping all of their semantical and computational characteristics. Our framework supports: (1) local semantics and different points of view, (2) local closed-world and open-world assumptions, (3) scoped negation-as-failure, (4) restricted propagation of local inconsistencies, and (5) monotonicity of reasoning, for fully shared predicates.

The Political Agenda and Policy-Making: The Case of Emigration from Israel

The article examines the process of introducing the complicated phenomenon of emigration from Israel on the Israeli political agenda, the place of this phenomenon on the agenda, its effect on public policy making in this sphere, and its being delegated from an important item to a pseudo item. Based on one of the models of Cobb and Ross — the Outside Initiative Model — an analysis is being made of the trends of development and stages of the raising of the topic of emigration on the political agenda and the strategies, procedures and frameworks that have led to its inclusion on the agenda. The article discusses whether the mere existence of the topic of emigration on the political agenda is likely to guarantee the determination of a systematic and comprehensive governmental policy and for the adoption of practical measures in this sphere. The article surveys the stresses and changes which have led to the alteration of the place of emigration from a major topic on the Israeli political agenda to a pseudo-item. An examination and analysis is being made of attitudes which have recently been arguing an explicit negation of the existence of the topic. It seems that this phenomenon is accumulating a normative momentum that finds expression in an increased understanding of the phenomenon as such, in refraining from its disapproval, and in the increase of the number of those who regard themselves as potential emigrants. There is also an increase in the Israeli communities abroad and infrastructure is being created for the absorption of additional Israelis seeking their fortune abroad. The continuing existence of this situation is likely not only to prevent a reversal of the tendency, but to keep the phenomenon of emigration permanently as a pseudo-item on the Israeli political agenda and perhaps even totally to remove it from this agenda. Although the presumptive processes and factors that have been raised might explain the alteration of the place of the phenomenon of emigration on the Israeli political agenda, it seems that they are also capable of explaining the conversion of other topics from real ones to pseudo ones.

Beyond negation—the roles of meiyou and bushi in Mandarin conversation

This paper focuses on the negative markers meiyou and bushi (meaning ‘not/no’) in Mandarin conversation and, in particular, on their idiosyncratic use in spoken discourse. In this study, through close observation of actual conversation, I found that meiyou and bushi serve more functions than simply that of a response token ‘no’ to a question, and I identified their extra linguistic functions beyond negation. I explored their function in the light of Halliday’s [Halliday, M.A.K., 1994. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Edward Arnold, London] theory of three metafunctions of language, viz. the propositional, textual, and interpersonal functions. Cognitive and social principles, that is, Sperber and Wilson’s [Sperber, Dan, Wilson, Deirdre, 1986. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Blackwell, Oxford] theory of relevance and Brown and Levinson’s [Brown, Penelope, Levinson, Stephen C., 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use. Cambridge University Press] politeness principle were applied as well, particularly to the textual and interpersonal functions. In particular, I observed from my data that, in Taiwan, Mandarin meiyou tends to be used to preface non-agreement and bushi, disagreement. Both of them are markers of a dispreferred second part in the adjacency relationship. This study suggests that bushi is basically a monosemous marker of denial; it retains the meaning of negation, conveys explicit negation in interaction, and encodes the speaker’s attitudes toward the communicative world of the speech event; i.e., it is less referential (that is, focusing on the referential content of the message) and more expressive/subjective (that is, focusing on the speaker’s beliefs or attitudes toward the event). Meiyou, on the other hand, is polysemous and is undergoing grammaticalization through the semantic–pragmatic recruitment of both subjectivity (to express and regulate beliefs, attitudes, etc.) and intersubjectivity (to make explicit the speaker’s attitude to what is being said).

A parameterised hierarchy of argumentation semantics for extended logic programming and its application to the well-founded semantics

Argumentation has proved a useful tool in defining formal semantics for assumption-based reasoning by viewing a proof as a process in which proponents and opponents attack each others arguments by undercuts (attack to an argument's premise) and rebuts (attack to an argument's conclusion). In this paper, we formulate a variety of notions of attack for extended logic programs from combinations of undercuts and rebuts and define a general hierarchy of argumentation semantics parameterised by the notions of attack chosen by proponent and opponent. We prove the equivalence and subset relationships between the semantics and examine some essential properties concerning consistency and the coherence principle, which relates default negation and explicit negation. Most significantly, we place existing semantics put forward in the literature in our hierarchy and identify a particular argumentation semantics for which we prove equivalence to the paraconsistent well-founded semantics with explicit negation, WFSX. Finally, we present a general proof theory, based on dialogue trees, and show that it is sound and complete with respect to the argumentation semantics.

An encompassing framework for Paraconsistent Logic Programs

We propose a framework which extends Antitonic Logic Programs [Damásio and Pereira, in: Proc. 6th Int. Conf. on Logic Programming and Nonmonotonic Reasoning, Springer, 2001, p. 748] to an arbitrary complete bilattice of truth-values, where belief and doubt are explicitly represented. Inspired by Ginsberg and Fitting's bilattice approaches, this framework allows a precise definition of important operators found in logic programming, such as explicit and default negation. In particular, it leads to a natural semantical integration of explicit and default negation through the Coherence Principle [Pereira and Alferes, in: European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1992, p. 102], according to which explicit negation entails default negation. We then define Coherent Answer Sets, and the Paraconsistent Well-founded Model semantics, generalizing many paraconsistent semantics for logic programs. In particular, Paraconsistent Well-Founded Semantics with eXplicit negation ( WFSX p ) [Alferes et al., J. Automated Reas. 14 (1) (1995) 93–147; Damásio, PhD thesis, 1996]. The framework is an extension of Antitonic Logic Programs for most cases, and is general enough to capture Probabilistic Deductive Databases, Possibilistic Logic Programming, Hybrid Probabilistic Logic Programs, and Fuzzy Logic Programming. Thus, we have a powerful mathematical formalism for dealing simultaneously with default, paraconsistency, and uncertainty reasoning. Results are provided about how our semantical framework deals with inconsistent information and with its propagation by the rules of the program.

Abduction in well-founded semantics and generalized stable models via tabled dual programs

Abductive logic programming offers a formalism to declaratively express and solve problems in areas such as diagnosis, planning, belief revision and hypothetical reasoning. Tabled logic programming offers a computational mechanism that provides a level of declarativity superior to that of Prolog, and which has supported successful applications in fields such as parsing, program analysis, and model checking. In this paper we show how to use tabled logic programming to evaluate queries to abductive frameworks with integrity constraints when these frameworks contain both default and explicit negation. The result is the ability to compute abduction over well-founded semantics with explicit negation and answer sets. Our approach consists of a transformation and an evaluation method. The transformation adjoins to each objective literal $O$ in a program, an objective literal $\hbox{\it not}(O)$ along with rules that ensure that $\hbox{\it not}(O)$ will be true if and only if $O$ is false. We call the resulting program a dual program. The evaluation method, ABDUAL, then operates on the dual program. ABDUAL is sound and complete for evaluating queries to abductive frameworks whose entailment method is based on either the well-founded semantics with explicit negation, or on answer sets. Further, ABDUAL is asymptotically as efficient as any known method for either class of problems. In addition, when abduction is not desired, ABDUAL operating on a dual program provides a novel tabling method for evaluating queries to ground extended programs whose complexity and termination properties are similar to those of the best tabling methods for the well-founded semantics. A publicly available meta-interpreter has been developed for ABDUAL using the XSB system.

Object recognition is not predication

Predicates involved in language and reasoning are claimed to radically differ from categories applied to objects. Human predicates are the cognitive result of a contrast between perceived objects. Object recognition alone cannot generate such operations as modification and explicit negation. The mechanism studied by Hurford constitutes at best an evolutionary prerequisite of human predication ability.

Paraconsistent Declarative Semantics for Extended Logic Programs

We introduce a fixpoint semantics for logic programs with two kinds of negation: an explicit negation and a negation-by-failure. The programs may also be prioritized, that is, their clauses may be arranged in a partial order that reflects preferences among the corresponding rules. This yields a robust framework for representing knowledge in logic programs with a considerable expressive power. The declarative semantics for such programs is particularly suitable for reasoning with uncertainty, in the sense that it pinpoints the incomplete and inconsistent parts of the data, and regards the remaining information as classically consistent. As such, this semantics allows to draw conclusions in a non-trivial way, even in cases that the logic programs under consideration are not consistent. Finally, we show that this formalism may be regarded as a simple and flexible process for belief revision.

The temporality effect in counterfactual thinking about what might have been.

When people think about what might have been, they undo an outcome by changing events in regular ways. Suppose two contestants could win 1,000 Pounds if they picked the same color card; the first picks black, the second red, and they lose. The temporality effect refers to the tendency to think they would have won if the second player had picked black. Individuals also think that the second player will experience more guilt and be blamed more by the first. We report the results of five experiments that examine the nature of this effect. The first three experiments examine the temporality effect in scenarios in which the game is stopped after the first contestant's card selection because of a technical hitch, and then is restarted. When the first player picks a different card, the temporality effect is eliminated, for scenarios based on implicit and explicit negation and for good outcomes. When the first player picks the same card, the temporality effect occurs in each of these situations. The second two experiments show that it depends on the order of events in the world, not their descriptive order. It occurs for scenarios without preconceptions about normal descriptive order; it occurs whether the second event is mentioned in second place or first. The results are consistent with the idea that the temporality effect arises because the first event is presupposed and so it is immutable; and the elimination of the temporality effect arises because the availability of a counterfactual alternative to the first event creates an opposing tendency to mutate it. We sketch a putative account of these effects based on characteristics of the mental models people construct when they think counterfactually.

Strategies in Combined Learning via Logic Programs

We discuss the adoption of a three-valued setting for inductive concept learning. Distinguishing between what is true, what is false and what is unknown can be useful in situations where decisions have to be taken on the basis of scarce, ambiguous, or downright contradictory information. In a three-valued setting, we learn a definition for both the target concept and its opposite, considering positive and negative examples as instances of two disjoint classes. To this purpose, we adopt Extended Logic Programs (ELP) under a Well-Founded Semantics with explicit negation (WFSX) as the representation formalism for learning, and show how ELPs can be used to specify combinations of strategies in a declarative way also coping with contradiction and exceptions. Explicit negation is used to represent the opposite concept, while default negation is used to ensure consistency and to handle exceptions to general rules. Exceptions are represented by examples covered by the definition for a concept that belong to the training set for the opposite concept. Standard Inductive Logic Programming techniques are employed to learn the concept and its opposite. Depending on the adopted technique, we can learn the most general or the least general definition. Thus, four epistemological varieties occur, resulting from the combination of most general and least general solutions for the positive and negative concept. We discuss the factors that should be taken into account when choosing and strategically combining the generality levels for positive and negative concepts. In the paper, we also handle the issue of strategic combination of possibly contradictory learnt definitions of a predicate and its explicit negation. All in all, we show that extended logic programs under well-founded semantics with explicit negation add expressivity to learning tasks, and allow the tackling of a number of representation and strategic issues in a principled way. Our techniques have been implemented and examples run on a state-of-the-art logic programming system with tabling which implements WFSX.

Something will come of nothing: An empirical model of negation for prose literature1

Summary One manner in which a writer involves the reader with a text is through the use of negative language. The reader becomes involved on two levels: firstly at a linguistic level, a negative message needs extra time to decode, and secondly, at an emotional level, we must come to terms with the emotional response the negative message has incurred. Therefore, explicitly negative language engages linguistic, psychological and cognitive processes, which force the reader to become involved with the text in question, as he attempts to decipher the underlying propositions. This study reviews previous research on negative language, both linguistic and psycholinguistic, defines explicit and broad negation and offers a method for measuring these forms of negation. This method is then applied to a representative corpus2 of the early prose fiction of Mudrooroo, a prominent Australian author. The results obtained show that he has shifted in style across his early prose fiction, with respect to negation. By examining the use of negation in Mudrooroo's novels we will see how integral a part it plays in the interaction between reader and text. Negation can bring to the fore that which may not be and as a result may give “nothing” an actual substance. This article will show how explicit and broad negatives are simple, separable elements that engender complex cognitive effects, and that they provide us with a means for isolating and studying one aspect of how a writer may influence a reader's mind.

Tabling for non-monotonic programming

Nondmonotonic extensions add power to logic programs. However, the main logic programming language, Prolog, is widely recognized as inadequate to implement these extensions due to its weak termination and complexity properties. By extending Prolog’s SLD resolution with tabling, Prolog can be improved in several ways. Tabling can allow a logic programming system to compute the welldfounded semantics for programs with bounded term depth, and to do so with polynomial data complexity. By exploiting these properties, tabling allows a variety of nondmonotonic extensions to be efficiently implemented, and used to solve practical problems. In this paper we describe tabling as it is implemented in the XSB system and show how it can be used to construct metadinterpreters (or preprocessors) for two sample formalisms: the WelldFounded Semantics with Explicit Negation, and Generalized Annotated Logic Programs. We also describe how nondmonotonic extensions are used in practical applications such as psychiatric diagnosis, extraction of information from poorly structured textual data, and model checking.

Matching Bias in Conditional Reasoning: Do We Understand it After 25 Years?

The phenomenon known as “matching bias” consists of a tendency to see cases as relevant in logical reasoning tasks when the lexical content of a case matches that of a propositional rule, normally a conditional, which applies to that case. Matching is demonstrated by use of the “negations paradigm”— that is by using conditionals in which the presence and absence of negative components is systematically varied. The phenomenon was first published in 1972 and the present paper reviews the history of research and theorising on the problem in the subsequent 25 years. Theories of matching bias considered include those based on several broad frameworks including the heuristic-analytic theory, the mental models theory, the theory of optimal data selection, and relevance theory as well as the specific processing-negations account. The ability of these theories to account for a range of phenomena is considered, including the effects of linguistic form, realistic content, and explicit negation on the matching bias effect. Of particular importance are recent findings showing that the bias is observable on a wider range of linguistic forms than has generally been thought, and that it is almost entirely dependent on the use of implicit negation in the logical cases to which rules are applied. The reasons for the general suppression of matching when realistic content is used are, however, unclear and a need for further research is identified here. It is concluded that matching bias is a highly robust effect which is closely connected with the problem of understanding implicit negation. Most of the theories in the literature are unable to account for at least some of the major phenomena discovered in research on the bias. The accounts that fare best are those that posit local effects of negation, including the heuristic-analytic and processing negations theories.

Logic knowledge bases with two default rules

Logic knowledge based systems (LKBS) containing at most one form of default negation and explicit (or “classical”) negation have been studied in the literature. In this paper we describe a class of LKBS containing multiple forms of default negation in addition to explicit negation. We define a semantics for these systems in terms of the welldfounded semantics defined by Van Gelder et al. (1988) and the stable semantics introduced by Gelfond and Lifschitz (1988) and later extended to the 3dvalued case by Przymusinski (1991). We investigate properties of the new combined semantics and calculate the computational complexity of three main reasoning tasks for this semantics, namely existence of models, skeptical and credulous reasoning. An effective procedure to construct the collection of models characterizing the semantics of such a system is given. Applications to knowledge representation and knowledge base merging are presented.