Formal Semantic Theories Research Articles

Semantics of Gesture

Current formal semantic theories aim at capturing gestural semantic contributions and in particular their interplay with the semantics that stems from cooccurring speech. To grasp how gesture contributes meaning and interacts with speech, the information status of gesture is of prime importance. This article gives an overview of the different conceptions of the information status of gestures that have been put forth and discusses the empirical predictions and theoretical consequences that arise from the respective theories.

A quantitative history of ordinary language philosophy

There is a standard story told about the rise and fall of ordinary language philosophy: it was a widespread, if not dominant, approach to philosophy in Great Britain in the aftermath of World War II up until the early 1960s, but with the development of systematic approaches to the study of language—formal semantic theories on one hand and Gricean pragmatics on the other—ordinary language philosophy more or less disappeared. In this paper we present quantitative evidence to evaluate the standard story of the rise and fall of ordinary language philosophy, building on the topic model of over 30,000 philosophy articles in Weatherson in (A History of Philosophy Journals, Volume 1: Evidence from Topic Modeling, 1876–2013, 2022). Using a combination of qualitative judgment and a topic-model-based measurement of similarity between individual articles, we find evidence that supports the first part of the standard story, according to which ordinary language philosophy arises in the 1940s, peaks between the early 1950s and the late 1960s, and then rapidly declines. But we argue that there is also evidence of a “new wave” of ordinary language philosophy in the early twenty-first century that defies the second part of the standard story.

Temporal partitions in the grammaticalization of imperfective aspect markers

Abstract This article proposes a new account for the typologically uncommon grammaticalization path from an adjective meaning ‘tight’ to a progressive aspect marker in Cantonese. I take a formal approach to explain the cognitive foundations in such a grammaticalization path by using formal semantic theories and tools. There are two components in the meaning of the progressive aspect, i.e. temporal inclusion and dynamism. The meaning ‘tight’ is transferred from the spatial domain to describe the close succession of events, which gives rise to the dynamic meaning component. Furthermore, this eventual dynamism is mapped to the temporal domain, which corresponds to the regular partition of the time interval with an infinitesimal measure in the semantics proposed by Deo (2009). My analysis is extended to explain the Cantonese habitual marker with an original meaning ‘open’, and to the use of morphological reduplication to express the imperfective aspect in languages from the Austronesian and Pama-Nyungan families. The theoretical contribution of this article is that the grammaticalization paths of certain aspect markers share a common cognitive foundation in terms of space, events, and time, but they may take different trajectories of evolution that target different parts of a functional morpheme with complex meanings.

Imperative inference and practical rationality

Some arguments include imperative clauses. For example: ‘Buy me a drink; you can’t buy me that drink unless you go to the bar; so, go to the bar!’ How should we build a logic that predicts which of these arguments are good? Because imperatives aren’t truth apt and so don’t stand in relations of truth preservation, this technical question gives rise to a foundational one: What would be the subject matter of this logic? I argue that declaratives are used to produce beliefs, imperatives are used to produce intentions, and beliefs and intentions are subject to rational requirements. An argument will strike us as valid when anyone whose mental state satisfies the premises is rationally required to satisfy the conclusion. For example, the above argument reflects the principle that it is irrational not to intend what one takes to be the necessary means to one’s intended ends. I argue that all intuitively good patterns of imperative inference can be explained using off-the-shelf formulations of our rational requirements. I then develop a formal-semantic theory embodying this view that predicts a range of data, including free-choice effects and Ross’s paradox. The resulting theory shows one way that our aspirations to rational agency can be discerned in the patterns of our speech, and is a case study in how the philosophy of language and the philosophy of action can be mutually illuminating.

Situation types in complementation: Oromo attitude predication

Though languages show rich variation in the clausal embedding strategies employed in attitude reports, most mainstream formal semantic theories of attitudes assume that the clausal complement of an attitude verb contributes at least a proposition to the semantics. The goal of this paper is to contribute to the growing cross-linguistic perspective of attitudes by providing semantic analyses for the two embedding strategies found with attitude verbs in Oromo (Cushitic): verbal nominalization, and embedding under akka 'as'. We argue that Oromo exemplifies a system in which non-speech attitudes uniformly embed situations rather than propositions, thereby expanding the empirical landscape of attitude reports in two ways: (i) situations and propositions are both ontological primitives used by languages in the construction of attitude reports, and (ii) attitude verbs in languages like Oromo do the semantic heavy lifting, contributing the "proposition" to propositional attitudes.

Is the Free-Energy Principle a Formal Theory of Semantics? From Variational Density Dynamics to Neural and Phenotypic Representations.

The aim of this paper is twofold: (1) to assess whether the construct of neural representations plays an explanatory role under the variational free-energy principle and its corollary process theory, active inference; and (2) if so, to assess which philosophical stance—in relation to the ontological and epistemological status of representations—is most appropriate. We focus on non-realist (deflationary and fictionalist-instrumentalist) approaches. We consider a deflationary account of mental representation, according to which the explanatorily relevant contents of neural representations are mathematical, rather than cognitive, and a fictionalist or instrumentalist account, according to which representations are scientifically useful fictions that serve explanatory (and other) aims. After reviewing the free-energy principle and active inference, we argue that the model of adaptive phenotypes under the free-energy principle can be used to furnish a formal semantics, enabling us to assign semantic content to specific phenotypic states (the internal states of a Markovian system that exists far from equilibrium). We propose a modified fictionalist account—an organism-centered fictionalism or instrumentalism. We argue that, under the free-energy principle, pursuing even a deflationary account of the content of neural representations licenses the appeal to the kind of semantic content involved in the ‘aboutness’ or intentionality of cognitive systems; our position is thus coherent with, but rests on distinct assumptions from, the realist position. We argue that the free-energy principle thereby explains the aboutness or intentionality in living systems and hence their capacity to parse their sensory stream using an ontology or set of semantic factors.

Truth is dead; long live the truth. Commentary on Conjoining Meanings by Paul Pietroski

Pietroski successfully dismantles the idea of a formal semantic theory based on direct truth conditions and offers new and formally constrained alternatives. In this paper, I summarize the arguments but also provide a number of test cases to show that refusing to accept Pietroski's conclusions condemns the field to constantly restating and technically evading its own self‐created paradoxes. In the final section, I offer some positive proposals in the spirit of the Pietroskian enterprise with respect to thematic roles.

Predication and cognitive context: Between minimalism and contextualism

AbstractIn this paper, we suggest a strategy for modelling cognitive context within a truth‐conditional semantics, using Asher's model of predication. This allows us to introduce the notion of type presupposition intended as a lexical constraint to the composition of the truth‐conditional content. More specifically, we suggest that this model of predication produces a notion of truth‐conditional meaning where the cognitive context fixes a set of lexical restrictions and forced modifications. We conclude that this model might offer an intermediate position between Minimalism and Contextualism: an account that provides intuitive truth conditions within a formal semantic theory.

Discourse Semantics with Information Structure

The property of projection poses a challenge to formal semantic theories, due to its apparent non-compositional nature. Projected content is therefore typically analyzed as being different from and independent of asserted content. Recent evidence, however, suggests that these types of content in fact closely interact, thereby calling for a more integrated analysis that captures their similarities, while respecting their differences. Here, we propose such a unified, compositional semantic analysis of asserted and projected content. Our analysis captures the similarities and differences between presuppositions, anaphora, conventional implicatures and assertions on the basis of their information structure, that is, on basis of how their content is contributed to the unfolding discourse context. We formalize our analysis in an extension of the dynamic semantic framework of Discourse Representation Theory (DRT)—called Projective DRT (PDRT)—that employs projection variables to capture the information-structural aspects of semantic content; different constellations of such variables capture the differences between the different types of projected and asserted content within a single dimension of meaning. We formally derive the structural and compositional properties of PDRT, as well as its semantic interpretation. By instantiating PDRT as a mature semantic formalism, we argue that it paves way for a more focused investigation of the information-structural aspects of meaning.

Exploring vagueness: Preposition alternation in Spanish

This paper aims at showing the relevance of cognitive semantics in the study of linguistic units whose conceptual import tends to be underresearched within formalist frameworks. Specifically, I focus on the alternation between the prepositions con ‘with’ and de ‘of’ in the change-of-state variant of the locative alternation (e.g., cargar el camión con/de heno, lit. load the truck with/of hay). I show that although the con- and the de-constructions share many semantic properties and they can refer to the same conceptual content, experimental-based cognitive semantics offers powerful tools to elucidate subtle shades of meaning that might remain opaque in formal semantic theories.

Interfacing language, spatial perception and cognition in Type Theory with Records

We argue that computational modelling of perception, action, language, and cognition introduces several requirements on a formal semantic theory and its practical implementations. Using examples of semantic representations of spatial descriptions we show how Type Theory with Records (TTR) satisfies these requirements.

Worlds, Events, and Inertia

The semantics of progressive sentences presents a challenge to linguists and philosophers alike. According to a widely accepted view, the truth-conditions of progressive sentences rely essentially on a notion of inertia. Dowty (Word meaning and Montague grammar: the semantics of verbs and times in generative grammar and in Montague’s PTQ, D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, 1979) suggested inertia worlds to implement this “inertia idea” in a formal semantic theory of the progressive. The main thesis of the paper is that the notion of inertia went through a subtle, but crucial change when worlds were replaced by events in Landman (Nat Lang Semant 1:1–32, 1992) and Portner (Language 74(4):760–787, 1998), and that this new, event-related concept of inertia results in a possibility-based theory of the progressive. An important case in point in the paper is a proof that, despite its surface structure, the theory presented in Portner (1998) does not implement the notion of inertia in Dowty (1979); rather, it belongs together with Dowty’s earlier, 1977 theory according to which the progressive is a possibility operator.

Integrating Type Theory and Distributional Semantics: A Case Study on Adjective–Noun Compositions

In this article, we explore an integration of a formal semantic approach to lexical meaning and an approach based on distributional methods. First, we outline a formal semantic theory that aims to combine the virtues of both formal and distributional frameworks. We then proceed to develop an algebraic interpretation of that formal semantic theory and show how at least two kinds of distributional models make this interpretation concrete. Focusing on the case of adjective–noun composition, we compare several distributional models with respect to the semantic information that a formal semantic theory would need, and we show how to integrate the information provided by distributional models back into the formal semantic framework.

Events and Situations

If we inspect the role of events or situations in formal semantic theories of natural languages, a general strategy common to several theories emerges: Assume that certain linguistic constructions involve a reference to events or situations and appeal to their metaphysical properties to account for semantic properties of the constructions. I concentrate on some paradigmatic cases that illustrate this way of pursuing explanatory tasks in semantics: perception reports, adverbial modification, telicity, and attitude reports.

Denoting Offence

A framework for articulating formal semantic theories of linguistic politeness and impoliteness is provided. A theory of (im)politeness is developed within this framework. This builds on recent argument that (im)politeness behaviours arise from offence management associated with disgust.

The syntax and semantics of a determiner system: A case study of Mauritian Creole by Diana Guillemin (review)

Reviewed by: The syntax and semantics of a determiner system: A case study of Mauritian Creole by Diana Guillemin Anna Szabolcsi The syntax and semantics of a determiner system: A case study of Mauritian Creole. By Diana Guillemin. (Creole language library 38.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2011. Pp. xv, 310. ISBN 9789027252609. $158 (Hb). Mauritian Creole (MC) is a French lexifier creole with Kwa and Bantu substrate languages. In the early nineteenth century MC lost the French determiners le/la 'the' and du (partitive 'some'), often incorporating them into the noun stems, and became, in stark contrast to French, a language that allows bare count and mass nouns in argument positions. Diana Guillemin's book is dedicated to the documentation and theoretical analysis of that change, as well as the new system of determiners and quantifiers that subsequently emerged in MC. G is a native speaker of MC, but the study is primarily corpus-based, with over eighty text sources, ranging from eighteenth-century documents to Baissac's (1880, 1888) collections to recent internet posts. The analysis is carried out using current formal semantic and generative syntactic theories. [End Page 181] The interest of the work is manifold. One of the highlights is the study of specificity vs. definiteness in a language that lacks an overt definite article. MC diverges from its lexifier and resembles its substrate languages, which have been observed tomark specificity, rather than definiteness. To illustrate, consider the example in 1 (simplified from ex. 22 on p. 125): bare count nouns may be interpreted either as indefinite or as definite by virtue of uniqueness, but postnominal là serves to encode anaphoric definiteness, which G qualifies as [+definite, +specific].As G notes, 'The use of là serves to recall the topic, and once it is established that lacorde is the subject of the discourse, a bare noun can be used again' (125). 1. Alle çace to lacorde,... Baleine amarre lacorde dans ... so laquée... go fetch 2SG.POSS rope whale tie rope in 3SG.POSS tail Lacorde là vine raide... Lacorde péte éne coup! rope SP become stiff rope snap one time 'Go fetch your rope, ... Whale ties the rope to its tail ... The rope stiffens ... The rope suddenly snaps!' Ch. 1, 'Sources of Mauritian Creole', is a brief introduction to the origins of MC and an outline of the work. Ch. 2, 'Introduction', introduces the early changes from French to MC and the new determiner system. In addition to the above-mentioned loss or incorporation of the French determiners, MC lost the French copula and the case-assigning prepositions à 'to, for' and de 'of', giving rise to a massive [+/-definite] and [+/-plural] ambiguity in argumental bare nouns. The new determiner system includes the indefinite singular marker enn, the postnominal specificity marker là, the old demonstrative sa that is now in combination with là, the plural marker bann (from bande 'group') that is in complementary distribution with numerals, the phonetically null definite article notated as d, and so, a possessive pronoun reanalyzed as an emphatic determiner, equivalent to the English and French definite articles in associative anaphoric contexts in terms of Hawkins 1978. The chapter situates the study within the minimalist program and the hypothesis of universal grammar, and points to its specific syntactic and semantic backgrounds. Ch. 3, 'Syntactic framework', provides a general introduction to the assumptions broadly underlying minimalist syntax and lays out the architecture of the MC noun phrase. Following Chierchia's (1998) argumental vs. predicative parameter for initial noun denotations, the major change in MC that enabled the occurrence of bare nouns in argument positions is a parametric switch from predicative to kind-denoting, argumental nouns. The noun phrase is assigned the following multilayered structure, from the bottom up: NP, NumP (headed by [+count] and hosting enn, bann, or numerals in its specifier), DemP (headed by [+deictic] and hosting sa in its specifier), PossP, DefP (with the null head δ), and finally, SpP (headed by [+specific] Ø or là). Head movements (N-to-Num in count noun phrases, and N-to-Def in mass ones) will be followed by the phrasal movement of NumP or DefP to the specifier of SpP, giving rise to...

Дизъюнкция однородных членов предложения в русском и датском языках

Elena Lorentzen: Phrasal Disjunction in Russian and Danish It is widely assumed that “and-but-or” languages exploit a universal strategy for connecting phrasal coordinands due to the fact that coordination is considered basic and universal to the human mind and that the coordinators and and or are equivalent to logical connectives. However, a contrastive study of Russian and Danish reveals significant differences between the two languages in the choice of the type of phrasal coordination in utterances used to describe one and the same type of situation. It appears that disjunction in Danish corresponds consistently to conjunction as well as disjunction in Russian, which cannot be accounted for by existing global formal semantic and pragmatic theories. In this paper I propose a new approach to phrasal coordination in general and disjunction in particular based on Durst-Andersen's cognitive-semiotic theory of linguistic supertypes, according to which Russian is a reality-oriented language with a third-person-oriented speaker and Danish is a hearer-oriented language with a second-person-oriented speaker. I claim that the use of disjunction and conjunction in these languages is determined by their essential properties as two different supertypes, viz. by the ground-situational nature of linguistic structures in Russian, the grammar of which functions as a model of situations in reality, and by the ground-propositional nature of linguistic structures in Danish, the grammar of which functions as a signal to the hearer to find situations behind the speaker's information.

Counterfactual attitudes and multi-centered worlds

Counterfactual attitudes like imagining, dreaming, and wishing create a problem for the standard formal semantic theory of de re attitude ascriptions. I show how the problem can be avoided if we represent an agent's attitudinal possibilities using multi-centered worlds, possible worlds with multiple distinguished individuals, each of which represents an individual with whom the agent is acquainted. I then present a compositional semantics for de re ascriptions according to which singular terms are assignment-sensitive expressions and attitude verbs are assignment shifters. http://dx.doi.org/10.3765/sp.5.5 BibTeX info

Sintaxe, Semântica e Formalização

This article addresses the following problem: which is the format and scope of a formal semantic theory adequate to the description and explanation of semantic phenomena present in natural languages​​? The first section exposes the main principles for a semantics of natural languages, given the criticisms of Contextualism. The second section presents the main features of the research program proposed by P.M. Pietroski. Finally, it is presented a brief evaluation of this program in the light of the criteria presented in the previous sections. I argue that this program has considerable methodological virtues, because it adopts as explanandum substantial empirical generalizations, syntactic phenomena which must be explained. It is therefore a proposal that does not merely describe the intuitions of speakers and encode them in logical-mathematical notation.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Demonstratives in Philosophy and Linguistics

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Demonstratives in Philosophy and Linguistics