A wide range of systems appear to perform computation: what common features do they share? I consider three examples, a digital computer, a neural network and an analogue route finding system based on soap-bubbles. The common feature of these systems is that they have autonomous dynamics — their states will change over time without additional external influence. We can take advantage of these dynamics if we understand them well enough to map a problem we want to solve onto them. Programming (...) consists of arranging the starting state of a system so that the effects of the system''s dynamics on some of its variables corresponds to the effects of the equations which describe the problem to be solved on their variables. The measured dynamics of a system, and hence the computation it may be performing, depend on the variables of the system we choose to attend to. Although we cannot determine which are the appropriate variables to measure in a system whose computation basis is unknown to us I go on to discuss how grammatical classifications of computational tasks and symbolic machine reconstruction techniques may allow us to rule out some measurements of a system from contributing to computation of particular tasks. Finally I suggest that these arguments and techniques imply that symbolic descriptions of the computation underlying cognition should be stochastic and that symbols in these descriptions may not be atomic but may have contents in alternative descriptions. (shrink)

The primary theoretical focus of this paper is on Free Choice uses of any, in particular on two phenomena that have remained largely unstudied. One involves the ability of any phrases to occur in affirmative episodic statements when aided by suitable noun modifiers. The other involves the difference between modals of necessity and possibility with respect to licensing of any. The central thesis advanced here is that FC any is a universal determiner whose domain of quantification is not a set (...) of particular individuals but the set of possible individuals of the relevant kind. In a theory of genericity utilizing situations, an any phrase can be seen as having a universal quantifier binding the situation variable of the common noun. This inherent genericity is argued to be at the heart of the intuition that any statements support counterfactual inferences and do not involve existential commitments. A conflict in presuppositions is shown to account for the incompatibility of unmodified any phrases in affirmative episodic statements and the crucial role played by modification in ameliorating this clash is explicated. In the case of modals of necessity, the interaction between the universal force of any and the particular modal base is shown to be crucial. In view of these facts it is argued that FC any is not directly licensed by modal or generic operators as generally assumed but that its felicitous use is sensitive to the pragmatics of epistemic modality. Turning to its polarity sensitive uses, language internal as well as crosslinguistic evidence is presented to distinguish it from FC any in having the existential quantificational force typical of indefinites. The paper concludes by suggesting that the common tie between them is that they both occur in statements that apply to a class of entities, rather than to particular members of the class. (shrink)

This paper argues in favor of two claims: (a) that Scope Shifting Operations (Quantifier Raising and Quantifier Lowering) are restricted by economy considerations, and (b) that the relevant economy considerations compare syntactic derivations that end up interpretively identical. These ideas are shown to solve several puzzles having to do with the interaction of scope with VP ellipsis, coordination, and the interpretation of bare plurals. Further, the paper suggests a way of dealing with the otherwise puzzling clause-boundedness of Quantifier Raising.

Two positions of Bolinger, about synonymy and meaningfulness of words, point to significance of controlling the referentiality of word forms, from representing them in grammar to their projection onto surface structure, i.e. configurationality. In particular, it becomes critical to control the range of surface substitution for surface syntactic categories of words to maintain referential properties of idiosyncrasy. Categorial grammars as reference systems suggest ways to keep the two aspects in grammar. The first dividend of adopting a categorial perspective is systematically (...) distinguishing metaphorical sense extensions from idioms. The second dividend is procedural. Some tokens can be seen to be types themselves, with distinct referential import. Furthermore, some idiomatic meanings which require a unique phonological word for specific reference to events and participants can be types too. Together they can be thought of as the idiotype. The idiotype as idiosyncrasy’s foot through the door of grammar reveals controllable range of possibilities for referentiality and configurationality of idiosyncrasy. Phrasal and idiomatic meanings can then be treated compositionally, given the proposed added role of paracompositionality arising from event versus predicate distinction at the level of predicate-argument structure, in multiword expression cum idiom and phrasal verb treatment, which we show for English, Mandarin Chinese and Turkish. (shrink)