According to the alternative semantics for focus, the semantic reflec of intonational focus is a second semantic value, which in the case of a sentence is a set of propositions. We examine a range of semantic and pragmatic applications of the theory, and extract a unitary principle specifying how the focus semantic value interacts with semantic and pragmatic processes. A strong version of the theory has the effect of making lexical or construction-specific stipulation of a focus-related effect in association-with-focus constructions (...) impossible. Furthermore, while focus has a uniform import, the sources of meaning differences in association with focus are various. (shrink)

Chapter. 1. Logical. Form. as. a. Level. of. Linguistic. Representation. What is the relation of a sentence's syntactic form to its logical form? This issue has been of central concern in modern inquiry into the semantic properties of natural ...

We discuss presupposition, the phenomenon whereby speakers mark linguistically the information that is presupposed or taken for granted, rather than being part of the main propositional content of a speech act. Expressions and constructions carrying presuppositions are called “presupposition triggers”, forming a large class including definites and factive verbs. The article first introduces the range of triggers, the basic properties of presuppositions such as projection and cancellability, and the diagnostic tests used to identify them. The reader is then introducedto major (...) models of presupposition from the last 50 years, separated into three classes: Frege-Strawson derived semantic models, pragmaticmodels such as that offered by Stalnaker, and dynamic models. Finallywe discuss some of the main current issues in presupposition theory. These involve accommodation, which occurs when a hearer's knowledge state is adjusted to meet the speaker's presuppositions; presupposition failure, which occurs when a presupposition is false; the interaction between presuppositions and attitudes; and the triggering problem, i.e., the problem of explaining why presuppositions occur in the first place. (shrink)

Preface This book is about semantics and logic. More specifically, it is about the semantics and logic of natural language; and, even more specifically than ...

We present a new method for characterizing the interpretive possibilities generated by elliptical constructions in natural language. Unlike previous analyses, which postulate ambiguity of interpretation or derivation in the full clause source of the ellipsis, our analysis requires no such hidden ambiguity. Further, the analysis follows relatively directly from an abstract statement of the ellipsis interpretation problem. It predicts correctly a wide range of interactions between ellipsis and other semantic phenomena such as quantifier scope and bound anaphora. Finally, although the (...) analysis itself is stated nonprocedurally, it admits of a direct computational method for generating interpretations. (shrink)

This book sets out the foundations, methodology, and practice of a formal framework for the description of language. The approach embraces the trends of lexicalism and compositional semantics in computational linguistics, and theoretical linguistics more broadly, by developing categorial grammar into a powerful and extendable logic of signs. Taking Montague Grammar as its point of departure, the book explains how integration of methods from philosophy (logical semantics), computer science (type theory), linguistics (categorial grammar) and meta-mathematics (mathematical logic ) provides a (...) categorial foundation with coverage including intensionality, quantification, featural polymorphism, domains and constraints. For the first time, the book systematises categorial thinking into a unified program which is at once both logically secured, and a practical tool for pure lexical grammar development with type-theoretic semantics. It should be of interest to all those active in computational linguistics and formal grammar and is suitable for use at advanced undergraduate, postgraduate, and research levels. (shrink)