The paper discusses three different ways of explaining the referential stability of concepts of physics. In order to be successful, an approach to referential stability has to provide resources to understand what constitutes the difference between the birth of a new concept with a history of its own, and an innovative step occurring within the lifetime of a persisting concept with stable reference. According to Theodore Arabatzis' 'biographical' approach (Representing Electrons 2006), the historical continuity of representations of the electron manifests (...) itself by the numerical stability of experimental parameters like the charge-to-mass ratio, and the continued acceptance of earlier experiments as manifestations of electron properties. I argue, against Arabatzis' approach, that the stability of experimental parameters justifies the assumption that there exists a chain of representations of a unique theoretical entity only if this stability occurs against the background of evidence for theoretical continuity. The Bain/Norton approach proposes to add exactly this element to the picture, but fails to reach its aim by focusing on formal similarities of Hamiltonians as an indicator of theoretical continuity. I shall argue that theoretical continuity has to be demonstrated rather on the level of particular solutions. This task is accomplished by the semantic embedding approach by means of defining a co-reference criterion for theoretical terms requiring the existence of semantic embedding relations between the terms that occur in particular solutions of different theories. (shrink)

This paper argues that we need to re-think the semantics/pragmatics distinction in the light of new evidence from embedding of irony. This raises a new version of the old problem of ‘embedded implicatures’. I argue that embedded irony isn’t fully explained by solutions proposed for other embedded implicatures. I first consider two strategies: weak pragmatics and strong pragmatics. These explain embedded irony as truth-conditional content. However, by trying to shoehorn irony into said-content, they raise problems of their own. I (...) conclude by considering how a modified Gricean model can explain that irony embeds qua implicature. This leads us to prefer a local implicature model. This has important consequences for how we draw the semantics/pragmatics distinction. (shrink)

A sentence containing a number of definite descriptions, each lying within the scope of its predecessor, is naturally read as asserting the uniqueness of a sequence of objects satisfying the descriptions. The project of providing a general uniform procedure for eliminating embedded definite descriptions that gets this and other logical forms right is impeded by several puzzles.

This volume presents studies on pronouns in embedded contexts, and offers fundamental insights into this central area of research. Much of the recent research on pronouns has shown that embedded environments, such as clausal complements of attitude predicates, provide a window into the nature of pronouns. Pronouns in such environments not only exhibit familiar distinctions such as that between bound and referential pronouns; if they refer to the attitude holder, they also participate in a broader range of phenomena, e.g., distinguishing (...) between a de se reading and a de re reading. Topics covered include: the semantics of attitude reports that contain pronominal elements, the semantics of pronominal features and their connection to indexicality, new insights in the connection of pronominal typology and logophoricity or anti-logophoricity, and finally, the localization of embedded pronouns within a bigger picture involving the nature of perspective and the analysis of quasi-pronominal phenomena such as sequence of tense. (shrink)

Our paper addresses the following question: Is there a general characterization, for all predicates P that take both declarative and interrogative complements , of the meaning of the P-interrogative clause construction in terms of the meaning of the P-declarative clause construction? On our account, if P is a responsive predicate and Q a question embedded under P, then the meaning of ‘P + Q’ is, informally, “to be in the relation expressed by P to some potential complete answer to Q”. (...) We show that this rule allows us to derive veridical and non-veridical readings of embedded questions, depending on whether the embedding verb is veridical or not, and provide novel empirical evidence supporting the generalization. We then enrich our basic proposal to account for the presuppositions induced by the embedding verbs, as well as for the generation of intermediate exhaustive readings of embedded questions. (shrink)

Stephen Barker argues that a possible worlds semantics for the counterfactual conditional of the sort proposed by Stalnaker and Lewis cannot accommodate certain examples in which determinism is true and a counterfactual Q > R is false, but where, for some P, the compound counterfactual P > (Q > R) is true. I argue that the completeness theorem for Lewis’s system VC of counterfactual logic shows that Stalnaker–Lewis semantics does accommodate Barker’s example, and I argue that its doing so should (...) be understood as showing that the example is an exception to Lewis’s Time’s Arrow requirements. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWide-ranging semantic flexibility is often considered a magic cure for contextualism to account for all kinds of troubling data. In particular, it seems to offer a way to account for our intuitions regarding embedded perspectival sentences. As has been pointed out by Lasersohn [2009. “Relative Truth, Speaker Commitment, and Control of Implicit Arguments.” Synthese 166 : 359â374], however, the semantic flexibility does not present a remedy for all kinds of embeddings. In particular, it seems ineffective when it comes (...) to embeddings under operators with truth evaluative adverbs such as ‘correctly believes that’ and ‘incorrectly believes that’ and under factive verbs. This paper takes a closer look at the problematic embedding data with respect to predicates of personal taste. It argues that there is indeed no semantic solution for contextualism but a pragmatic way out. (shrink)

It is shown that a set of semi-recursive logics, including many fragments of CL, can be embedded within CL in an interesting way. A logic belongs to the set iff it has a certain type of semantics, called nice semantics. The set includes many logics presented in the literature. The embedding reveals structural properties of the embedded logic. The embedding turns finite premise sets into finite premise sets. The partial decision methods for CL that are goal directed with (...) respect to CL are turned into partial decision methods that are goal directed with respect to the embedded logics. (shrink)

I plot accounts of slurs on a [semanticist – non-semanticist] spectrum, and then I give some original arguments in favor of semanticist approaches. Two core, related pro-semanticist considerations which animate this work are: first, that the pejorative dimension of a slur is non-cancellable; and, second, that ignorance of the pejorative dimension should be counted as ignorance of literal, linguistic meaning, as opposed to a mistake about conditions for appropriate usage. I bolster these considerations via cases in which slurs are embedded (...) within complex constructions, in which cases the pejorative dimension of a slur gets ensnared within the compositional semantic machinery. (shrink)

Linguists have realised for some time that predicates of the 'know' and 'wonder' classes behave differently in semantic terms with respect to their interrogative complements, but have not so far fully understood how or why. This book seeks to explore and to provide solutions to this and to related problems in explaining the meaning and grammar of embedded interrogatives and the predicates that take interrogative complements.

In this article I offer a naturalistic defence of semantic externalism. I argue against the following: (1) arguments for externalism rest mainly on conceptual analysis; (2) the community conceptual norms relevant to individuation of propositional attitudes are quasi-analytic; (3) externalism raises serious questions about knowledge of propositional attitudes; and (4) externalism might be OK for “folk psychology” but not for cognitive science. The naturalist alternatives are as follows. (1) Community norms are not anything like a priori; sometimes they are (...) incoherent. (2) Often propositional attitudes lack determinate content: we do not know the content of thoughts or sentences because there is no fully definite content to be known. (3) Often achieving determinate content is a major socially mediated cognitive achievement that depends on just the factors of social and environmental embedding posited as individuative by externalists, so (4) externalism explains how people can, sometimes, come to have, and to know, determinate attitude contents. (5) Reference and content, for both thought and language, are determined by complex and messy dialectical relations involving many such environmental and social factors; consequently, determinate reference, truth-conditions, etc., are somewhat uncommon outcomes. (6) The basic semantic relation is (typically imperfect) socially mediated accommodation between perceptual, cognitive, linguistic, classificatory and inferential dispositions and relevant causal structures in the environment. (7) This accommodation explains how concepts, language, taxonomies, etc., contribute to individuals' rational inductive, explanatory and practical achievements. (8) So externally individuated propositional attitudes are required for cognitive science explanations of individual human rationality and its inductive and explanatory achievements. “Individual rationality ain't (entirely) in the individual head.”. (shrink)

What are the semantic representations that underlie language production? We use structural priming to distinguish between two competing theories. Thematic roles define semantic structure in terms of atomic units that specify event participants and are ordered with respect to each other through a hierarchy of roles. Event structures instead instantiate semantic structure as embedded sub‐predicates that impose an order on verbal arguments based on their relative positioning in these embeddings. Across two experiments, we found that priming for (...) datives depended on the degree of overlap in event structures. Specifically, while all dative structures showed priming, due to common syntax, there was a boost for compositional datives priming other compositional datives. Here, the two syntactic forms have distinct event structures. In contrast, there was no boost in priming for dative light verbs, where the two forms map onto a single event representation. On the thematic roles hypothesis, we would have expected a similar degree of priming for the two cases. Thus, our results support event structural approaches to semantic representation and not thematic roles. (shrink)

The semantic automata framework, developed originally in the 1980s, provides computational interpretations of generalized quantifiers. While recent experimental results have associated structural features of these automata with neuroanatomical demands in processing sentences with quantifiers, the theoretical framework has remained largely unexplored. In this paper, after presenting some classic results on semantic automata in a modern style, we present the first application of semantic automata to polyadic quantification, exhibiting automata for iterated quantifiers. We also discuss the role of (...) semantic automata in linguistic theory and offer new empirical predictions for sentence processing with embedded quantifiers. (shrink)

Distributional semantic models (DSMs) are a primary method for distilling semantic information from corpora. However, a key question remains: What types of semantic relations among words do DSMs detect? Prior work typically has addressed this question using limited human data that are restricted to semantic similarity and/or general semantic relatedness. We tested eight DSMs that are popular in current cognitive and psycholinguistic research (positive pointwise mutual information; global vectors; and three variations each of Skip-gram and (...) continuous bag of words (CBOW) using word, context, and mean embeddings) on a theoretically motivated, rich set of semantic relations involving words from multiple syntactic classes and spanning the abstract–concrete continuum (19 sets of ratings). We found that, overall, the DSMs are best at capturing overall semantic similarity and also can capture verb–noun thematic role relations and noun–noun event-based relations that play important roles in sentence comprehension. Interestingly, Skip-gram and CBOW performed the best in terms of capturing similarity, whereas GloVe dominated the thematic role and event-based relations. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our results, make recommendations for users of these models, and demonstrate significant differences in model performance on event-based relations. (shrink)

How should we account for the contextual variability of knowledge claims? Many philosophers favour an invariantist account on which such contextual variability is due entirely to pragmatic factors, leaving no interesting context-sensitivity in the semantic meaning of ‘know that.’ I reject this invariantist division of labor by arguing that pragmatic invariantists have no principled account of embedded occurrences of ‘S knows/doesn’t know that p’: Occurrences embedded within larger linguistic constructions such as conditional sentences, attitude verbs, expressions of probability, comparatives, (...) and many others, I argue, give rise to a threefold problem of embedded implicatures. (shrink)

The vocabulary for describing odors in English natural language is not well understood, as prior studies of odor descriptions have often relied on preselected descriptors and odor ratings. Here, we present a data-driven approach that automatically identifies English odor descriptors based on their degree of olfactory association, and derive their semantic organization from their distributions in natural texts, using a distributional-semantic language model. We identify 243 descriptors that are much more strongly associated with olfaction than English words in (...) general. We then derive the semantic organization of these olfactory descriptors, and find that it is captured by four clusters that we name Offensive, Malodorous, Fragrant, and Edible. The semantic space derived from our model primarily differentiates descriptors in terms of pleasantness and edibility along which our four clusters are positioned, and is similar to a space derived from perceptual data. The semantic organization of odor vocabulary can thus be mapped using natural language data (e.g., online text), without the limitations of odor-perceptual data and preselected descriptors. Our method may thus facilitate research on olfaction, a sensory system known to often elude verbal description. (shrink)

This paper presents a puzzle involving embedded attitude reports. We resolve the puzzle by arguing that attitude verbs take restricted readings: in some environments the denotation of attitude verbs can be restricted by a given proposition. For example, when these verbs are embedded in the consequent of a conditional, they can be restricted by the proposition expressed by the conditional’s antecedent. We formulate and motivate two conditions on the availability of verb restrictions: a constraint that ties the content of restrictions (...) to the “dynamic effects” of sentential connectives and a constraint that limits the availability of restriction effects to present tense verbs with first-person subjects. However, we also present some cases that make trouble for these conditions, and outline some possible ways of modifying the view to account for the recalcitrant data. We conclude with a brief discussion of some of the connections between our semantics for attitude verbs and issues concerning epistemic modals and theories of knowledge. (shrink)

A semantic embedding of quantified conditional logic in classical higher-order logic is utilized for reducing cut-elimination in the former logic to existing results for the latter logic. The presented embedding approach is adaptable to a wide range of other logics, for many of which cut-elimination is still open. However, special attention has to be payed to cut-simulation, which may render cut-elimination as a pointless criterion.

At the heart of semantics in the 20th century is Frege’s distinction between sense and force. This is the idea that the content of a self-standing utterance of a sentence S can be divided into two components. One part, the sense, is the proposition that S’s linguistic meaning and context associates with it as its semantic interpretation. The second component is S’s illocutionary force. Illocutionary forces correspond to the three basic kinds of sentential speech acts: assertions, orders, and questions. (...) Forces are then kinds of acts in which propositions are deployed with certain purposes. I sketch a speech-act theoretic semantics in which that distinction does not hold. Instead of propositions and forces, the theory proposes proto-illocutionary acts and illocutionary acts. The orthodox notion of a proposition plays no role in the framework, which is a good thing, since that notion is deeply problematic. The framework also shows how expressionists, who embrace a sophisticated speech-act framework, face no Frege-Geach embedding problem, since the latter assumes the Sense/Force distinction. (shrink)

We prove some embedding theorems for classical conditional logic, covering 'finitely cumulative' logics, 'preferential' logics and what we call 'semi-monotonic' logics. Technical tools called 'partial frames' and 'frame morphisms' in the context of neighborhood semantics are used in the proof.

Scholars concerned with the foundations of quantum mechanics (QM) usually think that contextuality (hence nonobjectivity of physical properties, which implies numerous problems and paradoxes) is an unavoidable feature of QM which directly follows from the mathematical apparatus of QM. Based on some previous papers on this issue, we criticize this view and supply a new informal presentation of the extended semantic realism (ESR) model which embodies the formalism of QM into a broader mathematical formalism and reinterprets quantum probabilities as (...) conditional on detection rather than absolute. Because of this reinterpretation a hidden variables theory can be constructed which justifies the assumptions introduced in the ESR model and proves its objectivity. When applied to special cases the ESR model settles long-standing conflicts (it reconciles Bell’s inequalities with QM), provides a general framework in which previous results obtained by other authors (as local interpretations of the GHZ experiment) are recovered and explained, and supports an interpretation of quantum logic which avoids the introduction of the problematic notion of quantum truth. (shrink)

Sentence comprehension involves maintaining and continuously integrating linguistic information and, thus, makes demands on working memory. Past research has demonstrated that semantic WM, but not phonological WM, is critical for integrating word meanings across some distance and resolving semantic interference in sentence comprehension. Here, we examined the relation between phonological and semantic WM and the comprehension of center-embedded relative clause sentences, often argued to make heavy demands on WM. Additionally, we examined the relation between phonological and (...) class='Hi'>semantic WM and the comprehension of transitive and dative active and passive sentences, which may also draw on WM resources depending on the number of propositions that must be maintained and the difficulty of processing passive clauses. In a large sample of individuals with aphasia, we assessed whether comprehension performance on more complex vs. simpler active-passive or embedded relative clause sentences would be predicted by semantic but not phonological WM when controlling for single word comprehension. For performance on the active-passive comprehension task, we found that semantic WM, but not phonological WM, predicted comprehension of dative sentences when controlling for comprehension of transitive sentences. We also found that phonological WM, but not semantic WM, predicted mean comprehension for reversible active-passive sentences when controlling for trials with lexical distractors. On the relative clause comprehension task, consistent with prior results, we found that semantic WM, but not phonological WM, predicted comprehension of object relative clause sentences and relative clause sentences with a passive construction. However, both phonological WM and semantic WM predicted mean comprehension across all relative clause types for reversible trials when controlling for trials with lexical distractors. While we found evidence of semantic WM’s role in comprehension, we also observed unpredicted relations between phonological WM and comprehension in some conditions. Post-hoc analyses provided preliminary evidence that phonological WM maintains a backup phonological representation of the sentence that may be accessed when sentence comprehension processing is less efficient. Future work should investigate possible roles that phonological WM may play across sentence types. (shrink)

Building on previous works which argued that scalar implicatures can be computed in embedded positions, this paper proposes a constraint on exhaustification which restricts the conditions under which an exhaustivity operator can be licensed. We show that this economy condition allows us to derive a number of generalizations, such as, in particular, the ‘Implicature Focus Generalization’: scalar implicatures can be embedded under a downward-entailing operator only if the scalar term bears pitch accent. Our economy condition also derives specific predictions regarding (...) the licensing of so-called Hurford disjunctions. (shrink)

The semantic automata framework, developed originally in the 1980s, provides computational interpretations of generalized quantifiers. While recent experimental results have associated structural features of these automata with neuroanatomical demands in processing sentences with quantifiers, the theoretical framework has remained largely unexplored. In this paper, after presenting some classic results on semantic automata in a modern style, we present the first application of semantic automata to polyadic quantification, exhibiting automata for iterated quantifiers. We also discuss the role of (...) semantic automata in linguistic theory and offer new empirical predictions for sentence processing with embedded quantifiers. (shrink)

This paper gives a simple method for providing categorial brands of feature-based unification grammars with a model-theoretic semantics. The key idea is to apply the paradigm of fibred semantics (or layered logics, see Gabbay (1990)) in order to combine the two components of a feature-based grammar logic. We demonstrate the method for the augmentation of Lambek categorial grammar with Kasper/Rounds-style feature logic. These are combined by replacing (or annotating) atomic formulas of the first logic, i.e. the basic syntactic types, by (...) formulas of the second. Modelling such a combined logic is less trivial than one might expect. The direct application of the fibred semantics method where a combined atomic formula like np (num: sg & pers: 3rd) denotes those strings which have the indicated property and the categorial operators denote the usual left- and right-residuals of these string sets, does not match the intuitive, unification-based proof theory. Unification implements a global bookkeeping with respect to a proof whereas the direct fibring method restricts its view to the atoms of the grammar logic. The solution is to interpret the (embedded) feature terms as global feature constraints while maintaining the same kind of fibred structures. For this adjusted semantics, the anticipated proof system is sound and complete. (shrink)

This paper gives a semantic analysis of 'completion-related verbs of absence' such as 'lack' and 'be missing' in English. The analysis is based on the notion of a conceptual (integrated or ideal) whole, the notion of a variable object and its variable parts, and an ontology of 'lacks' as entities whose satisfaction involves parts. The semantics will be embedded into that of object-based truthmaker semantics of modals (Moltmann 2008, 2024).

The analysis of the derogatory aspect of slurs has recently aroused interest among philosophers of language. A puzzling element of it is its erratic behaviour in embeddings, for instance negation or belief reports. The derogatory aspect seems sometimes to “scope out” from the embedding to the context of utterance, while at other times it seems to interact with the linguistic constructions in which the slur is implanted. I argue that slurs force us to maintain a kind of semantic (...) indeterminacy which, to my knowledge, has passed largely unnoticed in philosophy of language. (shrink)

Speech acts have sometimes been considered as unembeddable, for principled reasons. In this paper, I argue that speech acts can be embedded under certain circumstances. In particular, I consider denegation and conjunction of speech acts, quantification into speech acts, conditionalization of speech acts, the embedding of speech acts by verbs like say and wonder, speechact-modifying adverbials like frankly, clauses commenting on speech acts, like certain uses of because-clauses, parentheticals, and appositive relative clauses. A crucial distinction is made between speech (...) acts and speech act potentials, linguistic objects that can be used to perform speech acts when applied in a specific communicative situation. I develop a semantic theory in which speech act potentials are captured as semantic functions that change a world-time index, reflecting the nature of speech acts as events that happen in the world. As index changers, speech act potentials become nearly regular semantic objects, with a proper semantic type on which other semantic objects can operate on. In this way, speech acts (or rather, speech-act potentials) become part of the recursive structure of language. (shrink)

Non-cognitivism is an approach to metaphor that denies the existence of any metaphorical meanings. A metaphor’s only meaning is its literal meaning. The interpretation of metaphor, on this approach, does not consist in metaphorical contents being communicated by being either semantically encoded or pragmatically communicated. Rather, metaphor operates in an entirely non-linguistic way that does not require the postulation of such meanings. Metaphors cause people to see connections, even to grasp new thoughts, but they do not do so by meaning (...) those thoughts or connections. Non-cognitivism faces a stern challenge from the problem of embedding: metaphors embedded in propositional attitude reports seem to require metaphorical meanings in their truth conditions. In this paper, we argue that existing attempts to solve this problem for non-cognitivism have been unsuccessful. We then offer a new solution that differentiates two scope readings of embedded metaphors and explains each in turn. The paper thus suggests that non-cognitivism has enough rescores to account for embedded metaphors. (shrink)

A wide array of syntactic phenomena can be categorized as being either direction-sensitive (e.g. coordination) or direction-insensitive (quantification and medial extraction). In the realm of categorial grammar, many frameworks are engineered to handle one class of phenomena at the expense of the other. In particular, Lambek-inspired frameworks handle direction-sensitivity elegantly but struggle with cases of direction-insensitivity, whereas in linear grammars, the situation is just the opposite. One reasonably successful attempt to unify the insights of both types of grammar and allow (...) for the analysis of direction-sensitive as well as direction-insensitive phenomena is hybrid type-logical categorial grammar (HTLCG), which augments the set of syntactic categories of an ordinary linear grammar with the directional slashes of a Lambek grammar. In this paper, the complementary nature of Lambek and linear grammars, with respect to direction-sensitive and direction-insensitive phenomena, is expounded on, as is the nature of how HTLCG attempts to reconcile the two systems. The paper further discusses an alternative to HTLCG—a linear grammar which adds Lambek-like capabilities by augmenting the string-combining (phenogrammatic) mechanism instead of the definition of syntactic categories (the tectogrammar). In particular, LCGϕ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\hbox {LCG}_\phi $$\end{document} (linear categorial grammar with phenominators) adds a form of subtyping based on phenominators—a class of linear functions which specify various modes of (phenogrammatic) combination. Most importantly, an algorithm is provided for embedding HTLCG into LCGϕ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\hbox {LCG}_\phi $$\end{document}, thereby demonstrating that LCGϕ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\hbox {LCG}_\phi $$\end{document} can handle direction-(in)sensitivity at least as well as HTLCG. (shrink)

The article addresses the problem of how semantic information can be upgraded to knowledge. The introductory section explains the technical terminology and the relevant background. Section 2 argues that, for semantic information to be upgraded to knowledge, it is necessary and sufficient to be embedded in a network of questions and answers that correctly accounts for it. Section 3 shows that an information flow network of type A fulfils such a requirement, by warranting that the erotetic deficit, characterising (...) the target semantic information t by default, is correctly satisfied by the information flow of correct answers provided by an informational source s. Section 4 illustrates some of the major advantages of such a Network Theory of Account (NTA) and clears the ground of a few potential difficulties. Section 5 clarifies why NTA and an informational analysis of knowledge, according to which knowledge is accounted semantic information, is not subject to Gettier-type counterexamples. A concluding section briefly summarises the results obtained. (shrink)

In the standard approach to quantum mechanics, closed subspaces of a Hilbert space represent propositions. In the operational approach, closed subspaces are replaced by effects that represent a mathematical counterpart for properties which can be measured in a physical system. Effects are a proper generalization of closed subspaces. Effects determine a Brouwer-Zadeh poset which is not a lattice. However, such a poset can be embedded in a complete Brouwer-Zadeh lattice. From an intuitive point of view, one can say that these (...) structures represent a natural logical abstraction from the structure of propositions of a quantum system. The logic that arises in this way is Brouwer-Zadeh logic. This paper shows that such a logic can be characterized by means of an algebraic and a Kripkean semantics. Finally, a strong completeness theorem for BZL is proved. (shrink)

Questions embedded under responsive predicates and definite descriptions both give rise to a variety of phenomena which can be grouped under the term plurality effects: quantificational variability, cumulativity, and homogeneity effects. This similarity has not gone unnoticed, and many proposals have taken inspiration in theories of definite plurals to account for these effects with embedded questions. Recently these phenomena have received less attention, as the field has focused on the so-called intermediate exhaustive reading of embedded questions instead, after Spector called (...) into question the traditional dichotomy between weak and strong exhaustive readings. As a result, the intermediate exhaustive reading has been accounted for at the expense of empirical coverage in other areas. In this paper, I propose a modular theory which derives the currently much discussed exhaustive readings without giving up the rich semantics necessary to account for plurality effects. My account of quantificational variability, cumulativity, and homogeneity effects builds on recent work on these phenomena in the nominal domain by adopting a categorial approach to embedded questions, while the strong and intermediate exhaustive readings are implemented using an independent strengthening mechanism suggested in Klinedinst and Rothschild :1–23, 2011). The resulting theory not only recovers important results on plurality effects; it offers new, simple solutions for some puzzles presented in George :166–177, 2013) and Paillé and Schwarz Proceedings of WCCFL 36, vol 36, Cascadilla Proceedings Project, Somerville, 2018), naturally derives readings that had been postulated in previous literature, makes correct predictions in many unexplored cases, and is compatible with recent results in psycholinguistics. In the last sections I justify my assumptions and show how possible limitations I inherit from the theories I build on can be accommodated under standard assumptions. (shrink)

This paper discusses the semantically parenthetical use of clauseembedding verbs such as see, hear, think, believe, discover and know. When embedding verbs are used in this way, the embedded clause carries the main point of the utterance, while the main clause serves some discourse function. Frequently, this function is evidential, with the parenthetical verb carrying information about the source and reliability of the embedded claim, or about the speaker’s emotional orientation to it. Other functions of parenthetical uses of verbs (...) are discussed. (shrink)

Semantic memory encompasses one's knowledge about the world. Distributional semantic models, which construct vector spaces with embedded words, are a proposed framework for understanding the representational structure of human semantic knowledge. Unlike some classic semantic models, distributional semantic models lack a mechanism for specifying the properties of concepts, which raises questions regarding their utility for a general theory of semantic knowledge. Here, we develop a computational model of a binary semantic classification task, in (...) which participants judged target words for the referent's size or animacy. We created a family of models, evaluating multiple distributional semantic models, and mechanisms for performing the classification. The most successful model constructed two composite representations for each extreme of the decision axis (e.g., one averaging together representations of characteristically big things and another of characteristically small things). Next, the target item was compared to each composite representation, allowing the model to classify more than 1,500 words with human‐range performance and to predict response times. We propose that when making a decision on a binary semantic classification task, humans use task prompts to retrieve instances representative of the extremes on that semantic dimension and compare the probe to those instances. This proposal is consistent with the principles of the instance theory of semantic memory. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that sentences containing a non-denoting description embedded in the scope of a propositional attitude verb have true de dicto interpretations, and Russell's (1905) analysis of definite descriptions is often praised for its simple analysis of such cases, cf. e.g. Neale (1990). However, several people, incl. Elbourne (2005, 2009), Heim (1991), and Kripke (2005), have contested this by arguing that Russell's analysis yields incorrect predictions in non-doxastic attitude contexts. Heim and Elbourne have subsequently argued that once certain (...) facts about presupposition projection are fully appreciated, the Frege/Strawson analysis of definite descriptions has an explanatory advantage. In this paper, I argue that both Russell's analysis and the Frege/Strawson analysis face a serious problem when it comes to the interaction of attitude verbs and definite descriptions. I argue that the problem observed by Elbourne, Heim, and Kripke is much more general than standardly assumed and that a solution requires a revision of the semantics of definite and indefinite descriptions. I outline the conditions that are required to solve the problem and present an analysis couched in dynamic semantics which can provide a solution. I conclude by discussing some further issues related to propositional attitude verbs that complicate a fully general solution to the problem. (shrink)

In this paper, I utilise the growing literature on scientific modelling to investigate the nature of formal semantics from the perspective of the philosophy of science. Specifically, I incorporate the inferential framework proposed by Bueno and Colyvan : 345–374, 2011) in the philosophy of applied mathematics to offer an account of how formal semantics explains and models its data. This view produces a picture of formal semantic models as involving an embedded process of inference and representation applying indirectly to (...) linguistic phenomena. The final aim of the paper is directed at proposing a novel account of the syntax–semantics interface while shedding light on empty categories, semantically null forms, underspecified content and compositionality as a whole. (shrink)

Multiplex networks have been widely used in information diffusion, social networks, transport, and biology multiomics. They contain multiple types of relations between nodes, in which each type of the relation is intuitively modeled as one layer. In the real world, the formation of a type of relations may only depend on some attribute elements of nodes. Most existing multiplex network embedding methods only focus on intralayer and interlayer structural information while neglecting this dependence between node attributes and the topology (...) of each layer. Attributes that are irrelevant to the network structure could affect the embedding quality of multiplex networks. To address this problem, we propose a novel multiplex network embedding model with high-order node dependence, called HMNE. HMNE simultaneously considers three properties: intralayer high-order proximity of nodes, interlayer dependence in respect of nodes, and the dependence between node attributes and the topology of each layer. In the intralayer embedding phase, we present a symmetric graph convolution-deconvolution model to embed high-order proximity information as the intralayer embedding of nodes in an unsupervised manner. In the interlayer embedding phase, we estimate the local structural complementarity of nodes as an embedding constraint of interlayer dependence. Through these two phases, we can achieve the disentangled representation of node attributes, which can be treated as fined-grained semantic dependence on the topology of each layer. In the restructure phase of node attributes, we perform a linear fusion of attribute disentangled representations for each node as a reconstruction of original attributes. Extensive experiments have been conducted on six real-world networks. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in cross-domain link prediction and shared community detection tasks. (shrink)

It is meaningful for a researcher to find some proper collaborators in complex academic tasks. Academic collaborator recommendation models are always based on the network embedding of academic collaborator networks. Most of them focus on the network structure, text information, and the combination of them. The latent semantic relationships exist according to the text information of nodes in the academic collaborator network. However, these relationships are often ignored, which implies the similarity of the researchers. How to capture the (...) latent semantic relationships among researchers in the academic collaborator network is a challenge. In this paper, we propose a content-enhanced network embedding model for academic collaborator recommendation, namely, CNEacR. We build a content-enhanced academic collaborator network based on the weighted text representation of each researcher. The content-enhanced academic collaborator network contains intrinsic collaboration relationships and latent semantic relationships. Firstly, the weighted text representation of each researcher is obtained according to its text information. Secondly, a content-enhanced academic collaborator network is built via the similarity of the weighted text representation of researchers and intrinsic collaboration relationships. Thirdly, each researcher is represented as a latent vector using network representation learning. Finally, top- k similar researchers are recommended for each target researcher. Experiment results on the real-world datasets show that CNEacR achieves better performance than academic collaborator recommendation baselines. (shrink)

1 INTIMACY Among Descartes's most and consequential achievements has been his of the mental as an independent ontological domain. By taking the mind as a substance, with cognitions as its modes, he accorded them a status as self-standing and determinate on their own, without essential regard to other entities. Only with this metaphysical conception in place, could the idea of solipsism-the idea of an intact ego existing with nothing else in the universe-so much as make sense. And behind that engine (...) have trailed the sorry boxcars of hyperbolic doubt. the mind-body problem, the problem of the external world, the problem of other minds, and so on. -/- Although the assumptions have been under fire, off and on. at least since Hegel-including with renewed intensity in recent years … the Cartesian separation that is still so pervasive as to be almost invisible. In particular, inter-relationist accounts retain a principled distinction between the mental and the corporeal-a distinction that is reflected in contrasts like semantics versus syntax, the space of reasons versus the space of causes, or the intentional versus the physical. (Notice that each of these contrasts can be heard either as higher versus lower’ level" or as inner versus outer 'sphere‘.) The contrary of this separation-or battery of separations-is not inter-relationist holism but something that I would like to call the intimacy of the mind's embodiment and embeddedness in the world. The term 'intimacy' is meant to suggest more than just necessary interrelation or interdependence but a kind of commingling or integralness of mind, body,and world-that is, to undermine their very distinctness. The challenge is as much to spell out what this could mean as to make a case for it. Indeed, no sooner does such a possibility seem intelligible at all, than ways bring out its plausibility and significance turn up everywhere. -/- There is little original in what follows. The strategy will be to bring some well known principles of systems analysis to bear on the mind- body-world 'system' in a way that refocuses questions of division and unity, and then to canvas a selection of investigations and proposals - some fairly recent, others not-in the light of this new focus. The hope is that these superficially disparate ideas, none of them new, will seem to converge around the theme of intimacy in a way that illuminates and supports them all. Sorting and and aligning issues in this manner has sometimes been discussed under titles like 'embedded computation’ and 'situated cognition'. (shrink)

Estimating word complexity is a well-established task in computer-assisted language learning. So far, however, complexity estimation has been largely limited to comprehension. This neglects words that are easy to comprehend, but hard to produce. We introduce semantic error prediction (SEP) as a novel task that assesses the production complexity of content words. Given the corrected version of a learner-produced text, a system has to predict which content words replace tokens from the original text. We present and analyse one example (...) of such a semantic error prediction dataset, which we generate from an error correction dataset. As neural baselines, we use BERT, RoBERTa, and LLAMA2 embeddings for SEP. We show that our models can already improve downstream applications, such as predicting essay vocabulary scores. (shrink)

The Logic R4 is obtained by adding the axiom □(A v B) → (◇A v □B) to the modal relevant logic NR. We produce a model theory for this logic and show completeness. We also show that there is a natural embedding of a Kripke model for S4 in each R4 model structure.

The goal of this paper is to offer a compositional semantics for subjunctive and indicative will conditionals, and to derive the projection properties of the types of conditionals we consider and in particular those of counterfactual conditionals. It is argued that subjunctive conditionals are "bare" conditional embedded under temporal and aspectural operators, which constrain the interpretation of the modal operators in the embedded conditional. Furthermore, it is argued that a theory of presupposition projection à la Heim together with the present (...) proposal about their logical form explains the projection facts. (shrink)

The discrepancy between syntax and semantics is a painstaking issue that hinders a better comprehension of the underlying neuronal processes in the human brain. In order to tackle the issue, we at first describe a striking correlation between Wittgenstein's Tractatus, that assesses the syntactic relationships between language and world, and Perlovsky's joint language-cognitive computational model, that assesses the semantic relationships between emotions and “knowledge instinct”. Once established a correlation between a purely logical approach to the language and computable psychological (...) activities, we aim to find the neural correlates of syntax and semantics in the human brain. Starting from topological arguments, we suggest that the semantic properties of a proposition are processed in higher brain's functional dimensions than the syntactic ones. In a fully reversible process, the syntactic elements embedded in Broca's area project into multiple scattered semantic cortical zones. The presence of higher functional dimensions gives rise to the increase in informational content that takes place in semantic expressions. Therefore, diverse features of human language and cognitive world can be assessed in terms of both the logic armor described by the Tractatus, and the neurocomputational techniques at hand. One of our motivations is to build a neuro-computational framework able to provide a feasible explanation for brain's semantic processing, in preparation for novel computers with nodes built into higher dimensions. (shrink)