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Reference to individuals in natural language

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Horn (1989) Negative quantifiers. Split' scope in Germanic ... Every doctor has no car. Split' scope with modals. Ze hoeven geen verpleegkundigen te ontslaan. ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Reference to individuals in natural language


1
Reference to individuals in natural language
  • Henriëtte de Swart
  • Barcelona, May 2005

2
What is this course about?
  • Reference to individuals in natural language
  • What is reference?
  • Why study reference to individuals in natural
    language? Across languages?
  • Relevance for linguistics? For cognitive science?

3
Semantics
  • Semantics study of meaning expressed by elements
    of a language or combinations thereof.
  • What is meaning?
  • What is language?

4
What is meaning?
  • The red light means that you cannot go in.
  • a,b,c means the set consisting of the
    elements a, b, and c.
  • The French word chien means dog.
  • Do you know the meaning of the word
    hypochondriac?
  • To denote, to be described or defined as, sense,
    significance, acceptation, denotation.

5
Not our job..
  • No deeper meaning or inner significance.
  • What is the meaning of life?
  • No intentions, purposes, etc.
  • What do you mean by that look?
  • No natural meaning.
  • Those clouds mean rain.

6
Semantics in linguistic theory
  • Natural language as a system of communication.
  • Function transfer of information.
  • Communication implies speaker and hearer.

7
Speaker-hearer
speaker
hearer
Intend ? Phrase ? Speak
Comprehend ? Understand ? Hear
Speech sound
8
Language-cognition-world
  • language

cognition
world
9
Concepts and denotations
  • language

concepts
denotations
cognition
world
10
Truth conditional and conceptual semantics
  • language

cognition
world
Truth-conditional semantics
Conceptual semantics
11
Beyond words
  • Lexical semantics meaning of words.
  • Beyond words meaning of constituents, sentences,
    even discourses.
  • Relevance of structure
  • John hit Peter ? Peter hit John
  • Word order ? Subject-Object relation ?
    Agent-Patient relation.

12
Compositionality
  • Principle of Compositionality of meaning the
    meaning of a complex whole is a function of the
    meaning of the composing parts, and the way in
    which they are put together.
  • Lexical and structural information jointly
    determine the meaning of constituents and
    sentences.

13
Variation across languages
  • Natural languages vary lexicon, sounds,
    syntactic structure.
  • Generative linguistics universal grammar
    (innate) and parametrisation.
  • Optimality theory (OT) universal constraints
    (innate/learnt) and different orders of
    constraints.

14
Pro-drop
  • Some languages allow empty subjects (e.g.
    Italian), others dont (e.g. English).
  • Piove Italiaans
  • It is raining English
  • Pro-drop parameter on or off (child has to learn
    the right setting). Assumes empty categories in
    linguistic representations.

15
Competition in OT soft constraints
  • Subject constraint Every sentence has a
    subject.
  • Meaning constraint Every word in the sentence
    must be meaningful.
  • Prince Smolensky (1997) relative weight of
    constraints determines English vs. Italian.
  • English Subject C gtgt Meaning C
  • Italian Meaning C gtgt Subject C.

16
Typology in OT
pro-drop
no pro-drop
raining MeanC SubjC
piove
it piove
raining SubjC MeanC
? is raining
It is raining
  • ?
  • ?

17
Variation in meaning
  • Basic assumption human cognition is universal.
  • Knowledge of first-order logic or equivalent
    leads to similar claims about entailments and
    other inference relations.
  • Prediction semantics is always universal.
  • No variation in meaning?????

18
Locus of semantic variation
  • Semantic variation arises
  • (i) in the distribution of labor between forms
    and meanings.
  • (ii) at the syntax-semantics interface.
  • (iii) at the semantics-pragmatics interface.

19
Semantic Variation I
  • Tense and aspect. E.g. English Progressive vs.
    French Simple Present tense.
  • John is eating an apple
  • John eats an apple/ John bikes to school.
  • Jean est en train de manger une pomme.
  • Jean mange une pomme/Jean va à lécole en vélo.

20
Perfect Tenses
  • Universal Perfect for or since
  • Mary has lived in London for three years (now).
  • Marie a vécu à Londres pendant trois ans
    (maintenant).
  • Marie vit à Londres depuis trois ans.
  • Mary lives in London since three years.

21
Perfect tenses in discourse
  • French uses Passé Composé to tell a story (e.g.
    Camus) English does not Dutch does sometimes.
  • Aujourdhui, maman est morte (PC). Ou peut-être
    hier, je ne sais pas (PR). Jai reçu un
    télégramme de lasile (PC) ().
  • Mother died today (SP). Or maybe yesterday, I
    dont know (PR). I had a telegram from the home
    (SP) (...).
  • Vandaag is moeder gestorven (VTT). Of
    misschien gisteren, ik weet het niet (OTT). Ik
    ontving een telegram uit het gesticht (OVT)
    (...)

22
Questions about tense/aspect
  • Questions about tense and aspect in
    cross-linguistic semantics.
  • What forms are available in a language?
  • How are truth-conditional meanings distributed
    over available forms?
  • Are certain meanings only available as hidden
    aspectual shifts (coercion)?
  • How are the forms used in discourse (dynamic
    semantics, pragmatics)?

23
Semantic variation II
  • Meaning of determiners. E.g. Dutch Sommige vs.
    English some.
  • Some flowers grew behind the shed.
  • Sommige bloemen groeiden achter de schuur.
  • Some do, others dont

24
Bare plurals
  • English bare plurals existential or generic.
  • Dogs were playing in the garden. ?
  • Dogs like to play. Gen
  • Bare plurals in Romance existential, not
    generic.

25
Italian
  • Elefanti di colore bianco hanno creato in passato
    grande curiosità.
  • Elephants of color white have raised in the past
    great curiosity.
  • Ucelli di zone paludose sono intelligenti.
  • Birds of the marshlands are intelligent.
  • Gli ucelli di zone paludose sono intelligenti.

26
French
  • No bare plurals, but indefinite plurals.
  • Only existential, not generic (like Italian).
  • Des enfants jouaient dans la rue.
  • Indef-pl children were playing in the street.
  • Des enfants aiment le chocolat.
  • Indef-pl children like chocolate.
  • Les enfants aiment le chocolat.

27
Incorporation
  • Incorporation in West Greenlandic, Hindi,
    Hungarian, etc, not in English, Romance direct
    relation between verb and object.
  • Arnajarq eqalut-tur-p-u-q. WG
  • A.abs salmon-eat-Ind--tr-3sg.
  • Arnajaraq eats salmon/is a salmon-eater.

28
Questions about bare plurals
  • How are bare plurals related to other NPs/DPs
    (scope, anaphora, quantificational force,
    referential force, incorporation).
  • How are bare plurals related to bare singulars?
    To bare mass nouns? To indefinite plurals as in
    French?
  • If generic reference is strongly related to
    bareness, why do Romance bare plurals not allow
    generic readings?

29
Semantic Variation III
  • Despite the simplicity of the one-place
    connective of propositional logic (?p is true if
    and only if p is not true) and of the laws of
    inference in which it participates (e.g. the Law
    of Double Negation from ??p infer p, and vice
    versa), the form and function of negative
    statements in ordinary language are far from
    simple and transparent. Horn (1989)

30
Negative quantifiers
  • Split scope in Germanic languages.
  • Iedereen is geen genie. Dutch
  • Everyone is no genius (split ???)
  • Jeder Arzt hat kein Auto.
  • Every doctor has no car.

31
Split scope with modals.
  • Ze hoeven geen verpleegkundigen te ontslaan.
  • They need no nurses to fire ???
  • Hanna sucht kein Buch
  • De re there is no book that Hanna is looking
    for.
  • De dicto the object of Hs quest is not a book.
  • split it is not the case that what H. is
    looking for is a book.

32
Double Negation and Negative Concord
  • Multiple negations DN and NC
  • Nobody said nothing. (Eng) ??x??y
  • Niemand zei niets. (Dutch) ??x??y
  • Nadie miraba a nadie. (Spa) ??x?y
  • Nessuno ha parlato con nessuno. (Ital)
    ??x?y
  • Personne na rien dit. (Fr) ambiguous

33
Questions about DN and NC
  • Negative Concord raises problems for the
    principle of compositionality of meaning two
    negative expressions, but only one semantic
    negation.
  • How are double negation and negative concord
    languages related? (typology of negation).

34
Aims of this course
  • Learn semantic tools to address reference to
    individuals in natural language type theory,
    lambda abstraction, type shift, DRT.
  • Learn to use these tools to address questions
    about reference to individuals in a particular
    language/ in a cross-linguistic perspective.
  • Enjoy doing natural language semantics!
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