Twenty-Five Years Of Linguistics And Philosophy

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43170/1/10988_2004_Article_5089033.pd

Interpreting network formalisms

AbstractIn a recent paper, Reiter and Criscuolo [3] remark “that (semantic) networks are notational variants of logical formulae is by now a truism in Artificial Intelligence circles”. Shamelessly exploiting the foregoing quote as a pretext, I attempt to sketch adequate semantic accounts for at least two (kinds of) semantic network formalisms; one, based on the notion of inheritance, one, not. A crucial condition of adequacy to be satisfied is fidelity to some of the intuitions of the creators of the formalisms

OntOlOgy and IntegratIOn Of fOrmal and lexIcal SemantIcS

Formal and lexical semantics can be integrated if they speak the same language. We claim that a substantial part of lexical semantics can be incorporated into formal semantics without adding to the latter any new mechanisms. This talk continues the authors' work on the ontology and the semantics of measure constructions in Russian. The work concerns expressions like dva stakana moloka, polkorziny gribov, tri meshka muki (two glasses of milk, half a basket of mushrooms, three bags of flour), etc., describing various kinds of containers, or corresponding measures based on them, and their contents-portions of substances. In our previous works, describing ontological information, including sorts of things and the words and expressions that designate sorts, we did not include those sorts in our formal semantic analyses. We do that in the present work, declaring sorts as types and thereby significantly expanding Montague's system of types. On the one hand this gives us the means for specifying various aspects of the ontology, and on the other hand it lets us more fully specify the semantics of the constructions under consideration. The substantive goals of this research are, in part, to be able to describe and explain co-occurrence constraints and ideally to be able to formally distinguish well-formed from ill-formed expressions in this domain

Of marriage and mathematics: inferentialism and social ontology

The semantic inferentialist account of the social institution of semantic meaning can be naturally extended to account for social ontology. I argue here that semantic inferentialism provides a framework within which mathematical ontology can be understood as social ontology, and mathematical facts as socially instituted facts. I argue further that the semantic inferentialist framework provides resources to underpin at least some aspects of the objectivity of mathematics, even when the truth of mathematical claims is understood as socially instituted

The Cow is to be Tied Up: Sort-Shifting in Classical Indian Philosophy

This paper undertakes textual exegesis and rational reconstruction of Mukula Bhaṭṭa’s Abhidhā-vṛttta-mātṛkā, or “The Fundamentals of the Communicative Function.” The treatise was written to refute Ānandavardhana’s claim, made in the Dhvanyāloka, that there is a third “power” of words, vyañjanā (suggestion), beyond the two already accepted by traditional Indian philosophy: abhidhā (denotation) and lakṣaṇā(indication).1 I argue that the explanation of lakṣaṇā as presented in his text contains internal tensions, although it may still be a compelling response to Ānandavardhana

Proper names

Traditionally, the conflict over the question what is the role of proper names in ordinary language has centred around two proposals: a sense-reference account, where the meaning of a name is given by some favoured description of the bearer, or a designatory account, where the bearer is the meaning of the name. There is a predisposition towards the former account. largely apparent ease in dealing with a supposedly central question: what is the role of "Pegasus" in the sentence "Pegasus does not exist". If we consider sane more standard cases of proper names two facts are clear: speakers use a name from one occasion to the next with one and the same meaning, and what two men may know of a particular individual may not be the same thing. These facts not only undermine the traditional accounts but they also prohibit a uniform account of all names, bearerless or otherwise, in terms of the bare intentions of speakers irrespective of what populates the universe. These failures indicate the need for a different approach to the issue. The search for a direct answer to the question "what is the meaning of a name", prescribed by a sense-reference approach, should be replaced by seeking the conditions which must be satisfied by someone who knows the contribution a name makes to determining the truth grounds of statements. The role of standard proper names can then be explained without appeal to something which is the meaning; and further an account of why "Pegasus" is still with us can be given, which explains our intentions on the matter without unduly detracting from an ontology of middle sized hardware.<p

On the Origin of Negation

The ability to express negation in language may have been the result of an adaptive process. However, there are different accounts of adaptation in linguistics, and more than one of them may describe the case of negation. In this paper, I distinguish different versions of the claim that negation is adaptive and defend a proposal, based on recent work by Steinert-Threlkeld (2016) and Incurvati and Sbardolini (2021), on which negation is an indirect adaptation