Fitting, Not Clashing! A Distributional Semantic Model of Logical Metonymy

Logical metonymy interpretation (e.g. begin the book ->writing) has received wide attention in linguistics. Experimental results have shown higher processing costs for metonymic conditions compared with non-metonymic ones ( read the book). According to a widely held interpretation, it is the type clash between the event-selecting verb and the entity-denoting object (begin the book) that triggers coercion mechanisms and leads to additional processing effort. We propose an alternative explanation and argue that the extra processing effort is an effect of thematic fit. This is a more economical hypothesis that does not need to postulate a separate type clash mechanism: entity-denoting objects simply have a low fit as objects of event-selecting verbs. We test linguistic datasets from psycholinguistic experiments and find that a structured distributional model of thematic fit, which does not encode any explicit argument type information, is able to replicate all significant experimental findings. This result provides evidence for a graded account of coercion phenomena in which thematic fit accounts for both the trigger of the coercion and the retrieval of the covert even

"A Theory of Deep Democracy and Economic Justice in the Age of Postmodernism"

The main purpose of this paper is to offer a somewhat novel theory of deep democracy and economic justice. Part of the novelty consists in considering radical uncertainty and indeterminacy under postmodern conditions. I claim that even under such conditions a plausible theory of deep democracy and economic justice can make sense. The theory of deep democracy presented here makes a distinction between formal aspects of democracy and the deeper structural aspects. In order for democracy to be deep, democratic practices have to become institutionalized in such a way that they become part of normal life ina democratic society. In this sense, ontologically, deep democracy overlaps with Barber's (1984) idea of "strong" democracy. There are, however, epistemological differences as well as differences of emphasis, particularly in the economic spere. I have tried to consider the postmodernist position with regards to democracy and economic justice by paying careful attention to the arguments of leading postmodernists. Barring a nihilism that rules out arguments entirely, such a procedure seems reasonable. Following this procedure, Lyotard's characterization of the discourse on morality and justice as phrase-regimes has been shown to lead to an ethical impasse. His appeal to the Kantian sublime, in this context, would seem to be a category mistake. The aesthetic category of sublime does not fit the requirements of moral judgments even in Kantian terms. Epistemologically, the postmodern dilemma arises from a correct critique of metaphysics and transcendentalism. However, the critique is partial and negative. It is partial in the sense that it does not take the challenge of Kant to develop normativity seriously enough to explore alternatives as Hegel did. It, therefore, pursues entirely the negative critical path leading to thoroughgoing skepticism and nihilism. Derrida's belated attempts to rescue philosophy from a linguistic nihilism may succeed. But it still falls far short of offering a positive account of normativity. A critical overcoming of modernism simply cannot be found in the postmodern turn. I have offered as an alternative to natural law and transcendental norms an account of Hegel's explorations. As Winfield and others have pointed out, this approach is also anti-foundational. However, by following the rational demands of self-determination, it is possible to break out of the vicious circle of skepticism. Instead a progressive structure starting with the minimum structure of freedom as self-determination can be built up. Following this alternative offers a way of exploring deep democracy and economic justice. A concrete set of institutions consistent with the development of self-determination can be seen as necessary for the idea of economic justice to have meaning. In the spheres of production, distribution, exchange, law and contracts among others, the development of appropriate economic institutions allowing this inter-subjective idea of freedom to unfold becomes the thematic development of economic justice. An important problem in this context is the coherence of the concept of the moral subject. By carefully considering poststructuralist psychoanalytical theory of Lacan and others a dynamically oriented approach to the question of the subject becomes possible. Pre-Freudian thinkers such as Hegel or Marx did not see the formation of the individual in all its deeply problematic aspects. However, the "speaking subject," though not innocent (as Helene Cixous wittily put it), is nevertheless capable of agency under specific social and economic conditions. A continuum of subjectivity ending with the fully liberated individual offers various possible levels of moral agency. In an economically and socially unjust setting radical analytic and social interventions will be necessary for these possibilities to materialize. Deep Democrfacy and economic justice, therefore, can be presented as a coherent set of positive requirements. It is part and parcel of the need for rational autonomy in our world. Reasonably enough, even if we choose to call such a world postmodern, a discourse on deep democracy and economic justice is both necessary and possible. It is encouraging to think that such discourses are not just phrase-regimes.

Rhetorical Transformations in Multimodal Advertising Texts: From General to Local Degree Zero

The use of rhetoric in advertising research has been steadily gaining momentum since the 1980’s. Coupled with an increased interest in multimodality and the multiple interactions among verbal, pictorial and auditory registers, as structural components of an ad filmic text, the hermeneutic tools furnished by traditional rhetoric have been expanded and elaborated. This paper addresses the fundamental question of how ad filmic texts assume signification from a multimodal rhetorical point of view, by engaging in a fruitful dialogue with various research streams within the wider semiotic discipline and consumer research. By critically addressing the context of analysis of a multimodal ad text in the course of the argumentation deployed by different approaches, such as Social Semiotics (Kress/Leeuwen 2001), Film Semiotics (i.e. Metz 1982, Carroll 1980, Branigan 1982), Visual Semiotics (i.e. Sonesson 2008; 2010, Eco 1972;1976;1986, Groupe " 1992), Consumer Research (i.e. Mick/McQuarrie 1999; 2004, Philips 2003, Scott 1994), the relative merits of a structuralist approach that prioritizes the distinction between local and general degree zero, as put forward by Groupe " (1992), are highlighted. Furthermore, the modes whereby rhetorical transformations are enacted are outlined, with view to deepening the conceptual tackling of degree zero of signification, while addressing its applicability to branding discourse and multimodal ad texts

Language and argumentation in the controversy economic

This article offers an approach to the general structure of the controversy in economy. In our case we adopted a perspective to study a particular aspect of the rhetoric that comes from the context of a particular controversy: the controversy on the advantages of the free commerce between Daly and Bhagwati. It is sustained that the positions in economy present with relative frequency interest conflicts that are revealed in the dialectic one of the arguments. A proponent in open defense of the free commerce is not released of presumptions reflected in the field of the rhetoric. Reason why to include the language dimensions of the argumentation in economy has advantages for the field of the explanation and the epistemology in the social sciences.

The transposition of literary and rhetorical constructs to dance theory and choreography

It was the purpose of this study to explore selected literary and rhetorical constructs as philosophical models for describing the aesthetic nature of dance, techniques of choreography, and the theory of choreography. Essentially heuristic, the study superimposed these constructs, such as metaphor, on dance theory to see if they also described the same or similar processes or techniques in dance. It was hoped that of the 250 constructs considered, a few would significantly enrich the dancer's understanding of his medium. Four compatible theories were used as a framework for conceiving the study: Langer, Sheets, Ellfeldt-Metheny, and Gendlin. Each construct was stated first as it applied to literature or rhetoric; then abstracted enough in terminology so that it would not only apply to literature and rhetoric, but other media as well; then this abstracted statement, now quite malleable, was applied to the indicated area of dance—aesthetics of dance, techniques of choreography, or theory of choreography. Professional literature on the constructs and the movement-meaning relationship were used to support the philosophical developments and conclusions. The study was illustrated through Labanotation and pantomimic descriptions where pertinent

Contextually-Dependent Lexical Semantics

Institute for Communicating and Collaborative SystemsThis thesis is an investigation of phenomena at the interface between syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, with the aim of arguing for a view of semantic interpretation as lexically driven yet contextually dependent. I examine regular, generative processes which operate over the lexicon to induce verbal sense shifts, and discuss the interaction of these processes with the linguistic or discourse context. I concentrate on phenomena where only an interaction between all three linguistic knowledge sources can explain the constraints on verb use: conventionalised lexical semantic knowledge constrains productive syntactic processes, while pragmatic reasoning is both constrained by and constrains the potential interpretations given to certain verbs. The phenomena which are closely examined are the behaviour of PP sentential modifiers (specifically dative and directional PPs) with respect to the lexical semantic representation of the verb phrases they modify, resultative constructions, and logical metonymy. The analysis is couched in terms of a lexical semantic representation drawing on Davis (1995), Jackendoff (1983, 1990), and Pustejovsky (1991, 1995) which aims to capture “linguistically relevant” components of meaning. The representation is shown to have utility for modeling of the interaction between the syntactic form of an utterance and its meaning. I introduce a formalisation of the representation within the framework of Head Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (Pollard and Sag 1994), and rely on the model of discourse coherence proposed by Lascarides and Asher (1992), Discourse in Commonsense Entailment. I furthermore discuss the implications of the contextual dependency of semantic interpretation for lexicon design and computational processing in Natural Language Understanding systems