From Frege to dynamic theories of meaning

2003 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 691-692
Author(s):  
Alice G. B. ter Meulen
Keyword(s):  
Logical Consequence ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Language Understanding ◽  
Logical Constants ◽  
Theories Of Meaning

In designing stratified models of human language, understanding notions of logical consequence and validity of inference require separating the aspects of meaning that vary between models from logical constants. Modelling meaning requires choices regarding the primitives, where the Fregean program is still offering us the fundamental insights on the role of truth, judgement, and grasping or sharing of thoughts.

Predictability and phonology: past, present and future

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (s2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Shaw ◽  
Shigeto Kawahara
Keyword(s):  
Human Language ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Theoretical Context ◽  
Sound Patterns

AbstractMany papers in this special issue grew out of the talks given at the Symposium “The role of predictability in shaping human language sound patterns,” held at Western Sydney University (Dec. 10–11, 2016). Some papers were submitted in response to an open call; others were invited contributions. This introduction aims to contextualize the papers in the special issue within a broader theoretical context, focusing on what it means for phonological theory to incorporate gradient predictability, what questions arise as a consequence, and how the papers in this issue address these questions.

scholarly journals "Dictionary of the Chuvash Language" by N.I. Ashmarin as a Guardian of the Genetic Memory of the People: Linguoculturological Aspect

2020 ◽  
pp. 20-25
Author(s):  
Albina Fedorovna Myshkina ◽  
Inessa Vladimirovna Iadranskaia
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
Psychological Type ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Amount Of Information ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scientific Technical

The article is devoted to identifying the role of the «Dictionary of the Chuvash language» by N.I. Ashmarin in revealing the mental foundations of modern Chuvash and in determining the sociocultural and psychological type of character of the Chuvash. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that during the period of globalization and universalization of cultures, the return to the original values of the nation, the search for individual-folk traits of a person's character in his worldview and lifestyle, which is most clearly recorded in his language, is of great importance. The human language retains a large amount of information that contributes to its spiritual, scientific, technical and industrial development. Therefore, the analysis of vocabulary also contributes to the study of the history of the development of man, people, nation, humanity. The purpose of the research is to study the socio-historical, cultural and ethical information enshrined in the vocabulary of the people and recorded in this dictionary. The principles of methodology, that reflect elements of conceptology, hermeneutics and general philology are used in the study. It is concluded that the Chuvash language (more broadly, the Chuvash culture) is an integral part of the ancient Turkic world, therefore research in this direction expands the framework of understanding the philosophy, history, theology and everyday life of the Chuvash people.

Logical constants

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
Logical Consequence ◽  
Logical Form ◽  
Logical Truth ◽  
Semantic Property ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Property A ◽  
Logical Constants ◽  
Language L

A fundamental problem in the philosophy of logic is to characterize the concepts of ‘logical consequence’ and ‘logical truth’ in such a way as to explain what is semantically, metaphysically or epistemologically distinctive about them. One traditionally says that a sentence p is a logical consequence of a set S of sentences in a language L if and only if (1) the truth of the sentences of S in L guarantees the truth of p and (2) this guarantee is due to the ‘logical form’ of the sentences of S and the sentence p. A sentence is said to be logically true if its truth is guaranteed by its logical form (for example, ‘2 is even or 2 is not even’). There are three problems presented by this picture: to explicate the notion of logical form or structure; to explain how the logical forms of sentences give rise to the fact that the truth of certain sentences guarantees the truth of others; and to explain what such a guarantee consists in. The logical form of a sentence may be exhibited by replacing nonlogical expressions with a schematic letter. Two sentences have the same logical form when they can be mapped onto the same schema using this procedure (‘2 is even or 2 is not even’ and ‘3 is prime or 3 is not prime’ have the same logical form: ‘p or not-p’). If a sentence is logically true then each sentence sharing its logical form is true. Any characterization of logical consequence, then, presupposes a conception of logical form, which in turn assumes a prior demarcation of the logical constants. Such a demarcation yields an answer to the first problem above; the goal is to generate the demarcation in such a way as to enable a solution of the remaining two. Approaches to the characterization of logical constants and logical consequence are affected by developments in mathematical logic. One way of viewing logical constanthood is as a semantic property; a property that an expression possesses by virtue of the sort of contribution it makes to determining the truth conditions of sentences containing it. Another way is proof-theoretical: appealing to aspects of cognitive or operational role as the defining characteristics of logical expressions. Broadly, proof-theoretic accounts go naturally with the conception of logic as a theory of formal deductive inference; model-theoretic accounts complement a conception of logic as an instrument for the characterization of structure.

scholarly journals Reasoning about Quantities in Natural Language

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Subhro Roy ◽  
Tim Vieira ◽  
Dan Roth
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Natural Language Processing ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Computational Approach ◽  
Quantitative Reasoning ◽  
Language Understanding ◽  
Numerical Reasoning ◽  
Key Steps

Little work from the Natural Language Processing community has targeted the role of quantities in Natural Language Understanding. This paper takes some key steps towards facilitating reasoning about quantities expressed in natural language. We investigate two different tasks of numerical reasoning. First, we consider Quantity Entailment, a new task formulated to understand the role of quantities in general textual inference tasks. Second, we consider the problem of automatically understanding and solving elementary school math word problems. In order to address these quantitative reasoning problems we first develop a computational approach which we show to successfully recognize and normalize textual expressions of quantities. We then use these capabilities to further develop algorithms to assist reasoning in the context of the aforementioned tasks.

‘A grapevine round the world’: the development, through 25 years, of the international role of ARLIS/UK & Ireland

1994 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 55-60
Author(s):  
Philip Pacey
Keyword(s):  
Logical Consequence ◽  
Round Table ◽  
International Committee ◽  
New Era ◽  
British Art ◽  
The World ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
International Activities ◽  
International Role

Between 1969 and 1979, while it was establishing itself, ARLIS attracted the attention of art librarians in other countries, publicised and encouraged their activities, and in particular developed a close relationship with the new ARLIS/NA (ARLIS/North America). This phase culminated, in 1976, in the launch of the Art Libraries Journal, and in the organisation of an international conference at Brighton which inaugurated a new era of collaboration between art librarians around the world, initial plans for an ‘ARLIS International’ being put aside in favour of working within the framework of IFLA. ARLIS subsequently participated in the activities of the IFLA Round Table of Art Librarians and its successor, the IFLA Section of Art Libraries. More recently, ARLIS responded to the growth of an international community of art librarians by changing its name to ARLIS/UK & Eire (and later to ARLIS/UK & Ireland) and by relaunching the Art Libraries Journal; the winding up of its International Committee, far from representing a decline in the Society’s international activities, was a logical consequence of the fact that an international outlook had come to pervade virtually all of its work. ARLIS/UK & Eire hosted the IFLA Section of Art Libraries Pre-Conference at Brighton in 1987, and the Section’s Fourth European Conference, at Oxford, in 1992. While international activities may sometimes seem remote from the day-to-day work of art libraries, most British art librarians probably do now recognise the value of’a grapevine round the world’; furthermore, by ‘acting locally’ we are all helping to build the larger world of art librarianship.

Artificial Tutoring Systems: What Computers Can and Can't Know

1997 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore W. Frick
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Tutoring Systems ◽  
Clinical Evidence ◽  
Intelligent Tutoring ◽  
Computer Systems ◽  
Classroom Teachers ◽  
Language Understanding ◽  
Tutoring Systems ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Teachers And Students

After more than four decades, development of artificially intelligent tutoring systems has been constrained by two interrelated problems: knowledge representation and natural language understanding. G. S. Maccia's epistemology of intelligent natural systems implies that computer systems will need to develop qualitative intelligence before these problems can be solved. Recent research on how human nervous systems develop provides evidence for the significance of qualitative intelligence. Qualitative intelligence is required for understanding of culturally bound meanings of signs used in communication among intelligent natural systems. S. I. Greenspan provides neurological and clinical evidence that emotion and sensation are vital to the growth of mind—capabilities that computer systems do not currently possess. Therefore, we must view computers in education as media through which a multitude of teachers can convey their messages. This does not mean that the role of classroom teachers is diminished. Teachers and students can be empowered by these additional learning resources.

How We Trust One Another

Philosophy ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oswald Hanfling
Keyword(s):  
Human Language ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
Social Functions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Linguistic Behaviour ◽  
The Right ◽  
Promise Keeping

AbstractHow is the possibility of promising to be explained without circularity? Appeal is made to the role of natural inclinations in linguistic behaviour, which presupposes truth telling and promise keeping, and also to the social functions of human language which go beyond signalling and transmitting information and which are prior to any explicit conventions. Although promises are broken and lies told, we all have the right to feel resentment when these things happen.

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