Must/need, may/can and the scope of the modal auxiliary

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 499-532
Author(s):  
Patrick Duffley
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Opposite Direction ◽  
Natural Language Semantic ◽  
Conceptual Status ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Semantic Interaction

Abstract This article argues that the logical paraphrases used to describe the meanings of must, need, may, and can obscure the natural-language semantic interaction between these verbs and negation. The purported non-negatability of must is argued to be an illusion created by the indicative-mood paraphrase ‘is necessary’, which treats the necessity as a reality rather than a non-reality. It is proposed that negation coalesces with the modality that must itself expresses to produce a negatively-charged version of must’s modality: the subject of musn’t is represented as being in a state of constraint in which the only possibility open to the subject is oriented in the opposite direction to the realization of the infinitive’s event. The study also constitutes an argument against a lexicalization analysis: in the combination mustn’t, must and not each contribute their own meaning to the resultant sense, but according to their conceptual status as inherently irrealis notions.

Comments on Friederike Moltmann’s “Variable Objects and Truth-Making”

2020 ◽  
pp. 496-502
Author(s):  
Kit Fine
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Broad Agreement ◽  
Montague Semantics ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Way

I have long admired Friederike Moltmann’s work at the intersection of linguistics and philosophy; and I have always been especially impressed by the way in which she has attempted to break free of the stranglehold of the possible worlds approach by showing how the diversified ontology of objects commonly associated with traditional metaphysics provides a much better tool for the investigation of natural language than the simple and stylized ontology of Montague semantics. The present paper is a characteristically rich, original and thought-provoking contribution to the subject; and I am afraid that I can do no more than pick my way through one or two of the many interesting issues that she raises. However, any criticisms I make on this score should not be seen to detract from my broad agreement with much of what she says....

scholarly journals The morphology of Trypanosoma simiæ , sp. nov

1912 ◽  
Vol 85 (581) ◽  
pp. 477-481 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Opposite Direction ◽  
Guinea Pigs ◽  
Short Distance ◽  
Average Duration ◽  
Glossina Morsitans ◽  
Single Cage ◽  
White Rats ◽  
Future Paper ◽  
The Subject

This species of trypanosome, which does not seem to have been described before, is remarkable in that it attacks only such widely different animals as the monkey and the goat. Oxen, baboons, dogs, guinea-pigs, and white rats appear to be immune. The rapidity with which it kills monkeys is very striking. In a series of 19 the average duration of life after the trypanosomes were first seen in the blood was only 2·9 days. Its action on animals, its reservoir, its carrier, and cultivation, have not been fully worked out, and will form the subject of a future paper. In regard to its carrier, it may be stated that in this district it is Glossina morsitans , and that scarcely a single cage of flies is brought to Kasu Hill from the neighbouring “fly-country” but is found to be infected with this trypanosome. A. Living, Unstained . Trypanosoma simiœ shows active translatory movements when alive: some individuals pass completely across the field of the microscope. Apparently the usual mode of progression is flagellum first, but occasionally an individual can be seen to move a short distance in the opposite direction.

Questions about quantifiers

1984 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 443-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan van Benthem
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Mathematical Structures ◽  
Fixed Model ◽  
Semantic Treatment ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Image Position ◽  
Quantifier Phrases

The importance of the logical ‘generalized quantifiers’ (Mostowski [1957]) for the semantics of natural language was brought out clearly in Barwise & Cooper [1981]. Basically, the idea is that a quantifier phrase QA (such as “all women”, “most children”, “no men”) refers to a set of sets of individuals, viz. those B for which (QA)B holds. Thus, e.g., given a fixed model with universe E,where ⟦A⟧ is the set of individuals forming the extension of the predicate “A” in the model. This point of view permits an elegant and uniform semantic treatment of the subject-predicate form that pervades natural language.Such denotations of quantifier phrases exhibit familiar mathematical structures. Thus, for instance, all A produces filters, and no A produces ideals. The denotation of most A is neither; but it is still monotone, in the sense of being closed under supersets. Mere closure under subsets occurs too; witness a quantifier phrase like few A. These mathematical structures are at present being used in organizing linguistic observations and formulating hypotheses about them. In addition to the already mentioned paper of Barwise & Cooper, an interesting example is Zwarts [1981], containing applications to the phenomena of “negative polarity” and “conjunction reduction”. In the course of the latter investigation, several methodological issues of a wider logical interest arose, and these have inspired the present paper.In order to present these issues, let us shift the above perspective, placing the emphasis on quantifier expressions per se (“all”, “most”, “no”, “some”, etcetera), viewed as denoting relations Q between sets of individuals.

The Applications of Description Logics in Natural Language Processing

2011 ◽  
Vol 181-182 ◽  
pp. 236-241
Author(s):  
Xian Yi Cheng ◽  
Chen Cheng ◽  
Qian Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language Processing ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Domain Knowledge ◽  
Description Logic ◽  
Description Logics ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Natural Language Semantic ◽  
Ontology Language ◽  
Basic Ideas

As a sort of formalizing tool of knowledge representation, Description Logics have been successfully applied in Information System, Software Engineering and Natural Language processing and so on. Description Logics also play a key role in text representation, Natural Language semantic interpretation and language ontology description. Description Logics have been logical basis of OWL which is an ontology language that is recommended by W3C. This paper discusses the description logic basic ideas under vocabulary semantic, context meaning, domain knowledge and background knowledge.

scholarly journals NLP-based personal learning assistant for school education

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 4522
Author(s):  
Ann Neethu Mathew ◽  
Rohini V. ◽  
Joy Paulose
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Intelligent Tutoring System ◽  
Digital Transformation ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
Retrieval Performance ◽  
Language Understanding ◽  
Personal Learning ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
The Subject

Computer-based knowledge and computation systems are becoming major sources of leverage for multiple industry segments. Hence, educational systems and learning processes across the world are on the cusp of a major digital transformation. This paper seeks to explore the concept of an artificial intelligence and natural language processing (NLP) based intelligent tutoring system (ITS) in the context of computer education in primary and secondary schools. One of the components of an ITS is a learning assistant, which can enable students to seek assistance as and when they need, wherever they are. As part of this research, a pilot prototype chatbot was developed, to serve as a learning assistant for the subject Scratch (Scratch is a graphical utility used to teach school children the concepts of programming). By the use of an open source natural language understanding (NLU) or NLP library, and a slackbased UI, student queries were input to the chatbot, to get the sought explanation as the answer. Through a two-stage testing process, the chatbot’s NLP extraction and information retrieval performance were evaluated. The testing results showed that the ontology modelling for such a learning assistant was done relatively accurately, and shows its potential to be pursued as a cloud-based solution in future.

scholarly journals Linguistic processor integration for solving planimetric problems

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 0-0
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Semantic Representation ◽  
Interactive Visualization ◽  
Subject Area ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Language Description

The research deals with the original algorithms of the linguistic processor integration for solving planimetric problems. The linguistic processor translates the natural language description of the problem into a semantic representation based on the ontology that supports the axiomatics of geometry. The linguistic processor synthesizes natural-language comments to the solution and drawing objects. The method of interactive visualization of the linguistic processor functioning is proposed. The method provides a step-by-step dialog control of syntactic structure construction and its display in semantic representation. During the experiments, several dozens of standard syntactic structures correctly displayed in the semantic structures of the subject area were obtained. The direction of further research related to the development of the proposed approach is outlined.

Sätze und Dinge

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 67-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Rode
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Identity Relation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Striking Resemblance ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Objective Being ◽  
Walter Burley

This article examines the role of the mediaeval theory of the propositio in re, as proposed by Walter Burley and others, which bears a striking resemblance to the theory of the “proposition” advocated by G. E. Moore and B. Russell. Burley’s proposition composed of real things has the function of an ultimate significate for every sentence of natural language. The main problems of such a theory are on the one hand absurdities like a bird flying between the subject and predicate of a sentence, on the other hand Burley’s assumption that a relation of identity holds between subject and predicate, which might render propositiones in re tautological. Moreover, the particular nature of this relation is left unexplained. But these difficulties can be solved: The former by applying objective being, being as being cognized, to the terms of a propositio, as did Scotus and Franciscus de Prato, the latter by specifying multiple forms of real predication as being or being-in-something apart from a mere identity-relation (e. g. William Milverley).

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