scholarly journals Semantic Theories of Questions

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Floris Roelofsen
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Content ◽  
The Other ◽  
Alternative Semantics ◽  
Inquisitive Semantics ◽  
Semantic Type ◽  
Selectional Restrictions ◽  
Survey Article ◽  
Truth Conditional ◽  
Semantic Properties

This survey article discusses two basic issues that semantic theories of questions face. The first is how to conceptualize and formally represent the semantic content of questions. This issue arises in particular because the standard truth-conditional notion of meaning, which has been fruitful in the analysis of declarative statements, is not applicable to questions. This is because questions are not naturally construed as being true or false. Instead, it has been proposed that the semantic content of a question must be characterized in terms of its answerhood or resolution conditions. This article surveys a number of theories which develop this basic idea in different ways, focusing on so-called proposition-set theories (alternative semantics, partition semantics, and inquisitive semantics). The second issue that will be considered here concerns questions that are embedded within larger sentences. Within this domain, one important puzzle is why certain predicates can take both declarative and interrogative complements (e.g., Bill knows that Mary called / Bill knows who called), while others take only declarative complements (e.g., Bill thinks that Mary called / *Bill thinks who called) or only interrogative complements (e.g., Bill wonders who called / *Bill wonders that Mary called). We compare two general approaches that have been pursued in the literature. One assumes that declarative and interrogative complements differ in semantic type. On this approach, the fact that predicates like think do not take interrogative complements can be accounted for by assuming that such complements do not have the semantic type that think selects for. The other approach treats the two kinds of complement as having the same semantic type, and seeks to connect the selectional restrictions of predicates like think to other semantic properties (e.g., the fact that think is neg-raising).

scholarly journals Conditionals

2018 ◽  
pp. 115-142
Author(s):  
Ivano Ciardelli ◽  
Jeroen Groenendijk ◽  
Floris Roelofsen
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Work ◽  
The Other ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Inquisitive Semantics ◽  
Natural Explanation ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Truth Conditional ◽  
Recent Experimental Work

Chapter 7 argues that inquisitive semantics is not only relevant for questions, but also for statements. The argument is based on recent experimental work on counterfactual conditionals, which shows that even if two premises A and B have exactly the same truth-conditions, the counterfactuals “If A then C” and “If B then C” may have different truth conditions. This means that it is impossible to give a compositional account of counterfactuals based on a purely truth-conditional notion of meaning. On the other hand, the relevant contrast finds a natural explanation once conditionals are analysed in inquisitive semantics. Further benefits of the account are discussed as well: it solves a well-known problem that classical analyses of conditionals have with disjunctive antecedents, and it naturally extends to unconditionals and conditional questions.

Meaning hides in the confusion of the construction

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-83
Author(s):  
Konrad Szcześniak
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Content ◽  
The Other ◽  
Preliminary Characterization ◽  
Closed Class ◽  
Grammatical Construction ◽  
General Meaning ◽  
Semantic Properties

Abstract This study revisits constructionist (CxG) views concerning detailed and often unusual semantics of schematic constructions, especially those located toward the closed-class end of the lexicon-grammar continuum. The discussion is based mainly on a previously unstudied grammatical construction with interesting semantic properties, and it is shown that although clear semantic patterns can be observed in its most common uses, the construction is capable of expressing meanings that go beyond a preliminary characterization suggested by typical attestations. It is hypothesized that two kinds of meanings can be observed in grammatical constructions. One is the typically grammatical, relatively general meaning known to be conveyed by closed-class forms. The other includes highly detailed readings found in clearly productive patterns, which function within a construction; these relatively rich meanings are not necessarily the content of a construction. Based on uses of a number of constructions discussed here, it is suggested that many characterizations of the semantic content of schematic constructions proposed in the literature may be too detailed. The study concludes in proposing a correlation, under which the degree of specificity of a construction’s meaning depends on the amount of fixed lexical material found in it.

A Dual Act Analysis of Slurs

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Camp
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Content ◽  
The Other ◽  
Conventional Implicature ◽  
Clear Cases ◽  
Perlocutionary Effect ◽  
Communicative Role

Slurs are incendiary terms—many deny that sentences containing them can ever be true. And utterances where they occur embedded within normally “quarantining” contexts, like conditionals and indirect reports, can still seem offensive. At the same time, others find that sentences containing slurs can be true; and there are clear cases where embedding does inoculate a speaker from the slur’s offensiveness. This chapter argues that four standard accounts of the “other” element that differentiates slurs from their more neutral counterparts—semantic content, perlocutionary effect, presupposition, and conventional implicature—all fail to account for this puzzling mixture of intuitions. Instead, it proposes that slurs make two distinct, coordinated contributions to a sentence’s conventional communicative role.

Nina Simone as Poet and Orchestrator

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-147
Author(s):  
Marcus R. Pyle
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Content ◽  
Black Body ◽  
Black Female ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Female Subjectivity ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Nina Simone

How do you fashion an identity in a society that, at every turn, tries to snuff you out? In this article, I address Nina Simone's praxis of renaming and reinvention to demonstrate strategies of resistance. To this point, I analyze the musico-poetic setting of Nina Simone’s songs “Images” (1964) and “Four Women” (1965) to argue that her artistic musical choices sonically orchestrate varying issues of Black female subjectivity, identity, and self-making. In Simone’s songs, she refuses to discount the materiality of the Black body; instead, she envelops the Black body with signifiance and significance. The sonic bearers of semantic content become extensions of the Self—transmutable and heterodox. The compositional and poetic subtleties in these songs claim that the gaze of the Other can potentiate exteriority and freedom—what I term the “exo(p)tic.”

scholarly journals Перцептивное обозначение в  русской народной сказке

2018 ◽  
Vol 165 ◽  
pp. 277-285
Author(s):  
Olga A. Mescheryakova
Keyword(s):  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Sense Organs ◽  
Cognitive Context ◽  
Other World ◽  
Subtype A

Perceptual notation in the Russian folk fairy-talePerceptual notation captures information received from different sense organs but predicated by the same consciousness of “a perceived human being”. In the cognitive context semantics of sensory nominations reflects elements of the perceptual concept. The fact that the verbalization of its facultative elements depends not only on the type of discourse folklore, genre a tale, but also on its subtype a fairy-tale is claimed to be a hypothesis of this research. It settles that in the Russian folk fairy-tale the semantics of perceptual notation is predicated by the opposition “real — irreal world” and the semantics element “fabulous, belonging to the other world” is a basis of the semantic content of the perceptual notation. Besides that, the perceptual semantics in this type of fairy tales correlates with the aesthetical, axiological views of the folklore community on nature and human beings, reconstructing the folk ideal or ant-ideal. Перцептивне означення у російській народній чарівнiй казціПерцептивне означення фіксує інформацію, що надходить від різних органів чуттів, але обумовлену єдиною свідомістю «людини сприймаючої». У когнітивному плані семантика номінацій сенсорики відображає ознаки перцептивного концепту. Те, що вербалізація його факультативних ознак залежить не тільки від типу дискурсу фольклор, жанру казка, але і від підвиду жанру чарівна казка, становить гіпотезу даного дослідження. Встановлюєть­ся що в російській народній чарівній казці семантика перцептивної номінації обумовлена опозицією «реальний- ірреальний світ» і семантична ознака ‘чудовий, що належить іншому світу’ є основою змісту перцептивного означення. Крім того, в даній групі казок перцептивна семантика співвідноситься з естетичними, аксіологічними поглядами фольклорного соціуму на природу і людину, реконструюючи народний ідеал або антиідеал.

scholarly journals The grammar of discourse: The case of then

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Biezma
Keyword(s):  
Title Page ◽  
The Other ◽  
Discourse Structure ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Truth Conditional

<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p>This paper presents an analysis of <em>then</em> that appeals to discourse structure. I argue that <em>then</em> does not make any truth-conditional contribution but rather coordinates an anaphoric relation between consecutive discourse-moves. The meaning contribution of <em>then</em> is captured in terms of felicity conditions: <em>then</em> requires that two propositions enter into a ‘causal explanatory claim’-relation in which one (the antecedent) provides the ‘reasons’ for the other (the consequent). This proposal targets <em>then</em> within conditionals and across discourse and considers discourse structure as a key factor in explaining its behavior.</p></div></div></div>

Réflexions Sur la Théorie de L'article de Gustave Guillaume

1986 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-151
Author(s):  
Stanislaw Karolak
Keyword(s):  
Functional Calculus ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Sharp Contrast ◽  
The Other ◽  
Applied Method ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Classical Work ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Semantic Properties

This paper is concerned with the analysis of the theory of the French article presented in the classical work by Guillaume "Le problème de l'article et sa solution dans la langue française". The paper emphasizes Guillaume's search for the semantic nature of the relationships determining the distribution of articles. The paper supports Guillaume, who seems to claim, contrary to what is commonly believed, that the function of the articles is non inherent in them, but that it is determined by the semantic properties of the nouns which select them. Treating this claim as the starting point, the paper focuses on the analysis of various senses of noun phrases, carried out in terms of the functional calculus. The applied method invalidates the extensional theory of the noun accepted by Guillaume, as well as a number of generalisations made by him. The paper shows logical and semantic conditions of some rules governing the use of the article. They differ from those proposed by Guillaume in that they seem to reach a deeper level of linguistic mechanisms. On the other hand, the emphasis is laid on Guillaume's subtle analysis and detailed observations, which stand in a sharp contrast to his rather vague generalizations.

The Birth of New Russian Meanings (the 10th – Beginning of the 13th Centuries)

2020 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 381-410
Author(s):  
Sergey V. Perevezentsev
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
The Other ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

The article examines the development of Christian truths by ancient Russian thinkers in the first centuries after the Baptism of Russia – from the end of the 10th to the 13th centuries. On the one hand, it shows the contradictory process of Christianization of different social groups of ancient Russian society. On the other hand, Russian spiritual and political thought of this period is analyzed, and the semantic content of the first Russian Christian writings is revealed, from the “Words on Law and Grace” by Metropolitan Hilarion of Kiev to Vladimir Monomakh’s “Teachings” and Daniel Zatochnik’s “Word”. The research allows us to say that in the course of understanding the main Christian dogmas, Russian spiritual and political thinkers substantiated new and eternal meanings of historical and posthumous existence.

Contested Slurs

2020 ◽  
Vol 97 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-30
Author(s):  
Renée Jorgensen Bolinger
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
The Other ◽  
Linguistic Community ◽  
Moral Reasons ◽  
Language L ◽  
Linguistic Practices

Sometimes speakers within a linguistic community use a term that they do not conceptualize as a slur, but which other members of that community do. Sometimes these speakers are ignorant or naïve, but not always. This article explores a puzzle raised when some speakers stubbornly maintain that a contested term t is not derogatory. Because the semantic content of a term depends on the language, to say that their use of t is semantically derogatory despite their claims and intentions, we must individuate languages in a way that counts them as speaking our language L, assigns t a determinately derogatory content in L, and still accommodates the other features of slurs’ linguistic profile. Given the difficulty of doing this, there is some reason to give a non-semantic analysis of the derogatory aspect of slurs. The author suggests that rather than dismissing the stubborn as semantically incompetent, we would do better to appeal to expected uptake as moral reasons for the stubborn to adjust their linguistic practices.

Méthode D'analyse des Connecteurs du Français en Vue D'un Traitement Automatique

1996 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 365-380
Author(s):  
Renata Kozlowska-Heuchin
Keyword(s):  
Automatic Processing ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Simple Sentence ◽  
Semantic Type ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Semantic Types ◽  
Semantic Typology ◽  
Semantic Properties

The subject of this article is the analysis of clauses of aim, cause, consequence and condition in French in view to the automatic processing. Our theoretical framework is that of lexicon-grammar. This study differs from the usual grammatical analyses. Here, the complex sentence is studied on the model of the simple sentence, defined as an operator accompanied by its arguments. The conjunctive phrase is our starting point for this study, and it is then shown that the noun around which it is formed, is of predicative type and has the main clause and the subordinate as arguments. This is a predicate «of second order». Automatic processing requires extremely accurate notation of syntactic and semantic properties if ambiguity and polysemy are to be correctly handled. Those descriptions based on syntactico-semantic features are insufficient, which is why the concept of « class of objects » is brought in. There are as many types of relations as there are semantic types of predicate. This is the reason why a semantic typology of predicates is sketched out, integrating lexical, syntactic and semantic components. It is shown that each semantic type can have its own appropriate lexical means of expression and specific syntactic behaviour.

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