Requirements of Structural Rationality

2021 ◽  
pp. 165-195
Author(s):  
Alex Worsnip
Keyword(s):  
Wide Scope ◽  
Rational Requirements ◽  
Narrow Scope

This chapter turns to the nature and form of requirements of structural rationality. It presents a recipe for generating requirements of structural rationality from verdicts about which states are incoherent (by the account defended in the previous chapter). On the resulting view, requirements of structural rationality are prohibitions on (incoherent) combinations of states. The chapter compares this with the closely related view that the requirements of rationality are “wide-scope” before reframing the debate over the scope of rational requirements and arguing for a view that is wide-scope, rather than narrow-scope, in spirit. It also argues that requirements of structural rationality are synchronic rather than diachronic. Finally, it defends the view that the demands of structural rationality are best thought of as requirements at all against a recent challenge.

The Myth of Structural Rationality

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Kiesewetter
Keyword(s):  
Wide Scope ◽  
Structural Requirements ◽  
Rational Requirements ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Scope Interpretation

While Chapters 4 and 5 suggest that structural requirements of rationality cannot be normative, Chapter 6 argues for the stronger conclusion that there are no such requirements to begin with. The argument is that both narrow- and wide-scope interpretations of structural requirements face problems independently of whether these requirements are understood as being normative. Starting with the narrow-scope interpretation, the chapter discusses the problem that it licenses bootstrapping of rational requirements (6.1), that it entails inconsistent requirements (6.2), and that it entails requirements that undermine each other in a counterintuitive way (6.3). Turning to the wide-scope interpretation, the chapter discusses the charge that wide-scope requirements cannot capture an important asymmetry involved in structural irrationality (6.4–6.5), and that they are incapable of guiding our responses (6.6). It is argued that all of these objections pose serious problems for the respective accounts. This supports the conclusion that there are no structural requirements of rationality (6.7).

Scope

2020 ◽  
pp. 59-89
Author(s):  
John Brunero
Keyword(s):  
Wide Scope ◽  
Rational Requirements ◽  
Narrow Scope

This chapter takes up the debate over the formulation of rational requirements, particularly over whether “requires” should have wide or narrow scope. The chapter shows how if there’s a real disagreement between the wide-scoper and narrow-scoper, it must concern the formulation of diachronic, not synchronic, requirements. It presents what it takes to be the strongest argument for the wide-scope formulations, and show how attempts by narrow-scopers to address this argument will lead them to further difficulties. The chapter then considers the strongest motivation for the narrow-scope view: the objection concerning the symmetry of rational responses predicted by the wide-scope view. The chapter shows how the wide-scoper has resources to deflect the strongest versions of this objection.

Prosodic disambiguation of scopally ambiguous quantificational sentences in a discourse context

2014 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 453-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
KRISTEN SYRETT ◽  
GEORGIA SIMON ◽  
KIRSTEN NISULA
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Wide Scope ◽  
Correct Interpretation ◽  
Subsequent Work ◽  
Auditory Cues ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
One To One

Researchers have long sought to determine the strength of the relation between prosody and the interpretation of scopally ambiguous sentences in English involving quantification and negation (e.g. All the men didn't go). While Jackendoff (1972) proposed a one-to-one mapping between sentence-final contour and the scope of negation (falling contour: narrow scope, fall-rise contour: wide scope), in subsequent work, researchers (e.g. Ladd 1980; Ward & Hirschberg 1985; Kadmon & Roberts 1986) disentangled the link between prosody and scope. Even though these pragmatic accounts predict variability in production, they still allow for some correlation between scope and prosody. To date, we lack systematic evidence to bear on this discussion. Here, we present findings from two perception experiments aimed at investigating whether prosodic information – including, but not limited to, sentence-final contour – can successfully disambiguate such sentences. We show that when speakers provide consistent auditory cues to sentential interpretation, hearers can successfully recruit these cues to arrive at the correct interpretation as intended by the speaker. In light of these results, we argue that psycholinguistic studies (including language acquisition studies) investigating participants’ ability to access multiple interpretations of scopally ambiguous sentences – quantificational and otherwise – should carefully control for prosody.

scholarly journals Information Structure and Scope Interactions: Disjunction Wide Scope Induced by Focus

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cécile Larralde ◽  
Alina Konradt ◽  
Kriszta Eszter Szendrői
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Wide Scope ◽  
Value Judgment ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Subject Design ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
Scope Interactions ◽  
Scope Reading ◽  
Prosodic Focus

In this paper we investigate the scopal reading of disjunctions in French negative sentences with pre-schoolers. We posit that the French disjunctor “ou” does not fit the traditional disjunction PPI/non-PPI dichotomy according to which a wide scope is taken by a PPI disjunction and a narrow scope when the disjunction is not a PPI. We hypothesized that focus could be a succesful scopal manipulator. Using Truth Value Judgment Tasks (TVJT), we tested French pre-schoolers' scopal reading of negated disjunctions in a neutral prosody condition and with prosodic focus on the disjunctor in a between subject design. We found that as predicted, prosodic focus often enduced participants to adopt a disjunction wide scope reading whereas a disjunction narrow scope reading was favored in the neutral prosody condition. This confirmed our hypothesis that focus can manipulate disjunction scope paramaters. It also shows that, when the disjunction is focalised, children have access to the disjunction wide scope reading earlier than previously thought. Finally, we can conclude that the distinction between PPI-disjunctor vs. non-PPI disjunctor languages needs to be more fine-grained.

Attitudes

2020 ◽  
pp. 41-63
Author(s):  
Paul Weirich
Keyword(s):  
Decision Problem ◽  
Wide Scope ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Doxastic Attitudes ◽  
Methods Of Measurement

Probabilities and utilities of possible outcomes yield the expected utilities of the acts an agent considers in a decision problem. This chapter introduces probability and utility as the book’s decision principles understand these functions. It has them attach to propositions that declarative sentences express, and it takes their values to represent the strengths of attitudes—strengths of doxastic attitudes in the case of probabilities and strengths of conative attitudes in the case of utilities. Desires and aversions, typical conative attitudes, may have narrow or wide evaluative scope. Intrinsic desires have narrow scope, and extrinsic desires have wide scope. Utility assignments may, correspondingly, have narrow or wide scope. The intrinsic utility of a risk evaluates the risk taken by itself, whereas the extrinsic or comprehensive utility of the risk evaluates all that accompanies the risk. Methods of measurement apply to these types of probability and utility, as the appendix demonstrates.

Introduction and Delimitation of the Subject

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
El Far Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
General Principle ◽  
Wide Scope ◽  
International Arbitration ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Normal Means ◽  
The Subject ◽  
General Principles Of Law

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the principle of abuse of rights in international arbitration. It is now generally recognized that international arbitration is the preferred method for resolving disputes in international trade and the normal means for resolving commercial and investment disputes. However, in recent years, international arbitration has been plagued by different forms of procedural abuse. Abusive practices developed by parties may not only cause paramount prejudice to their opponents, but can also undermine the fair resolution of disputes and frustrate the administration of arbitral justice. The existing rules for the prevention of abuse have a defined and narrow scope, are inherently rigid in their application, and fail to remedy different forms of abuse. As such, a general principle of abuse of rights is vital in international arbitration. The virtue of a single theory with a wide scope and an overarching premise is that it is a principle which involves equity considerations, enjoys the flexibility of general principles of law, and can be used to address different abusive behaviours.

How to derive a narrow-scope requirement from wide-scope requirements

2014 ◽  
Vol 172 (2) ◽  
pp. 535-542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael G. Titelbaum
Keyword(s):  
Wide Scope ◽  
Narrow Scope

Making sense of negated modals in English

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 471-491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Günter Radden
Keyword(s):  
Wide Scope ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Modal Verbs ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Mixed Nature

The complexities of the interaction of modality and negation are well-known. They mainly arise from different scopes of negation. Thus, the negation in You mustn’t go has narrow scope while the negation in You can’t go has wide scope. This study adopts a cognitive approach to the issue of scope in negated modality. It examines negated modals within a conceptual matrix developed on the basis of conceptual distinctions that are crucial to modality. The distribution of negated modal verbs within the conceptual matrix reveals which modal concepts are coded in a given language and which ones are not. The study focuses on the system of English negated modals but also compares it to the systems of German, Dutch and Norwegian. In all four languages, the predominant way of negating modals is by using wide-scope negation. German, in fact, wholly relies on wide-scope negation, while English makes use of both scopes of negation. Its mixed nature leads to a number of “irregularities” in the use of modals, which, however, can still be shown to be motivated.

scholarly journals Negation and presupposition, truth and falsity

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Duží
Keyword(s):  
Logic Programming ◽  
Intensional Logic ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Wide Scope ◽  
Partial Functions ◽  
Procedural Semantics ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Background Theory ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Presupposition Triggers

Abstract There are many kinds of negation and denial. Perhaps the most common is the Boolean negation not that applies to propositions-in-extension, i.e. truth-values. The others are, inter alia, the property of propositions of not being true which applies to propositions; the complement function which applies to sets; privation which applies to properties; negation as failure applied in logic programming; negation as argumentation ad absurdum, and many others. The goal of this paper is neither to provide a complete list, nor to analyse all of them. Rather, I am going to deal with negation of propositions that come attached with a presupposition that is entailed by the positive as well as negated form of a given proposition. However, there are two kinds of negation, namely internal and external negation. I am going to prove that while the former is presupposition-preserving, the latter is presupposition-denying. This issue has much in common with the difference between topic and focus articulation within a sentence. Whereas articulating the topic of a sentence activates a presupposition, articulating the focus frequently yields merely an entailment. The main contribution of this paper is the proof that the two kinds of negation are not equivalent. While the Russellian wide-scope (external) negation gets the truthconditions of a sentence right for a subject occurring as a focus, Strawsonian narrow-scope (internal) negation is validly applicable for a subject occurring as the topic. I also deal with other kinds of presupposition triggers, in particular factive attitudes and prerequisites of a given property. My background theory is Transparent Intensional Logic (TIL). TIL is an expressive logic apt for the analysis of sentences with presuppositions, because in TIL we work with partial functions, in particular with propositions with truth-value gaps. Moreover, the procedural semantics of TIL make it possible to uncover the hidden semantic features of sentences, make them explicit and logically tractable.

On the scope of quantifier phrases in Chinese passive construction

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-89
Author(s):  
Xiaolong Yang ◽  
Yicheng Wu
Keyword(s):  
Wide Scope ◽  
Quantifier Scope ◽  
Scope Ambiguity ◽  
Passive Construction ◽  
Single Sentence ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Quantifier Phrases ◽  
Semantic Properties

Abstract Quantifier phrases (QP) can co-occur in a single sentence, which may cause ambiguity in terms of scope relation, viz. wide scope and narrow scope interpretations. Aoun & Li (1993) claim that quantifier scope ambiguity also exists in Chinese passive construction, such as yige nűren bei meige ren ma ‘a woman was scolded by everyone’. Following Lee (1986)’s proposal, it is argued in this paper that the scopal relations of Chinese QPs are not purely syntactic as in Aoun & Li’s analysis, but should be determined by the interaction between syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Based on naturalistic data, it is shown that (i) Chinese QPs can be classified into whQP, distributive-universal QP and group-denoting QP, whose semantic properties determine the scope relations between them; (ii) in general, a QP is devoid of referentiality, yet it can acquire referentiality depending on its co-occurrence with other QPs or contextual factors; (iii) the subject definiteness constraint in Chinese, a language-specific constraint, would affect the interpretation of subject QPs in Chinese passive construction.

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