Discourse, Context, and Coherence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Una Stojnić
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Linguistic Feature ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Pure Indexicals

On the received view, the resolution of context-sensitivity is at least partly determined by non-linguistic features of utterance situation. If I say ‘He’s happy’, what ‘he’ picks out is underspecified by its linguistic meaning, and is only fixed through extra-linguistic supplementation: the speaker’s intention, and/or some objective, non-linguistic feature of the utterance situation. This underspecification is exhibited by most context-sensitive expressions, with the exception of pure indexicals, like ‘I.’ While this received view is prima facie appealing, I argue it is deeply mistaken. I defend an account according to which context-sensitivity resolution is governed by linguistic mechanisms determining prominence of candidate resolutions of context-sensitive items. Thus, on this account, the linguistic meaning of a context-sensitive expression fully specifies its resolution in a context, automatically selecting the resolution antecedently set by the prominence-governing linguistic mechanisms.

On local bars and imported beer

2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-87
Author(s):  
Richard Vallée
Keyword(s):  
Large Family ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
Semantic Role ◽  
Cognitive Significance ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Truth Values ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Complex Condition

“Imported” is a member of a large family of adjectives, including “enemy”, “domestic”, “local”, “exported”, “foreign”. Call these terms contextuals. Contextuals are prima facie context-sensitive expressions in that the same contextual sentence can have different truth-values, and hence different truth-conditions, from utterance to utterance. I use Perry’s multipropositionalist framework to get a new angle on contextuals. I explore the idea that the lexical linguistic meaning of contextual adjectives introduces two conditions to the cognitive significance of an utterance. These conditions contain a variable, y, that does not correspond to any lexical component in the sentence. This is the available tool for letting the speakers’ intentions, or what the speakers have in mind, play a semantic role. My view focuses on the complex condition that linguistic meaning (as type) sometimes semantically determines.

Context and Coherence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Una Stojnić
Keyword(s):  
Value Theory ◽  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Linguistic Conventions ◽  
Broad Array ◽  
Novel Model ◽  
Linguistic Account ◽  
Do So

Natural languages are riddled with context-sensitivity. One and the same string of words can express indefinitely many different meanings on an occasion of use. And yet we understand one another effortlessly, on the fly. What fixes the meaning of context-sensitive expressions, and how are we able to recover this meaning so quickly and without effort? This book offers a novel response: we can do so because we draw on a broad array of subtle linguistic conventions that fully determine the interpretation of context-sensitive items. Contrary to the dominant tradition, which maintains that the meaning of context-sensitive language is underspecified by grammar, and depends on non-linguistic features of utterance situation, this book argues that meaning is determined entirely by discourse conventions, rules of language that have largely been missed, and the effects of which have been mistaken for extra-linguistic effects of an utterance situation on meaning. The linguistic account of context developed in this book sheds a new light on the nature of linguistic content, and the interaction between content and context. At the same time, it provides a novel model of context that should constrain and help evaluate debates across many sub-fields of philosophy where appeal to context has been common, often leading to surprising conclusions: for example, in epistemology, ethics, value theory, metaphysics, metaethics, and logic, among others.

scholarly journals Linguistic feature of anorexia nervosa: a prospective case–control pilot study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vittoria Cuteri ◽  
Giulia Minori ◽  
Gloria Gagliardi ◽  
Fabio Tamburini ◽  
Elisabetta Malaspina ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Anorexia Nervosa ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Case Control ◽  
Pathological Process ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Level Of Evidence ◽  
Linguistic Feature ◽  
Linguistic Markers ◽  
Clinical Conditions

Abstract Purpose Attention has recently been paid to Clinical Linguistics for the detection and support of clinical conditions. Many works have been published on the “linguistic profile” of various clinical populations, but very few papers have been devoted to linguistic changes in patients with eating disorders. Patients with Anorexia Nervosa (AN) share similar psychological features such as disturbances in self-perceived body image, inflexible and obsessive thinking and anxious or depressive traits. We hypothesize that these characteristics can result in altered linguistic patterns and be detected using the Natural Language Processing tools. Methods We enrolled 51 young participants from December 2019 to February 2020 (age range: 14–18): 17 girls with a clinical diagnosis of AN, and 34 normal-weighted peers, matched by gender, age and educational level. Participants in each group were asked to produce three written texts (around 10–15 lines long). A rich set of linguistic features was extracted from the text samples and the statistical significance in pinpointing the pathological process was measured. Results Comparison between the two groups showed several linguistics indexes as statistically significant, with syntactic reduction as the most relevant trait of AN productions. In particular, the following features emerge as statistically significant in distinguishing AN girls and their normal-weighted peers: the length of the sentences, the complexity of the noun phrase, and the global syntactic complexity. This peculiar pattern of linguistic erosion may be due to the severe metabolic impairment also affecting the central nervous system in AN. Conclusion These preliminary data showed the existence of linguistic parameters as probable linguistic markers of AN. However, the analysis of a bigger cohort, still ongoing, is needed to consolidate this assumption. Level of evidence III Evidence obtained from case–control analytic studies.

scholarly journals TESTIMONY, RECOVERY AND PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY: A RESPONSE TO PEET

Episteme ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-38
Author(s):  
Alex Davies
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Epistemology Of Testimony ◽  
Public Responsibility

ABSTRACTAccording to telling based views of testimony (TBVs), B has reason to believe that p when A tells B that p because A thereby takes public responsibility for B's subsequent belief that p. Andrew Peet presents a new argument against TBVs. He argues that insofar as A uses context-sensitive expressions to express p, A doesn't take public responsibility for B's belief that p. Since context-sensitivity is widespread, the kind of reason TBVs say we have to believe what we're told, is not widespread. Peet doesn't identify any problem with his own argument though he does attempt to limit its sceptical potential by identifying special contexts in which TBVs stand a chance of success. A more general defence of TBVs can be provided by showing Peet's argument to be unsound. I argue that Peet's argument is unsound because it requires us to wrongly suppose that speakers do far less labour than their audiences in context-sensitive linguistic communication. I aim to show why – in the context of the epistemology of testimony and the philosophy of language – it's important to recognize the labour that speakers can do, and so can be held responsible for not doing, in episodes of context-sensitive linguistic communication.

scholarly journals Transactional and Interpersonal Conversation Texts in English Textbook

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 205
Author(s):  
Ulin Nuha
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Junior High School ◽  
Junior High ◽  
School Grade ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Linguistic Feature ◽  
Functional Literacy ◽  
Units Of Analysis ◽  
High School Grade ◽  
Literacy Level

In this study, The researcher analyzed the transactional andinterpersonal conversation texts found in grade VIII English textbookentitled ―EOS English on Sky 2‖ and I also analyzed the linguisticfeatures of the transactional and interpersonal conversations in theEnglish textbook. This study focuses on the issues of structuralfunctionalapproach which analyzes the speech function, structuralapproach which analyzes linguistic features. This is a qualitative study.In calculating the data and the final result of data percentage,quantification was used to support this study. Units of analysis in thisstudy are moves and clauses. The conversation texts are presented in 8units. The moves were analyzed functionally and the clauses wereanalyzed structurally. The result shows that the speech functions of thetransactional conversation texts are 54.5% matching the standard ofcontent, the speech functions of the interpersonal conversation texts are2.1% matching the standard of content. The linguistic feature applied inthe transactional and interpersonal conversation texts uses the linguisticfeature in functional literacy level. The speech functions of conversationtexts introduced in EOS English on Sky 2 for junior high school grade VIII are less compatible with the standard of content based on thecompatibility levels. Keywords: Transactional and interpersonal conversation texts; Speech function; linguistic feature. 

scholarly journals Evaluation of the Performance and Efficiency of the Automated Linguistic Features for Author Identification in Short Text Messages Using Different Variable Selection Techniques

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 83
Author(s):  
Refat Aljumily
Keyword(s):  
Variable Selection ◽  
Text Messages ◽  
Sentence Length ◽  
Function Word ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Linguistic Feature ◽  
Short Text ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Author Identification ◽  
Type Frequency

The aim of this paper was to evaluate the efficiency of automated linguistic features to test its capacity or discriminating power as style markers for author identification in short text messages of the Facebook genre. The corpus used to evaluate the automated linguistics features was compiled from 221 Facebook texts (each text is about 2 to 3 lines/35-40 words) written in English, which were written in the same genre and topic and posted in the same year group, totaling 7530 words. To compose the dataset for linguistic features performance or evaluation, frequency values were collected from 16 linguistic feature types involving parts of speech, function words, word bigrams, character tri grams, average sentence length in terms of words, average sentence length in terms of characters, Yule’s K measure, Simpson’s D measure, average words length, FW/CW ratio, average characters, content specific key words, type/token ratio, total number of short words less than four characters, contractions, and total number of characters in words which were selected from five corpora, totalling 328 test features. The evaluation of the 16 linguistic feature types differ from those of other analyses because the study used different variable selection methods including feature type frequency, variance, term frequency/ inverse document frequency (TF.IDF), signal-noise ratio, and Poisson term distribution. The relationships between known and anonymous text messages were examined using hierarchical linear and non-hierarchical nonlinear clustering methods, taking into accounts the nonlinear patterns among the data. There were similarities between the anonymous text messages and the authors of the non-anonymous text messages in terms function word and parts of speech usages based on TF.IDF technique and the efficiency of function word usages (=60%) and the efficiency of parts of speech frequencies (=50%). There were no similarities between the anonymous text messages and the authors of the non-anonymous text messages in terms of the other features using feature type frequency and variance techniques in this test and the efficiency of these features in the corpus (< 40%). There was a positive effect on identification performance using parts of speech and function word frequency usages and applying TF.IDF technique as the length of text messages increased (N≥ 100). Through this way, the performance and efficiency of syntactic features and function word usages to identify anonymous authors or text messages is improved by increasing the length of the text messages using TF.IDF variable selection technique, but decreased as feature type frequency and variance techniques in the selection process apply.

The Grammar of Prominence

2021 ◽  
pp. 171-186
Author(s):  
Una Stojnić
Keyword(s):  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Gradable Adjectives ◽  
Domain Restriction ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Future Developments ◽  
Model Context ◽  
The Way

This chapter draws theoretical conclusions and outlines directions for future developments. It summarizes the key theoretical and philosophical upshots of the account developed in the book and discusses further extensions of this framework. It discusses how the account can be applied to model context-sensitivity of situated utterances, in a way that can offer insights into puzzles concerning disagreement in discourse and communication under ignorance, which have plagued standard accounts of context and content. Further, it outlines the way the account is to be extended and applied to various types of context-sensitive items, including relational expressions, gradable adjectives, and domain restriction.

Colour Categories in Context

2020 ◽  
pp. 83-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasmina Jraissati
Keyword(s):  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Unified Framework ◽  
Colour Space ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Way

It is agreed that colour categorization is context sensitive, and that context plays a role in why colour categories are the way they are. Yet, the way context is supposed to influence colour categorization is never spelled out in the literature, the focus of which has mostly been to identify mechanisms at play in colour categorization, either perceptual and cognitive or, alternatively, linguistic. This chapter steers away from the wealthy categorization literature, and takes a different starting point by asking the preliminary question of how we categorize colour in our everyday interactions. The answer to this question makes important use of the notion of colour space and subspace. It leads to a unified framework that makes room for context sensitivity, while also accounting for colour categorization.

Ethical Particularism and Morally Relevant Properties

2021 ◽  
pp. 37-50
Author(s):  
Jonathan Dancy
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Moral Reasons ◽  
Moral Particularism ◽  
The Real ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Prima Facie Duty ◽  
Principle Theory

This paper follows a path that takes us from utilitarianism to particularism. Utilitarianism is the leading one-principle theory; its falsehood is here simply asserted. W. D. Ross’s theory of prima facie duty is offered as the strongest many-principle theory. Ross’s two accounts of his notion of a prima facie duty are considered and criticized. But the real criticism of his view is that being a prima facie duty is a context-sensitive notion, since a feature that is a prima facie duty-making feature in one case may be prevented from playing that role in another. Since the strongest many-principle theory is therefore false, the only conclusion is a no-principle theory: a theory that allows moral reasons but does not suppose that they behave in the regular way required for there to be moral principles—namely, moral particularism.

scholarly journals From key words to key semantic domains

2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 519-549 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Rayson
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Linguistic Feature ◽  
Part Of Speech ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Election Manifestos ◽  
Automatic Tagging ◽  
Data Driven Approach ◽  
Democratic Parties

This paper reports the extension of the key words method for the comparison of corpora. Using automatic tagging software that assigns part-of-speech and semantic field (domain) tags, a method is described which permits the extraction of key domains by applying the keyness calculation to tag frequency lists. The combination of the key words and key domains methods is shown to allow macroscopic analysis (the study of the characteristics of whole texts or varieties of language) to inform the microscopic level (focussing on the use of a particular linguistic feature) and thereby suggesting those linguistic features which should be investigated further. The resulting ‘data-driven’ approach presented here combines elements of both the ‘corpus-based’ and ‘corpus-driven’ paradigms in corpus linguistics. A web-based tool, Wmatrix, implementing the proposed method is applied in a case study: the comparison of UK 2001 general election manifestos of the Labour and Liberal Democratic parties.

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