Compositionality

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Richard
Keyword(s):  
Compositional Semantics ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Finite Theory

A language is compositional if the meaning of each of its complex expressions (for example, ‘black dog’) is determined entirely by the meanings its parts (‘black’, ‘dog’) and its syntax. Principles of compositionality provide precise statements of this idea. A compositional semantics for a language is a (finite) theory which explains how semantically important properties such as truth-conditions are determined by the meanings of parts and syntax. Supposing English to have a compositional semantics helps explain how finite creatures like ourselves have the ability to understand English’s infinitely many sentences. Whether human languages are in fact compositional, however, is quite controversial.

Some combinatorics of imperfect information

2001 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 673-684 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Cameron ◽  
Wilfrid Hodges
Keyword(s):  
Imperfect Information ◽  
Free Variable ◽  
Not Given ◽  
Compositional Semantics ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Impossibility Proof ◽  
Independence Friendly Logic

We can use the compositional semantics of Hodges [9] to show that any compositional semantics for logics of imperfect information must obey certain constraints on the number of semantically inequivalent formulas. As a corollary, there is no compositional semantics for the ‘independence-friendly’ logic of Hintikka and Sandu (henceforth IF) in which the interpretation in a structure A of each 1 -ary formula is a subset of the domain of A (Corollary 6.2 below proves this and more). After a fashion, this rescues a claim of Hintikka and provides the proof which he lacked:… there is no realistic hope of formulating compositional truth-conditions for [sentences of IF], even though I have not given a strict impossibility proof to that effect.(Hintikka [6] page 110ff.) One curious spinoff is that there is a structure of cardinality 6 on which the logic of Hintikka and Sandu gives nearly eight million inequivalent formulas in one free variable (which is more than the population of Finland).We thank the referee for a sensible change of notation, and Joel Berman and Stan Burris for bringing us up to date with the computation of Dedekind's function (see section 4). Our own calculations, utterly trivial by comparison, were done with Maple V.The paper Hodges [9] (cf. [10]) gave a compositional semantics for a language with some devices of imperfect information. The language was complicated, because it allowed imperfect information both at quantifiers and at conjunctions and disjunctions.

Aboutness

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Yablo
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Library Science ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Major Advance ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Made In

Aboutness has been studied from any number of angles. Brentano made it the defining feature of the mental. Phenomenologists try to pin down the aboutness features of particular mental states. Materialists sometimes claim to have grounded aboutness in natural regularities. Attempts have even been made, in library science and information theory, to operationalize the notion. However, it has played no real role in philosophical semantics, which is surprising. This is the first book to examine through a philosophical lens the role of subject matter in meaning. A long-standing tradition sees meaning as truth conditions, to be specified by listing the scenarios in which a sentence is true. Nothing is said about the principle of selection—about what in a scenario gets it onto the list. Subject matter is the missing link here. A sentence is true because of how matters stand where its subject matter is concerned. This book maintains that this is not just a feature of subject matter, but its essence. One indicates what a sentence is about by mapping out logical space according to its changing ways of being true or false. The notion of content that results—directed content—is brought to bear on a range of philosophical topics, including ontology, verisimilitude, knowledge, loose talk, assertive content, and philosophical methodology. The book represents a major advance in semantics and the philosophy of language.

Lexical Meaning, Concepts, and the Metasemantics of Predicates

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Glanzberg
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Compositional Semantics ◽  
Lexical Meaning ◽  
Standard Methods

This chapter examines how concepts relate to lexical meanings. It focuses on how we can appeal to concepts to give specific, cognitively rich contents to lexical entries, while at the same time using standard methods of compositional semantics. This is a problem, as those methods assume lexical meanings provide extensions, while concepts are mental representations that have very different structure from an extension. The chapter proposes a way to solve this problem which is by casting concepts in a metasemantic role for certain expressions, notably verbs, but more also generally, with expressions that function as content-giving predicates in a sentence.

Mechanisms and Causation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Glennan
Keyword(s):  
Causal Relevance ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Causal Relations ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter motivates a theory of causation according to which causal claims are existential claims about mechanisms. The chapter begins with a review of the variety of causal claims, emphasizing the differences between singular and general claims, and between claims about causal production and claims about causal relevance. I then argue for singularism—the view that the truth-makers of general causal claims are facts about collections of singular and intrinsic causal relations, and specifically facts about the existence of particular mechanisms. Applying this account, I explore possible truth conditions for causal generalizations. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the relationship between mechanistic and manipulability approaches to causation. I argue that Woodward’s manipulability account provides valuable insights into the meaning of causal claims and the methods we use to assess them, but that the underlying truth-makers for the counterfactuals in that account are in fact mechanisms.

Causal Idealism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
Causal Relation ◽  
Mental Activity ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
Causal Judgments

This chapter argues that causal idealism, the view that causation is a product of mental activity, is at least as attractive as several contemporary views of causation that incorporate human thought and agency into the causal relation. The chapter discusses three such views: contextualism, which holds that truth conditions for causal judgments are contextual; contrastivism, which holds that the causal relation is a quaternary relation between a cause, an effect, and contextually specified contrast classes for the cause and the effect; and pragmatism, which holds that causal claims are sensitive to pragmatic factors. This chapter suggests that causal idealism has at least as much explanatory strength as these three theories, and is more parsimonious and internally stable.

Arabic translation across cultures

Babel ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moheiddin A. Homeidi
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Arabic Translation ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Extensive Analysis ◽  
Arabic And English ◽  
Aspect Culturel

Abstract This paper deals mainly with some of the difficulties the translator might encounter when translating some culturally bound pieces of information. These would include the translation of some idioms, and some culturally bound concepts. The paper starts with definitions of translation, language and culture followed by an extensive analysis of the examples provided. All the examples are drawn from Arabic and English. The examples include the translation of some idioms which violate truth conditions, which are easily recognizable, and some others which may be translated either literally or idiomatically with obviously different results. Then the analysis moves to the translation of some culturally bound expressions from both Arabic and English. Here, we find examples that cannot be translated into the other language simply for lack of cultural equivalents. The skill and the intervention of the translator are most needed in this respect because above all translation is an act of communication. Résumé Cet article traite principalement de certaines difficultés que le traducteur peut rencontrer quand il traduit des textes d’information qui présentent un aspect culturel. Ces difficultés ont trait à certaines locutions idiomatiques et concepts culturels. L’article commence par définir la traduction, la langue et la culture, puis analyse en détail les exemples fournis. Tous les exemples sont tirés de l’arabe et de l’anglais. Ces exemples comprennent la traduction de certaines locutions idiomatiques qui trahissent les conditions de vérite et sont facilement reconnaissables, et de quelques autres qui peuvent etre traduites soit litteralement, soit de manière idiomatique, mais avec bien sur des résultats différents. Puis l’analyse passe à la traduction de certaines expressions de nature culturelle, en arabe et en anglais. Nous y trouvons des exemples qu’il est impossible de traduire dans l’autre langue, tout simplement parce qu’il leur manque des équivalents culturels. L’habileté et l’intervention du traducteur sont des plus nécéssaires dans ce cas, parce que la traduction est avant tout un acte de communication.

A Compositional Semantics for Timed Petri Nets1

1990 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-170
Author(s):  
Andrea Maggiolo-Schettini ◽  
Józef Winkowski
Keyword(s):  
Petri Nets ◽  
Compositional Semantics ◽  
Timed Petri Nets ◽  
Event Structures ◽  
Configuration Systems

Timed Petri nets and their behaviours are considered. A concept of a seminet is introduced. which generalizes the concept of a net, and suitable operations on seminets are defined, which allow constructing seminets from atoms corresponding to places and transitions. The behaviours of seminets are given in the form of so called configuration systems, a notion close to labelled event structures. Such behaviours can be combined with the aid of operations corresponding to those on seminets. In particular, the behaviour of a compound seminet can be obtained by combining the behaviours of components.

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