Towards a relevance-theoretic approach to the diminutive morpheme

This paper intends to lay the foundations for a relevance-theoretic approach to the diminutive morpheme. In many languages, this morpheme is attached to nouns, adjectives, adverbs or verbs. It frequently nuances their referents by providing information concerning the smallness, littleness or scarcity of the size, amount or degree of their referents. However, the semantics of this morpheme cannot always be connected with such notions. In Spanish, for example, it is often used in order to intensify, express approximation or pejoration, show affection or modesty, suggest intimacy or mitigate verbal actions. This variety of functions renders its semantics fairly elusive and rules out a conceptual analysis. Relying on the relevance-theoretic distinction between conceptual and procedural meaning, this paper argues that the diminutive might possess a procedural semantics amounting to procedures or processing instructions. It also considers the output(s) of such procedures in Spanish and shows that in several cases the diminutive would clearly contribute to the lexical pragmatic processes taking place during mutual parallel adjustment . These yield highly idiosyncratic conceptual representations. In other cases, the instructions encoded by the diminutive could be thought to trigger a representation of the speakers psychological states or even contribute to what in relevance-theoretic pragmatics is known as the higher-level explicature of an utterance. Since this would involve admitting that the semantics of the diminutive could be poly-procedural , this paper concludes by wondering whether a unitary procedural approach would be preferable.

Hyperintensional Reasoning Based on Natural Language Knowledge Base

The success of automated reasoning techniques over large natural-language texts heavily relies on a fine-grained analysis of natural language assumptions. While there is a common agreement that the analysis should be hyperintensional, most of the automatic reasoning systems are still based on an intensional logic, at the best. In this paper, we introduce the system of reasoning based on a fine-grained, hyperintensional analysis. To this end we apply Tichy’s Transparent Intensional Logic (TIL) with its procedural semantics. TIL is a higher-order, hyperintensional logic of partial functions, in particular apt for a fine-grained natural-language analysis. Within TIL we recognise three kinds of context, namely extensional, intensional and hyperintensional, in which a particular natural-language term, or rather its meaning, can occur. Having defined the three kinds of context and implemented an algorithm of context recognition, we are in a position to develop and implement an extensional logic of hyperintensions with the inference machine that should neither over-infer nor under-infer.

The semantics and pragmatics of Norwegian sentence-internal jo

The paper proposes a refined analysis of the semantics and pragmatics of the Norwegian non-truth-conditional adverb jo ‘after all, of course’. According to the literature, jo indicates that the proposition is ‘given’ in some sense or other. Based on new empirical investigations, we argue that the Relevance-theoretic notion mutual manifestness (Sperber & Wilson 1986/1995, Blass 2000) accurately captures the givenness aspect of jo, and we demonstrate through authentic examples what it means for a proposition to be mutually manifest. In addition to mutual manifestness, jo signals that the proposition is a premise for deriving a conclusion. The conclusion often – but not always – opposes someone’s view. We argue that the frequent opposition interpretations are a consequence of the nature of the procedures encoded by jo. In addition to clarifying the semantic and pragmatic properties of jo, the paper sheds light on the Relevance-theoretic notion procedural semantics as well as illustrating its usefulness in the study of pragmatic particles.

Semantics, conceptual role

According to conceptual role semantics (CRS), the meaning of a representation is the role of that representation in the cognitive life of the agent, for example, in perception, thought and decision-making. It is an extension of the well-known ‘use’ theory of meaning, according to which the meaning of a word is its use in communication and, more generally, in social interaction. CRS supplements external use by including the role of a symbol inside a computer or a brain. The uses appealed to are not just actual, but also counterfactual: not only what effects a thought does have, but what effects it would have had if stimuli or other states had differed. Of course, so defined, the functional role of a thought includes all sorts of causes and effects that are non-semantic, for example, perhaps happy thoughts can bolster one’s immunity, promoting good health. Conceptual roles are functional roles minus such non-semantic causes and effects. The view has arisen separately in philosophy (where it is sometimes called ‘inferential’ or ‘functional’ role semantics) and in cognitive science (where it is sometimes called ‘procedural semantics’).

Negation and presupposition, truth and falsity

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.

Argumentation theory: competition between modern research approaches

To overcome the crisis in the sphere of argumentation studies, the project proposes a logical-cognitive concept of argumentation which is a compound formalized theory that includes formalisms for modeling argumentation of different types, a relevant conceptual framework and a methodology for the use of scientific research in the practice. Three types of argumentation are defined: theoretical (two types) and practical. Theoretical argumentation is a critical discussion of the agents’ knowledge and opinions about facts aimed to substantiate a certain view or to change it – i.e. persuasion. Practical argumentation is a critical discussion of opinions about actions which includes, in addition to the statements about knowledge and opinions, statements of a non-descriptive nature about the agents’ values and intentions to adhere to a certain line of behavior. The study of argumentation needs to focus on the large structures that reflect specifics of the criticism and defense of the positions of the parties. An atom unit of such study is the argument as a statement of reason, while its molecular elements are the argumentative structure of a dispute (frame), a multitude of arguments that express the parties’ positions, a multitude of the agents’ knowledge and opinions that act as the bases for the formation of positions, lines of behavior, etc. Within the framework of this trend, both indefeasible (deductive) and defeasible argumentations can be studied. The argumentation effectiveness can be assessed based on the procedural semantics and using analogues of such logical notions as consistency and completeness. Modern approaches to the argumentation, including those claiming the compound status, can be classified using two methods: based on the substantive and practical criteria. Importance of the research outcomes amounts to the theoretical and methodological role of the new conception of argumentation and the general “umbrella” term argumentation that allows systematizing the manifold research and educational approaches and concepts in this field and is associated with communicative nature of modern social life where efficiency and social success rely on argumentative and narrative competences.

Secondary Nominal Predication in Non-elementary Simple Sentence

This monograph is devoted to the study of the functioning of concrete and abstract nouns as bearers of secondary predication and proposition in the folded non-elementary simple sentences in the Russian language. At the level of non-elementary simple sentences, there are specific means of updating the procedural semantics of specific nouns, specific ways of language representation of functional-semantic categories of personality, temporality and taxis. A high degree of compression of the statements suggests a closer relationship to secondary predicates with context and background knowledge speaking

The English Possessive Marker in a Framework of Relevance

English nominals constructed with the morpheme {-s} as a so-called possessive marker may be assigned an indefinitely large number of interpretations depending on the context of utterance. This raises interesting questions concerning the interface between semantics and pragmatics, most obviously concerning the more specific nature of the contextually invariable encoded content of the morpheme as well as the contribution made by that content to the process of comprehension. This article aims briefly to suggest one solution to these problems by proposing an underdetermined procedural semantics feeding into a principled cognitive process of inference as proposed within the framework of relevance theory.