Abstract
This paper introduces a compositional semantics of locativeprepositional phrases which is based on a vector space ontology.Model-theoretic properties of prepositions like monotonicity andconservativity are defined in this system in a straightforward way.These notions are shown to describe central inferences with spatialexpressions and to account for the grammaticality of prepositionmodification. Model-theoretic constraints on the set of possibleprepositions in natural language are specified, similar to the semanticuniversals of Generalized Quantifier Theory.
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Zwarts, J., Winter, Y. Vector Space Semantics: A Model-Theoretic Analysis of Locative Prepositions. Journal of Logic, Language and Information 9, 169–211 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008384416604
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008384416604