Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Concepts, meanings and truth: First nature, second nature and hard work.Paul M. Pietroski - 2010 - Mind and Language 25 (3):247-278.
    I argue that linguistic meanings are instructions to build monadic concepts that lie between lexicalizable concepts and truth-evaluable judgments. In acquiring words, humans use concepts of various adicities to introduce concepts that can be fetched and systematically combined via certain conjunctive operations, which require monadic inputs. These concepts do not have Tarskian satisfaction conditions. But they provide bases for refinements and elaborations that can yield truth-evaluable judgments. Constructing mental sentences that are true or false requires cognitive work, not just an (...)
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   24 citations  
  • I-Semantics: Foundational Questions.Adriano Marques da Silva - 2017 - Studia Semiotyczne 31 (2):77-112.
    What is the scope of a semantic theory consistent with the theoretical assumptions adopted by the generative program? In this paper I will show that the linguistic theory generically known as generative grammar is an extremely coherent Scientific Research Program and within this descriptive framework it’s possible to characterize the main features of an I-semantics. First, will be presented the hardcore of the generative program, its heuristics and Chomsky’s criticism towards formal semantics. Second, I will compare two approaches: the denotational (...)
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
    		•
  • Covert distributivity in algebraic event semantics.Lucas Champollion - 2016 - Semantics and Pragmatics 9 (15):1-66.
    This is the first in a pair of papers that aim to provide a comprehensive analysis of the semantic phenomenon of distributivity in natural language. This paper investigates and formalizes different sources of covert distributivity. Apart from lexical distributivity effects, which are modeled by meaning postulates, phrasal distributivity is captured via two covert operators: (i) a D operator distributing over atoms only (Link 1987), and (ii) a cover-based Part operator, which can also distribute over non-atomic pluralities under contextual licensing (Schwarzschild (...)
    Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • Induction and comparison.Paul Pietrowski - 2007 - University of Maryland Working Papers in Linguistics 15:154-188.
    Frege proved an important result, concerning the relation of arithmetic to second-order logic, that bears on several issues in linguistics. Frege’s Theorem illustrates the logic of relations like PRECEDES(x, y) and TALLER(x, y), while raising doubts about the idea that we understand sentences like ‘Carl is taller than Al’ in terms of abstracta like heights and numbers. Abstract paraphrase can be useful—as when we say that Carl’s height exceeds Al’s—without reflecting semantic structure. Related points apply to causal relations, and even (...)
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Universals in semantics.Kai von Fintel & Lisa Matthewson - manuscript
    This article surveys the state of the art in the field of semantic universals. We examine potential semantic universals in three areas: (i) the lexicon, (ii) semantic “glue” (functional morphemes and composition principles), and (iii) pragmatics. At the level of the lexicon, we find remarkably few convincing semantic universals. At the level of functional morphemes and composition principles, we discuss a number of promising constraints, most of which require further empirical testing and/or refinement. In the realm of pragmatics, we predict (...)
    Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   31 citations