Patterns of plural marking and numeral modification in Indonesian provide an interesting test bed for theories of the semantics of numeral classifiers and plurality. Cross-linguistically, the presence of numeral classifiers in a language is strongly connected with the absence or optionality of plural marking; this generalization is the basis of Chierchia’s (1998a, 1998b) nominal mapping parameter and also accords with established typological generalizations (Greenberg, 1972), (Aikhenvald, 2000), (Corbett, 2000). In Indonesian, plural marking as both reduplication and classifiers in numeral modification (...) constructions are optional, and bare (non-reduplicated) Indonesian nouns are best analysed as exhibiting general number (Greenberg, 1972), (Carson, 2000), (Corbett, 2000), rather than corresponding to the unmarked member of a singular–plural opposition. Unlike many languages with general number, Indonesian exhibits no mass–count distinction: notionally ‘mass’ and notionally ‘count’ nouns do not differ in their grammatical behaviour and participate equally in reduplication and numeral modification constructions. We provide an analysis of the semantics of reduplication, classifiers, and numeral modification in Indonesian which rests on the lack of a mass–count distinction and explains the strong dispreference for numeral modification of reduplicated nouns. (shrink)

This is Quine's most ambitious semantical undertaking in which concessions to the material object language accompany a stimulus-behavioral account of verbal meaning. He further shores up favorite theses of the past, including difficulties in the way of synonomy claims and the advantages for scientific communication of formalizing ordinary discourse. --E. S.

Abstract: Some propose that the question of how you know that James is angry can be adequately answered with the claim that you see that James is angry. Call this the Perceptual Hypothesis. Here, I examine that hypothesis. I argue that there are two different ways in which the Perceptual Hypothesis could be made true. You might see that James is angry by seeing his bodily features. Alternatively, you might see that James is angry by seeing his anger. If you (...) see that James is angry in the first way, your knowledge is inferential. If you see that James is angry in the second way, your knowledge is not inferential. These are different ways of knowing that James is angry. So the Perceptual Hypothesis alone does not adequately answer the question of how you know that fact. To ascertain how you know it, we need to decide whether or not you saw his anger. This is an epistemological argument. But it has consequences for a theory of perception. It implies that there is a determinate fact about which features of an object you see. This fact is made true independently of what you come to know by seeing. In the final section of the paper, I seek to undermine various ways in which the claim that you see James' anger may be thought implausible. (shrink)

Abstract Christopher Gauker has argued that a cause?effect analysis of the acquisition of communication skills in chimpanzees is adequate to describe the data reported in our work at the Language Research Center. I agree that the cause?effect approach to language function is the only viable method of analyzing language. Language must be studied as a process that functions to organize behavior between two or more individuals. However, the problem of language understanding is not addressed satisfactorily by the perspective offered by (...) Gauker. Some more recent work, particularly with the pygmy chimpanzee ?Kanzi?, is now beginning to explicate a cause?effect analysis of language comprehension. It is argued that in the young chimpanzee, as with children, language comprehension is the driving force underlying the language acquisition process. It is further argued that the transition from comprehension to production is made possible by the capacity for goal?directed observational imitation. (shrink)

D. Compaeetti, Leggi antiche delta città di Gortyna, Firenze, 1885 F. Bücheler and E. Zitelmann, Rheinisches Museum N. F. Bd. 40 J. and T. Baunack, Die Inschrift von Gortyn, Stuttgart, 1886H. Lewy, Stadtrecht von Gortyn, Berlin, 1885Museo Italiano di Antickità classiche, edited by D. Comparetti, Florence, 1885 sqq. Vols. i, ii.