Handbook of Quantifiers in Natural Language

Handbook of Quantifiers in Natural Language
Author: Edward Keenan
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 973
Release: 2012-03-28
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9400726813

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Covering a strikingly diverse range of languages from 12 linguistic families, this handbook is based on responses to a questionnaire constructed by the editors. Focusing on the formation, distribution and semantic interpretation of quantificational expressions, the book explores 17 languages including German, Italian, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Malagasy, Hebrew, Pima, Basque, and more. The language data sets enable detailed crosslinguistic comparison of numerous features. These include semantic classes of quantifiers (generalized existential, generalized universal, proportional, partitive), syntactically complex quantifiers (intensive modification, Boolean compounding, exception phrases) and several others such as quantifier scope ambiguities, quantifier float, and binary quantifiers. Its theory-independent content extends earlier work by Matthewson (2008) and Bach et al. (1995), making this handbook suitable for linguists, semanticians, philosophers of language and logicians alike.

Generalized Quantifiers in Natural Language

Generalized Quantifiers in Natural Language
Author: Alice ter Meulen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2013-09-26
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110867907

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Quantifiers in Language and Logic

Quantifiers in Language and Logic
Author: Stanley Peters
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 549
Release: 2006-04-27
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 019929125X

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Quantification is a topic which brings together linguistics, logic, and philosophy. Quantifiers are the essential tools with which, in language or logic, we refer to quantity of things or amount of stuff. In English they include such expressions as no, some, all, both, and many. Peters and Westerstahl present the definitive interdisciplinary exploration of how they work - their syntax, semantics, and inferential role.Quantifiers in Language and Logic is intended for everyone with a scholarly interest in the exact treatment of meaning. It presents a broad view of the semantics and logic of quantifier expressions in natural languages and, to a slightly lesser extent, in logical languages. The authors progress carefully from a fairly elementary level to considerable depth over the course of sixteen chapters; their book will be invaluable to a broad spectrum of readers, from those with a basicknowledge of linguistic semantics and of first-order logic to those with advanced knowledge of semantics, logic, philosophy of language, and knowledge representation in artificial intelligence.

Feature System for Quantification Structures in Natural Language

Feature System for Quantification Structures in Natural Language
Author: Irena Bellert
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2020-10-26
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3112329627

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No detailed description available for "Feature System for Quantification Structures in Natural Language".

Quantification in Natural Languages

Quantification in Natural Languages
Author: Emmon Bach
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 760
Release: 2013-11-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9401728178

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This volume of papers grew out of a research project on "Cross-Linguistic Quantification" originated by Emmon Bach, Angelika Kratzer and Barbara Partee in 1987 at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and supported by National Science Foundation Grant BNS 871999. The publication also reflects directly or indirectly several other related activ ities. Bach, Kratzer, and Partee organized a two-evening symposium on cross-linguistic quantification at the 1988 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America in New Orleans (held without financial support) in order to bring the project to the attention of the linguistic community and solicit ideas and feedback from colleagues who might share our concern for developing a broader typological basis for research in semantics and a better integration of descriptive and theoretical work in the area of quantification in particular. The same trio organized a six-week workshop and open lecture series and related one-day confer ence on the same topic at the 1989 LSA Linguistic Institute at the University of Arizona in Tucson, supported by a supplementary grant, NSF grant BNS-8811250, and Partee offered a seminar on the same topic as part of the Institute course offerings. Eloise Jelinek, who served as a consultant on the principal grant and was a participant in the LSA symposium and the Arizona workshops, joined the group of editors for this volume in 1989.

Quantifiers, Quantifiers, and Quantifiers: Themes in Logic, Metaphysics, and Language

Quantifiers, Quantifiers, and Quantifiers: Themes in Logic, Metaphysics, and Language
Author: Alessandro Torza
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 526
Release: 2015-07-23
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3319183621

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This volume covers a wide range of topics that fall under the 'philosophy of quantifiers', a philosophy that spans across multiple areas such as logic, metaphysics, epistemology and even the history of philosophy. It discusses the import of quantifier variance in the model theory of mathematics. It advances an argument for the uniqueness of quantifier meaning in terms of Evert Beth’s notion of implicit definition and clarifies the oldest explicit formulation of quantifier variance: the one proposed by Rudolf Carnap. The volume further examines what it means that a quantifier can have multiple meanings and addresses how existential vagueness can induce vagueness in our modal notions. Finally, the book explores the role played by quantifiers with respect to various kinds of semantic paradoxes, the logicality issue, ontological commitment, and the behavior of quantifiers in intensional contexts.

Handbook of Quantifiers in Natural Language: Volume II

Handbook of Quantifiers in Natural Language: Volume II
Author: Denis Paperno
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 1012
Release: 2017-06-30
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3319443305

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This work presents the structure, distribution and semantic interpretation of quantificational expressions in languages from diverse language families and typological profiles. The current volume pays special attention to underrepresented languages of different status and endangerment level. Languages covered include American and Russian Sign Languages, and sixteen spoken languages from Africa, Australia, Papua, the Americas, and different parts of Asia. The articles respond to a questionnaire the editors constructed to enable detailed crosslinguistic comparison of numerous features. They offer comparable information on semantic classes of quantifiers (generalized existential, generalized universal, proportional, partitive), syntactically complex quantifiers (intensive modification, Boolean compounds, exception phrases, etc.), and several more specific issues such as quantifier scope ambiguities, floating quantifiers, and binary (type 2) quantifiers. The book is intended for semanticists, logicians interested in quantification in natural language, and general linguists as articles are meant to be descriptive and theory independent. The book continues and expands the coverage of the Handbook of Quantifiers in Natural Language (2012) by the same editors, and extends the earlier work in Matthewson (2008), Gil et al. (2013) and Bach et al (1995).

Game-Theoretical Semantics

Game-Theoretical Semantics
Author: Esa Saarinen
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2005-04-04
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1402032625

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This book is a collection of studies applying game-theoretical concepts and ideas to analysing the semantics of natural language and some formal languages. The bulk of the book consists of several papers by Hintikka, Carlson and Saarinen and discusses several of the central problems of the semantics of natural language. The topics covered are the semantics of natural language quantifiers, conditionals, pronouns and anaphora more generally. Hintikka’s famous essay presenting examples of "branching quantifier structures" in English, as well as one formulating his "any-every thesis", are included. The book also includes Hintikka’s closely argued philosophical discussion of the relationships between the new semantical games with the language games of Wittgenstein. Other papers apply the game-theoretical approach to formal languages including tense logics and tense anaphora (Saarinen), deontic logic and Ross’ paradox (Hintikka), and usual predicate logic (Rantala). The latter amounts to an explication of the "impossible possible" worlds as is shown in Hintikka’s concluding paper.

Scope and Specificity

Scope and Specificity
Author: Feng-Hsi Liu
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 196
Release: 1997
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027227373

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Scope and Specificity is an investigation of quantifier scope interaction in natural language, with special reference to English and Chinese. In particular, it is concerned with semantic properties of NPs. Quantifier scope plays an important role in current theories of syntax and semantics. However, most studies of quantifier scope are only concerned with the behavior of a small number of quantifiers, e.g. 'every', 'some', 'all'. As a result, the generalizations made on the basis of these quantifiers often do not hold when a wider range of quantifiers is considered. In this study a wide variety of NP types are examined with respect to how they interact with other NPs. The key concept explored is that of semantic scope dependency/independence. NPs are considered according to two properties: whether they can induce scope-dependency and whether they can be scope-dependent. By observing how in basic sentences NPs behave with respect to the two properties, the author presents a picture of quantifier scope much different from what has been assumed in the literature.

Philosophy, Language, and Artificial Intelligence

Philosophy, Language, and Artificial Intelligence
Author: J. Kulas
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 9400927274

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This series will include monographs and collections of studies devoted to the investigation and exploration of knowledge, information and data-processing systems of all kinds, no matter whether human, (other) animal or machine. Its scope is intended to span the full range of interests from classical problems in the philosophy of mind and phi losophical psychology through issues in cognitive psychology and socio biology (concerning the mental capabilities of other species) to ideas related to artificial intelligence and computer science. While primary emphasis will be placed upon theoretical, conceptual and epistemologi cal aspects of these problems and domains, empirical, experimental and methodological studies will also appear from time to time. Among the most challenging and difficult projects within the scope of artificial intelligence is the development and implementation of com puter programs suitable for processing natural language. Our purpose in compiling the present volume has been to contribute to the foundations of this enterprise by bringing together classic papers devoted to crucial problems involved in understanding natural language, which range from issues of formal syntax and logical form to those of possible-worlds and situation semantics. The book begins with a comprehensive introduc tion composed by Jack Kulas, the senior editor of this work, which pro vides a systematic orientation to this complex field, and ends with a selected bibliography intended to promote further research. If our efforts assist others in dealing with these problems, they will have been worthwhile. J. H. F.