From Discourse to Logic

U. Reyle

ISBN 10: 079232403X / ISBN 13: 9780792324034

Editore: Springer Netherlands, Springer Netherlands Jul 1993, 1993

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Neuware -Preface This book is about semantics and logic. More specifically, it is about the semantics and logic of natural language; and, even more specifically than that, it is about a particular way of dealing with those subjects, known as Discourse Representation Theory, or DRT. DRT is an approach towards natural language semantics which, some thirteen years ago, arose out of attempts to deal with two distinct problems. The first of those was the semantic puzzle that had been brought to contempo rary attention by Geach's notorious 'donkey sentences' - sentences like If Pedro owns some donkey, he beats it, in which the anaphoric connection we perceive between the indefinite noun phrase some donkey and the pronoun it may seem to conflict with the existential meaning of the word some. The second problem had to do with tense and aspect. Some languages, for instance French and the other Romance languages, have two morphologically distinct past tenses, a simple past (the French Passe Simple) and a continuous past (the French Imparfait). To articulate precisely what the difference between these tenses is has turned out to be surprisingly difficult.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 738 pp. Englisch.

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Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: From Discourse to Logic
• Editore: Springer Netherlands, Springer Netherlands Jul 1993
• Data di pubblicazione: 1993
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 079232403X
• ISBN 13: 9780792324034
• Rilegatura: Buch
• Condizione: Neu

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Riassunto

Preface This book is about semantics and logic. More specifically, it is about the semantics and logic of natural language; and, even more specifically than that, it is about a particular way of dealing with those subjects, known as Discourse Representation Theory, or DRT. DRT is an approach towards natural language semantics which, some thirteen years ago, arose out of attempts to deal with two distinct problems. The first of those was the semantic puzzle that had been brought to contempo­ rary attention by Geach's notorious "donkey sentences" - sentences like If Pedro owns some donkey, he beats it, in which the anaphoric connection we perceive between the indefinite noun phrase some donkey and the pronoun it may seem to conflict with the existential meaning of the word some. The second problem had to do with tense and aspect. Some languages, for instance French and the other Romance languages, have two morphologically distinct past tenses, a simple past (the French Passe Simple) and a continuous past (the French Imparfait). To articulate precisely what the difference between these tenses is has turned out to be surprisingly difficult.

Contenuti

Preface. 0: Preliminaries. 0.1. Theories of Meaning. 0.2. Logic. 0.3. Logic and Semantics. 0.4. Syntax. 1: DRT and Predicate Logic. 1.1. Simple Sentences. 1.2. Models. 1.3. Negation. 1.4. Verification, Truth and Accessibility. 1.5. From DRT to Predicate Logic. 2: Quantification and Connectives. 2.1. Conditionals. 2.2. Universal Quantification. 2.3. Disjunction. 2.4. Conjunction. 3: Loose Ends. 3.1. Reflexives. 3.2. Possessive Noun Phrases. 3.3. Proper Names. 3.4. Definite Descriptions. 3.5. Stipulated Identity and Asserted Identity. 3.6. Identity and Predication. 3.7. Scope Amibiguity. 4: The Plural. 4.1. Introduction. 4.2. DRS-Construction for Plurals I. 4.3. Model Theory. 4.4. DRS-Construction for Plurals II. 5: Tense and Aspect. 5.1. The Semantics and Logic of Temporal Reference. 5.2. DRS-Construction for Tensed Sentences. 5.3. Aspect. 5.4. Temporal Perspective. 5.5. Temporal Adverbials. 5.6. Model Theory. 5.7. Syntactic Rules. Bibliography. Table of Construction Rules. Index of Symbols, Features and Feature Values. Index of Names. Index of Subjects.