This is a book about the meanings of words and how they can combine to form larger meaningful units, as well as how they can fail to combine when the amalgamation of a predicate and argument would produce what the philosopher Gilbert Ryle called a 'category mistake'. It argues for a theory in which words get assigned both an intension and a type. The book develops a rich system of types and investigates its philosophical and formal implications, for example the abandonment of the classic Church analysis of types that has been used by linguists since Montague. The author integrates fascinating and puzzling observations about lexical meaning into a compositional semantic framework. Adjustments in types are a feature of the compositional process and account for various phenomena including coercion and copredication. This book will be of interest to semanticists, philosophers, logicians and computer scientists alike.
Author(s): Nicholas Asher
Edition: 1
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2011
Language: English
Pages: 346
Tags: Информатика и вычислительная техника;Искусственный интеллект;Компьютерная лингвистика;
Half-title......Page 3
Title......Page 5
Copyright......Page 6
Contents......Page 7
Preface......Page 10
PART ONE: FOUNDATIONS......Page 15
1 Lexical Meaning and Predication......Page 17
1.1 Types and presuppositions......Page 18
1.2 Different sorts of predication......Page 24
1.3 The context sensitivity of types......Page 32
1.4 The main points of this book......Page 35
2.1 Questions about types......Page 39
2.2 Distinguishing between types......Page 41
2.2.1 Events vs. objects......Page 42
2.2.3 Mass vs. count......Page 43
2.2.5 Containers vs. containables......Page 44
2.2.6 Plurality......Page 45
2.2.7 Types and specific lexical items......Page 46
2.3 Strongly intensional types......Page 48
2.4 Two levels of lexical content......Page 58
2.5.1 Type checking in predication......Page 63
2.5.2 Lexical inference......Page 66
3 Previous Theories of Predication......Page 75
3.1 The sense enumeration model......Page 76
3.2 Nunberg and sense transfer......Page 78
3.3 Kleiber and metonymic reference......Page 83
3.4 The Generative Lexicon......Page 85
3.5 Recent pragmatic theories of lexical meaning......Page 101
PART TWO: THEORY......Page 109
4 Type Composition Logic......Page 111
4.1 Words again......Page 115
4.2 The basic system of types......Page 117
4.2.1 Subtyping......Page 118
4.3 Lexical entries and type presuppositions......Page 120
4.4 The formal system of predication......Page 128
4.5 A categorial model for types......Page 135
5.1 A type constructor for dual aspect nouns......Page 144
5.2 Some not-so-good models of • types......Page 151
5.2.1 • types as intersective types......Page 152
5.2.2 • types as pair types......Page 154
5.2.3 Relations between objects and their aspects......Page 157
5.3 The relational interpretation of • types......Page 163
5.3.1 Model theoretic consequences of the relational interpretation......Page 170
5.4 Subtyping with •......Page 174
6.1 How to justify complex type presuppositions......Page 177
6.2 Applications......Page 183
6.2.1 Anaphora and quantificational effects of presupposition justification......Page 184
6.2.2 Copredication revisited......Page 189
6.2.3 Verbs and modifiers with • type presuppositions......Page 192
6.3 • Types and accidentally polysemous terms......Page 199
PART THREE: DEVELOPMENT......Page 203
7 Restricted Predication......Page 205
7.1 Landman’s puzzle......Page 207
7.2 More puzzles......Page 208
7.3 Extensional semantics for as phrases......Page 209
7.4 A new puzzle......Page 211
7.5 As constructions in TCL......Page 215
7.6 Proper names in as phrases revisited......Page 225
7.7 An aside on depictives......Page 227
8.1 Re-examining the data......Page 228
8.2 Coercion and polymorphic types......Page 233
8.2.1 Polymorphic type presupposition justification......Page 237
8.3 Discourse and typing......Page 250
8.4 Discourse-based coercions in TCL......Page 254
9.1 Noise verbs......Page 260
9.2 Coercions from objects to their representations......Page 261
9.3 Freezing......Page 262
9.4 Cars and drivers, books and authors......Page 263
9.5 Verbs of consumption......Page 265
9.6 I want a beer......Page 266
9.7 Evaluative adjectives......Page 270
9.8 Coercions with pluralities......Page 275
9.9 Aspectual coercion and verbal modification......Page 276
10.1 The Genitive......Page 286
10.1.1 Vikner and Jensen’s GL based account......Page 287
10.1.2 Genitives within TCL......Page 288
10.1.3 Discourse contexts and the genitive......Page 293
10.2 Grinding......Page 294
10.3 Resultative constructions......Page 295
10.4 Nominalization......Page 298
10.5 Evaluating TCL formally......Page 310
11.1 Metonymic predications......Page 314
11.2 Material modifiers......Page 315
11.3 Loose talk......Page 319
11.4 Fiction and fictional objects......Page 323
11.5 Metaphorical predication......Page 326
12.1 Integrating ordinary presuppositions......Page 329
12.2 Conclusions: a sea of arrows......Page 332
PART FOUR: CODA......Page 335
References......Page 337
Index......Page 345
