Publications

Abstract

This book argues that positivism, though now the dominant paradigm for both the natural and the human sciences, is intrinsically unfit for the latter. In particular, it is unfit for linguistics and cognitive science, where it is ultimately self-destructive, since it fails to account for causality, while the mind, the primary object of research of the human sciences, cannot be understood unless considered to be an autonomous causal force.　

Author Pieter Albertus Maria Seuren, who died shortly after this manuscript was finished and after a remarkable career, reviews the history of this issue since the seventeenth century. He focuses on Descartes, Leibniz, British Empiricism and Kant, arguing that neither cognition nor language can be adequately accounted for unless the mind is given its full due. This implies that a distinction must be made—following Alexius Meinong, but against Russell and Quine—between actual and virtual reality. The latter is a product of the causally active mind and a necessary ingredient for the setting up of mental models, without which neither cognition nor language can function. Mental models are coherent sets of propositions, and can be wholly or partially true or false. Positivism rules out mental models, blocking any serious semantics and thereby reducing both language and cognition to caricatures of themselves. Seuren presents a causal theory of meaning, linking up language with cognition and solving the old question of what meaning actually amounts to.

Abstract

Contrary to received opinion, the Aristotelian Square of Opposition (square) is logically sound, differing from standard modern predicate logic (SMPL) only in that it restricts the universe U of cognitively constructible situations by banning null predicates, making it less unnatural than SMPL. U-restriction strengthens the logic without making it unsound. It also invites a cognitive approach to logic. Humans are endowed with a cognitive predicate logic (CPL), which checks the process of cognitive modelling (world construal) for consistency. The square is considered a first approximation to CPL, with a cognitive set-theoretic semantics. Not being cognitively real, the null set Ø is eliminated from the semantics of CPL. Still rudimentary in Aristotle’s On Interpretation (Int), the square was implicitly completed in his Prior Analytics (PrAn), thereby introducing U-restriction. Abelard’s reconstruction of the logic of Int is logically and historically correct; the loca (Leaking O-Corner Analysis) interpretation of the square, defended by some modern logicians, is logically faulty and historically untenable. Generally, U-restriction, not redefining the universal quantifier, as in Abelard and loca, is the correct path to a reconstruction of CPL. Valuation Space modelling is used to compute the effects of U-restriction.

Abstract

Semantic Syntax (SeSyn), originally called Generative Semantics, is an offshoot of Chomskyan generative grammar (ChoGG), rejected by Chomsky and his school in the late 1960s. SeSyn is the theory of algorithmical grammars producing the well-formed sentences of a language L from the corresponding semantic input, the Semantic Analysis (SA), represented as a traditional tree structure diagram in a specific formal language of incremental predicate logic with quantifying and qualifying operators (including the truth functions), and with all lexical items filled in. A SeSyn-type grammar is thus by definition transformational, but not generative. The SA originates in cognition in a manner that is still largely mysterious, but its actual form can be distilled from the Surface Structure (SS) of the sentences of L following the principles set out in SeSyn. In this presentation we provide a more or less technical résumé of the SeSyn theory. A comparison is made with ChoGG-type grammars, which are rejected on account of their intrinsic unsuitability as a cognitive-realist grammar model. The ChoGG model follows the pattern of a 1930s neopositivist Carnap-type grammar for formal logical languages. Such grammars are random sentence generators, whereas, obviously, (nonpathological) humans are not. A ChoGG-type grammar is fundamentally irreconcilable with a mentalist-realist theory of grammar. The body of the paper consists in a demonstration of the production of an English and a French sentence, the latter containing a classic instance of the cyclic rule of Predicate Raising (PR), essential in the general theory of clausal complementation yet steadfastly repudiated in ChoGG for reasons that have never been clarified. The processes and categories defined in SeSyn are effortlessly recognised in languages all over the world, whether indigenous or languages of a dominant culture—taking into account language-specific values for the general theoretical parameters involved. This property makes SeSyn particularly relevant for linguistic typology, which now ranks as the most promising branch of linguistics but has so far conspicuously lacked an adequate theoretical basis.

Abstract

The present study used event-related potentials to investigate whether the processing of grammatical gender agreement involving gender regular and irregular forms recruit the same or distinct neurocognitive mechanisms and whether different grammatical gender agreement conditions elicit the same or diverse ERP signals. Native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese read sentences containing congruent and incongruent grammatical gender agreement between a determiner and a regular or an irregular form (condition 1) and between a regular or an irregular form and an adjective (condition 2). However, in condition 2, trials with incongruent regular forms elicited more positive ongoing waveforms than trial with incongruent irregular forms. We found a biphasic LAN/P600 effect for gender agreement violation involving regular and irregular forms in both conditions. Our findings suggest that gender agreement between determiner and nouns recruits the same neurocognitive mechanisms regardless of the nouns’ form and that, depending on the grammatical class of the words involved in gender agreement, differences in ERP signals can emerge

Abstract

This book presents a detailed formal machinery for the conversion of the Semantic Analyses (SAs) of sentences into surface structures of English, French, German, Dutch, and to some extent Turkish. The SAs are propositional structures consisting of a predicate and one, two or three argument terms, some of which can themselves be propositional structures. The surface structures are specified up to, but not including, the morphology. The book is thus an implementation of the programme formulated first by Albert Sechehaye (1870-1946) and then, independently, by James McCawley (1938-1999) in the school of Generative Semantics. It is the first, and so far the only formally precise and empirically motivated machinery in existence converting meaning representations into sentences of natural languages.

Abstract

The present study describes how three now almost forgotten mid-20th-century logicians, the American Paul Jacoby and the Frenchmen Augustin Sesmat and Robert Blanché, all three ardent Catholics, tried to restore traditional predicate logic to a position of respectability by expanding the classic Square of Opposition to a hexagon of logical relations, showing the logical and cognitive advantages of such an expansion. The nature of these advantages is discussed in the context of modern research regarding the relations between logic, language, and cognition. It is desirable to call attention to these attempts, as they are, though almost totally forgotten, highly relevant against the backdrop of the clash between modern and traditional logic. It is argued that this clash was and is unnecessary, as both forms of predicate logic are legitimate, each in its own right. The attempts by Jacoby, Sesmat, and Blanché are, moreover, of interest to the history of logic in a cultural context in that, in their own idiosyncratic ways, they fit into the general pattern of the Catholic cultural revival that took place roughly between the years 1840 and 1960. The Catholic Church had put up stiff resistance to modern mathematical logic, considering it dehumanizing and a threat to Catholic doctrine. Both the wider cultural context and the specific implications for logic are described and analyzed, in conjunction with the more general philosophical and doctrinal issues involved.

Abstract

The present study paints the intellectual environment in which Ferdinand de Saussure developed his ideas about language and linguistics during the fin de siècle. It sketches his dissatisfaction with that environment to the extent that it touched on linguistics, and shows the new course he was trying to steer on the basis of ideas that seemed to open new and exciting perspectives, even though they were still vaguely defined. As Saussure himself was extremely reticent about his sources and intellectual pedigree, his stance in the lively European cultural context in which he lived can only be established through textual critique and conjecture. On this basis, it is concluded that Saussure, though relatively uninformed about its historical roots, essentially aimed at integrating the rationalist tradition current in the sciences in his day into a new, ‘scientific’ general theory of language. In this, he was heavily indebted to a few predecessors, such as the French philosopher-psychologist Victor Egger, and particularly to the French psychologist, historian and philosopher Hippolyte Taine, who was a major cultural influence in nineteenth-century France, though now largely forgotten. The present study thus supports Hans Aarsleff's analysis, where, for the first time, Taine's influence is emphasised, and rejects John Joseph's contention that Taine had no influence and that, instead, Saussure was influenced mainly by the romanticist Adolphe Pictet. Saussure abhorred Pictet's method of etymologising, which predated the Young Grammarian school, central to Saussure's linguistic education. The issue has implications for the positioning of Saussure in the history of linguistics. Is he part of the non-analytical, romanticist and experience-based European strand of thought that is found in art and postmodernist philosophy and is sometimes called structuralism, or is he a representative of the short-lived European branch of specifically linguistic structuralism, which was rationalist in outlook, more science-oriented and more formalist, but lost out to American structuralism? The latter seems to be the case, though phenomenology, postmodernism and art have lately claimed Saussure as an icon

Abstract

The message of the present article is, first, that, besides and below the strictly linguistic aspects of communication through language, of which speakers are in principle fully aware, a great deal of knowledge not carried in virtue of the system of the language in question but rather transmitted by the form of the intended message, is imparted to listeners or readers, without either being in the least aware of this happening. For example, listeners quickly register the social status, regional origin or emotional attitude of speakers and they react to those kinds of ‘paralinguistic’ information, mostly totally unawares. When speaker and listener have a positive attitude with regard to each other, the reaction consists, among other things, in mutual alignment or accommodation of pronunciation features, lexical selections and style of speaking. When the mutual attitude is negative, the opposite happens: speakers accentuate their differences. Then, when this happens not between individual interlocutors but between groups of speakers, such accommodation or divergence phenomena may lead to language change. The main theoretical question raised, but not answered, in this article is how and at what point forms of behaviour, including linguistic behaviour, achieve the status of being ‘standard’ or ‘accepted’ in any given community and what it means to say that they are ‘standard’ or ‘accepted’. It is argued that frequency of occurrence is not the main explanatory factor, and that a causal explanation is to be sought rather in the, often unconscious, attitudes of individuals, in particular their desire or need to be integrated members of a community or social group, thus ensuring their safety and asserting their group identity. The question thus belongs to the province of social psychology. Qualms about analyses of this kind being ‘unscientific’ dissipate when it is realized that consciousness phenomena are part of the real world and must therefore be considered to be valid objects of scientific theory formation. Like so many other ill-understood elements in scientific theories, consciousness, though itself unexplained, can be given a place in causal chains of events.

Abstract

This study is a prolegomenon to a formal theory of the natural growth of conceptual and lexical fields. Negation, in the various forms in which it occurs in language, is found to be a powerful indicator. Other than in standard logic, natural language negation selects its complement within universes of discourse that are, for practical and functional reasons, restricted in various ways and to different degrees. It is hypothesized that a system of cognitive principles drives recursive processes of universe restriction, which in turn affects logical relations within the restricted universes. This approach provides a new perspective in which to view the well-known clashes between standard logic and natural logical intuitions. Lexicalization in language, especially the morphological incorporation of negation, is limited to highly restricted universes, which explains, for example, why a dog can be said not to be a Catholic, but also not to be a non-Catholic. Cognition is taken to restrict the universe of discourse to contrary pairs, splitting up one or both of the contraries into further subuniverses as a result of further cognitive activity. It is shown how a logically sound square of opposition , expanded to a hexagon (Jacoby 1950, 1960, Sesmat 1951, Blanché 1952, 1953, 1966), is generated by a hierarchy of universe restrictions, defining the notion ‘natural’ for logical systems. The logical hexagon contains two additional vertices, one for ‘some but not all’ (the Y-type) and one for ‘either all or none’ (the U-type), and incorporates both the classic square and the Hamiltonian triangle of contraries . Some is thus considered semantically ambiguous, representing two distinct quantifiers. The pragmaticist claim that the language system contains only the standard logical ‘some perhaps all’ and that the ‘some but not all’ meaning is pragmatically derived from the use of the system is rejected. Four principles are proposed according to which negation selects a complement from the subuniverses at hand. On the basis of these principles and of the logico-cognitive system proposed, the well-known nonlexicalization not only of *nall and *nand but also of many other nonlogical cases found throughout the lexicons of languages is analyzed and explained

Abstract

Since Aristotle and the Stoa, there has been a clash, worsened by modern predicate logic, between logically defined operator meanings and natural intuitions. Pragmatics has tried to neutralize the clash by an appeal to the Gricean conversational maxims. The present study argues that the pragmatic attempt has been unsuccessful. The “softness” of the Gricean explanation fails to do justice to the robustness of the intuitions concerned, leaving the relation between the principles evoked and the observed facts opaque. Moreover, there are cases where the Gricean maxims fail to apply. A more adequate solution consists in the devising of a sound natural logic, part of the innate cognitive equipment of mankind. This account has proved successful in conjunction with a postulated cognitive mechanism in virtue of which the universe of discourse (Un) is stepwise and recursively restricted, so that the negation selects different complements according to the degree of restrictedness of Un. This mechanism explains not only the discrepancies between natural logical intuitions and known logical systems; it also accounts for certain systematic lexicalization gaps in the languages of the world. Finally, it is shown how stepwise restriction of Un produces the ontogenesis of natural predicate logic, while at the same time resolving the intuitive clashes with established logical systems that the Gricean maxims sought to explain

Abstract

In this study it is argued that scope, as a property of scope‐creating operators, is a real and important element in the semantico‐grammatical description of languages. The notion of scope is illustrated and, as far as possible, defined. A first idea is given of the ‘grammar of scope’, which defines the relation between scope in the logically structured semantic analysis (SA) of sentences on the one hand and surface structure on the other. Evidence is adduced showing that peripheral preposition phrases (PPPs) in the surface structure of sentences represent scope‐creating operators in SA, and that external datives fall into this category: they are scope‐creating PPPs. It follows that, in English and Dutch, the internal dative (I gave John a book) and the external dative (I gave a book to John) are not simple syntactic variants expressing the same meaning. Instead, internal datives are an integral part of the argument structure of the matrix predicate, whereas external datives represent scope‐creating operators in SA. In the Romance languages, the (non‐pronominal) external dative has been re‐analysed as an argument type dative, but this has not happened in English and Dutch, which have many verbs that only allow for an external dative (e.g. donate, reveal). When both datives are allowed, there are systematic semantic differences, including scope differences.

Abstract

Ray Jackendoff and I seem to concur in most essential points. At the level of overall architecture, his parallel grammar model (Jackendoff 2002:199) and my model of SEMANTIC SYNTAX (SeSyn; Seuren 1996) bear a nontrivial resemblance.Apart from technical details such as the properties of the rule systems concerned, these models seem to differmainly in two respects.

Abstract

It was with great pleasure that I read Ray Jackendoff’s discussion note ‘What is the human language faculty? Two views’, published in Language 87.3.586–624 (September 2011). Since it was not presented as an ordinary article but as a ‘discussion note’, it seemed appropriate to ask the editors of Language to print a short reaction, meant to make a positive contribution to the discussion.

Abstract

It has been known at least since Abelard (12th century) that the classic Square of Opposition suffers from so-called undue existential import (UEI) in that this system of predicate logic collapses when the class denoted by the restrictor predicate is empty. It is usually thought that this mistake was made by Aristotle himself, but it has now become clear that this is not so: Aristotle did not have the Conversions but only one-way entailments, which ‘saves’ the Square. The error of UEI was introduced by his later commentators, especially Apuleius and Boethius. Abelard restored Aristotle’s original logic. After Abelard, some 14th- and 15th-century philosophers (mainly Buridan and Ockham) meant to save the Square by declaring the O-corner true when the restrictor class is empty. This ‘leaking O-corner analysis’, or LOCA, was taken up again around 1950 by some American philosopher-logicians, who now have a fairly large following. LOCA does indeed save the Square from logical disaster, but modern analysis shows that this makes it impossible to give a uniform semantic definition of the quantifiers, which thus become ambiguous—an intolerable state of affairs in logic. Klima (Ars Artium, Essays in Philosophical Semantics, Medieval and Modern, Institute of Philosophy, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, 1988) and Parsons (in Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.standford.edu/entries/square/, 2006; Logica Univers. 2:3–11, 2008) have tried to circumvent this problem by introducing a ‘zero’ element into the ontology, standing for non-existing entities and yielding falsity when used for variable substitution. LOCA, both without and with the zero element, is critically discussed and rejected on internal logical and external ontological grounds.

Abstract

Without Abstract

Abstract

Reproduced with permission of Blackwell Publishing from: Seuren, P. A. M. (1998) Western linguistics, 25: pp. 426-428, 430-441. Oxford Blackwell Publishers

Abstract

This paper follows the changing fortunes of Chomsky’s search for a pedigree in the history of Western thought during the late 1960s. Having achieved a unique position of supremacy in the theory of syntax and having exploited that position far beyond the narrow circles of professional syntacticians, he felt the need to shore up his theory with the authority of history. It is shown that this attempt, resulting mainly in his Cartesian Linguistics of 1966, was widely, and rightly, judged to be a radical failure, even though it led to a sudden revival of interest in the history of linguistics. Ironically, the very upswing in historical studies caused by Cartesian Linguistics ended up showing that the real pedigree belongs to Generative Semantics, developed by the same ‘angry young men’ Chomsky was so bent on destroying.

Abstract

After an exposé of the programme involved, it is shown that the Gricean maxims fail to do their job in so far as they are meant to account for the well-known problem of natural intuitions of logical entailment that deviate from standard modern logic. It is argued that there is no reason why natural logical and ontological intuitions should conform to standard logic, because standard logic is based on mathematics while natural logical and ontological intuitions derive from a cognitive system in people's minds (supported by their brain structures). A proposal is then put forward to try a totally different strategy, via (a) a grammatical reduction of surface sentences to their logico-semantic form and (b) via logic itself, in particular the notion of natural logic, based on a natural ontology and a natural set theory. Since any logical system is fully defined by (a) its ontology and its overarching notions and axioms regarding truth, (b) the meanings of its operators, and (c) the ranges of its variables, logical systems can be devised that deviate from modern logic in any or all of the above respects, as long as they remain consistent. This allows one, as an empirical enterprise, to devise a natural logic, which is as sound as standard logic but corresponds better with natural intuitions. It is hypothesised that at least two varieties of natural logic must be assumed in order to account for natural logical and ontological intuitions, since culture and scholastic education have elevated modern societies to a higher level of functionality and refinement. These two systems correspond, with corrections and additions, to Hamilton's 19th-century logic and to the classic Square of Opposition, respectively. Finally, an evaluation is presented, comparing the empirical success rates of the systems envisaged.

Abstract

The main thesis of the article is that language change is only partially subject to criteria of functionality and that, as a rule, opposing forces are also at work which often correlate directly with psychological and sociopsychological parameters reflecting themselves in all areas of linguistic competence. We sketch a complex interplay of horizontal versus vertical, deliberate versus nondeliberate, functional versus antifunctional linguistic changes, which, through a variety of processes have an effect upon the languages concerned, whether in the lexicon, the grammar, the phonology or the phonetics. Despite the overall unclarity regarding the notion of functionality in language, there are clear cases of both functionality and antifunctionality. Antifunctionality is deliberately striven for by groups of speakers who wish to distinguish themselves from other groups, for whatever reason. Antifunctionality, however, also occurs as a, probably unwanted, result of syntactic change in the acquisition process by young or adult language learners. The example is discussed of V-clustering through Predicate Raising in German and Dutch, a process that started during the early Middle Ages and was highly functional as long as it occurred on a limited scale but became antifunctional as it pervaded the entire complementation system of these languages.

Abstract

Aristotle's importance in the professional study of language consists first of all in the fact that he demythologized language and made it an object of rational investigation. In the context of his theory of truth as correspondence, he also provided the first semantic analysis of propositions in that he distinguished two main constituents, the predicate, which expresses a property, and the remainder of the proposition, referring to a substance to which the property is assigned. That assignment is either true or false. Later, the ‘remainder’ was called subject term, and the Aristotelian predicate was identified with the verb in the sentence. The Aristotelian predicate, however, is more like what is now called the ‘comment,’ whereas his remainder corresponds to the topic. Aristotle, furthermore, defined nouns and verbs as word classes. In addition, he introduced the term ‘case’ for paradigmatic morphological variation.

Abstract

The Logic of Language opens a new perspective on logic. Pieter Seuren argues that the logic of language derives from the lexical meanings of the logical operators. These meanings, however, prove not to be consistent. Seuren solves this problem through an indepth analysis of the functional adequacy of natural predicate logic and standard modern logic for natural linguistic interaction. He then develops a general theory of discourse-bound interpretation, covering discourse incrementation, anaphora, presupposition and topic-comment structure, all of which, the author claims, form the 'cement' of discourse structure. This is the second of a two-volume foundational study of language, published under the title Language from Within . Pieter Seuren discusses such apparently diverse issues as the ontology underlying the semantics of language, speech act theory, intensionality phenomena, the machinery and ecology of language, sentential and lexical meaning, the natural logic of language and cognition, and the intrinsically context-sensitive nature of language - and shows them to be intimately linked. Throughout his ambitious enterprise, he maintains a constant dialogue with established views, reflecting their development from Ancient Greece to the present. The resulting synthesis concerns central aspects of research and theory in linguistics, philosophy and cognitive science.

Abstract

Language in Cognition argues that language is based on the human construal of reality. Humans refer to and quantify over virtual entities with the same ease as they do over actual entities: the natural ontology of language, the author argues, must therefore comprise both actual and virtual entities and situations. He reformulates speech act theory, suggesting that the primary function of language is less the transfer of information than the establishing of socially binding commitments or appeals based on the proposition expressed. This leads him first to a new analysis of the systems and structures of cognitive language machinery and their ecological embedding, and finally to a reformulation of the notion of meaning, in which sentence meaning is distinguished from lexical meaning and the vagaries and multifarious applications of lexical meanings may be explained and understood. This is the first of a two-volume foundational study of language, published under the title, Language from Within. Pieter Seuren discusses and analyses such apparently diverse issues as the ontology underlying the semantics of language, speech act theory, intensionality phenomena, the machinery and ecology of language, sentential and lexical meaning, the natural logic of language and cognition, and the intrinsically context-sensitive nature of language - and shows them to be intimately linked. Throughout his ambitious enterprise, he maintains a constant dialogue with established views, reflecting on their development from Ancient Greece to the present. The resulting synthesis concerns central aspects of research and theory in linguistics, philosophy, and cognitive science.

Abstract

The present paper is part of a large research programme investigating the nature and properties of the predicate logic inherent in natural language. The general hypothesis is that natural speakers start off with a basic-natural logic, based on natural cognitive functions, including the basic-natural way of dealing with plural objects. As culture spreads, functional pressure leads to greater generalization and mathematical correctness, yielding ever more refined systems until the apogee of standard modern predicate logic. Four systems of predicate calculus are considered: Basic-Natural Predicate Calculus (BNPC), Aritsotelian-Abelardian Predicate Calculus (AAPC), Aritsotelian-Boethian Predicate Calculus (ABPC), also known as the classic Square of Opposition, and Standard Modern Predicate Calculus (SMPC). (ABPC is logically faulty owing to its Undue Existential Import (UEI), but that fault is repaired by the addition of a presuppositional component to the logic.) All four systems are checked against seven natural logical intuitions. It appears that BNPC scores best (five out of seven), followed by ABPC (three out of seven). AAPC and SMPC finish ex aequo with two out of seven.

Abstract

The article concentrates on the question of the composition, the internal ordering and the placement of clitic-clusters (C-clusters) in French and Italian, though clitic data from other languages are drawn in occasionally. The system proposed is top-down transformational, in the terms of Semantic Syntax (Seuren, Blackwell, 1996). Clitics are taken to originate in underlying structure as canonical argument terms or adverbial constituents of clauses. During the process of transformation from semantic to surface form, nonfocus, nonsubject, pronominal argument terms are assigned values for the features of animacy ([±an]), dative status ([±dat]) and reflexivity ([±refl]). On the basis of these, the rule feature cm, inducing clitic movement, is assigned or withheld. Plus-values increase, and minus-values reduce, the “semantic weight” of the clitics in question. Pronouns without the feature cm are not cliticised and stay in their canonical term position in their full phonological form. Pronouns with the feature cm are attached to the nearest verb form giving rise to clitic clusters, which accounts for the composition of well-formed C-clusters. The attachment of clitics to a cluster occurs in a fixed order, which accounts for the ordering of clitics in well-formed clusters. Branching directionality, together with a theory of complementation, accounts for the placement of C-clusters. Clitics often take on a reduced phonological form. It is argued that, in French and Italian, which are languages with a right-branching syntax and a left-branching flectional morphology, postverbal clitics, or enclitics, are part of left-branching structures and hence fit naturally into the morphology. They are best categorised as affixes. Occasionally, as in Italian glielo, dative clitics (e.g., gli) turn preceding lighter clitics (e.g., lo) into affixes, resulting in the left-branching structure glielo, where -lo is an affix. In a brief Intermezzo, instances are shown of the irregular but revealing lui-le-lui phenomenon in French, and its much less frequent analog in Italian. On these assumptions, supported by the official orthographies, the clitic systems of French and Italian largely coincide. This new analysis of the facts in question invites further reflection on the interface between syntax and morphology. The final section deals with reflexive clitics. There, the system begins to be unable to account for the observed facts. At this end, therefore, the system is allowed to remain fraying, till further research brings greater clarity.

Abstract

Ever since the category of evidentiality has been identified in the verbal grammar of certain languages, it has been assumed that evidentiality plays no role in the grammars of those languages that have not incorporated it into their verb morphology or at least their verb clusters. The present paper attempts to show that even if evidentiality is not visible in the verbal grammar of English and Dutch, it appears to be a motivating factor, both historically and synchronically, in the process whereby evidential predicates are made to play a subordinate syntactic role with regard to their embedded subject clause. This process, known as AUXILIATION (Kuteva 2001), appears to manifest itself in a variety of, often successive, grammatical processes or rules, such as Subject-to-Subject Raising (the subject of the embedded clause becomes the subject of the main verb, as in John is likely to be late), V-ING (as in The man stopped breathing), Incorporation-by-Lowering (the evidential main verb is lowered on to the V-constituent of the embedded subject clause, as in John may have left), or Incorporation-by-Raising (also known as Predicate Raising), not or hardly attested in English but dominant in Dutch. A list is provided of those English (and Dutch) predicates that induce one of the above-mentioned auxiliation rules and it is checked how many of those have an evidential meaning. This is set off against evidential predicates that do not induce an auxiliation rule. It results that, for English and Dutch, lexical evidentiality is a powerful determinant for the induction of syntactic auxiliation.

Abstract

This article places the debate between Chomskyan autonomous syntax and Generative Semantics in the context of the first beginnings of syntactic theory set out in Perì suntáxeõs ('On syntax') by Apollonius Dyscolus (second century CE). It shows that, theoretically speaking, the Apollonian concept of syntax implied an algorithmically organized system of composition rules with lexico-semantic, not a sound-based, input, unlike Apollonius's strictly sound-based postulated rule systems for the composition of phonemes into syllables and of syllables into words. This meaning-based notion of syntax persisted essentially unchanged (though refined by Sanctius during the sixteenth century) until the 1930s, when structuralism began to take the notion of algorithmically organized rule systems for the generation of sentences seriously. This meant a break with the Apollonian meaning-based approach to syntax. The Generative Semantics movement, which arose during the 1960s but was nipped in the bud, implied a return to the tradition, though with much improved formal underpinnings.

Abstract

1. Introduction 2. A generative grammar as an algorithm 3. The semantic component 4. Bibliography 1. Introduction Throughout the 20th century up to the present day grammar and semantics have been uneasy bedfellows. A look at the historical background will make it clear how this curious situation came about. 20th-century linguistics has been characterized by an almost exclusive concern with the structure of words, word groups and sentences. This concern was reinforced, especially on the American side of the Atlantic, by the sudden rise and subsequent dominance of behaviorism during the 1920s. It started in psychology but quickly permeated all the human sciences, including linguistics, until the early 1960s, when it collapsed as suddenly as it had arisen.

Abstract

Presupposition is a semantic device built into natural language to make sentences fit for use in certain contexts but not in others. A sentence carrying a presupposition thus evokes a context in which that presupposition is fulfilled. The study of presupposition was triggered by the behavior of natural language negation, which tends to preserve presuppositions either as invited inferences or as entailments. As the role of discourse became more apparent in semantics, presupposition began to be seen increasingly as a discourse-semantic phenomenon with consequences for the logic of language.

Abstract

The property of presuppositions to be sometimes preserved through embeddings, albeit often in a weakened form, is called projection. The projection problem consists in formulating the conditions under which the presuppositions of an embedded clause (a) are kept as presuppositions of the superordinate structure, or (b) remain as an invited inference that can be overruled by context, or (c) are canceled. Over the past 25 years it has been recognized that the projection problem is to be solved in the context of a wider theory of presupposition and discourse incrementation.

Abstract

Logic was discovered by Aristotle when he saw that the semantic behavior of the negation word not is different in sentences with a definite and in those with a quantified subject term. Until the early 20th century, logic remained firmly language-based, but for the past century it has been mainly a tool in the hands of mathematicians, which has meant an alienation from linguistic reality. With the help of new techniques, it is now possible to revert to the logic of language, which is seen as based on a semantic analysis of the logical words (constants) involved. This new perspective, combined with much improved insights into the semantically defined discourse dependency of natural language sentences, leads to a novel and more functionally oriented approach to logic and to a reappraisal of traditional predicate calculus, whose main fault, undue existential import, evaporates when discourse dependency, in particular the presuppositional aspect, is brought into play. Traditional predicate calculus is seen to have a much greater logical power and a much greater functionality than modern predicate calculus. There is also full isomorphism, neglected in modern logic, between traditional predicate calculus and propositional calculus, which raises the question of any possible deeper causes.

Abstract

Virtual objects are objects thought up by a thinking individual. Although 20th-century philosophy has tried to ban them from ontology, they make it impossible to account for the truth of sentences such as Apollo was worshipped in the island of Delos, in which a property is assigned to the nonexisting, virtual entity Apollo. Such facts are the reason why virtual objects are slowly being recognized again.

Abstract

Some predicates are ‘factive’ in that they induce the presupposition that what is said in their subordinate that clause is true.

Abstract

The term ‘donkey sentences’ derives from the medieval philosopher Walter Burleigh, whose example sentences contain mention of donkeys. The modern philosopher Peter Geach rediscovered Burleigh's sentences and the associated problem. The problem is that natural language anaphoric pronouns are sometimes used in a way that cannot be accounted for in terms of modern predicate calculus. The solution lies in establishing a separate category of anaphoric pronouns that refer via the intermediary of a contextually given antecedent, possibly an existentially quantified expression.

Abstract

A discourse domain D is a form of middle-term memory for the storage of the information embodied in the discourse at hand. The information carried by a new utterance u is added to D (u is incremented to D). The processes involved and the specific structure of D are a matter of ongoing research.

Abstract

Discourse semantics (DSx) is based on the fact that the interpretation of uttered sentences is dependent on and co-determined by the information stored in a specialized middle-term cognitive memory called discourse domain (D). DSx studies the structure and dynamics of Ds and the conditions to be fulfilled by D for proper interpretation. It does so in the light of the truth-conditional criteria for semantics, with an emphasis on intensionality phenomena. It requires the assumption of virtual entities and virtual facts. Any model-theoretic interpretation holds between discourse structures and pre-established verification domains.

Abstract

Aristotle's importance in the professional study of language consists first of all in the fact that he demythologized language and made it an object of rational investigation. In the context of his theory of truth as correspondence, he also provided the first semantic analysis of propositions in that he distinguished two main constituents, the predicate, which expresses a property, and the remainder of the proposition, referring to a substance to which the property is assigned. That assignment is either true or false. Later, the ‘remainder’ was called subject term, and the Aristotelian predicate was identified with the verb in the sentence. The Aristotelian predicate, however, is more like what is now called the ‘comment,’ whereas his remainder corresponds to the topic. Aristotle, furthermore, defined nouns and verbs as word classes. In addition, he introduced the term ‘case’ for paradigmatic morphological variation.

Abstract

There is a growing awareness among theoretical linguists and philosophers of language that the linguistic definition of lexical meanings, which must be learned when one learns a language, underdetermines not only full utterance interpretation but also sentence meaning. The missing information must be provided by cognition – that is, either general encyclopedic or specific situational knowledge. This fact crucially shows the basic insufficiency of current standard model-theoretic semantics as a paradigm for the analysis and description of linguistic meaning.

Abstract

The lexical conditions, also known as satisfaction conditions, of a predicate P are the conditions that must be satisfied by the term referents of P for P applied to these term referents to yield a true sentence. In view of presupposition theory it makes sense to distinguish two categories of lexical conditions, the preconditions that must be satisfied for the sentence to be usable in any given discourse, and the update conditions which must be satisfied for the sentence to yield truth.

Abstract

The widely prevailing view that standard bivalent logic is the only possible sound logical system, imposed by metaphysical necessity, has been shattered by the development of multivalent logics during the 20th century. It is now clear that standard bivalent logic is merely the minimal representative of a wide variety of viable logics with any number of truth values. These viable logics can be subdivided into families. In this article, the Kleene family and the PPCn family are subjected to special examination, as they appear to be most relevant for the study of the logical properties of human language.

Abstract

It is the purpose of the present paper to highlight the figure of Eubulides, a relatively unknown Greek philosopher who lived ±405–330 BC and taught at Megara, not far from Athens. He is mainly known for his four paradoxes (the Liar, the Sorites, the Electra, and the Horns), and for the mutual animosity between him and his younger contemporary Aristotle. The Megarian school of philosophy was one of the main sources of the great Stoic tradition in ancient philosophy. What has never been made explicit in the literature is the importance of the four paradoxes for the study of meaning in natural language: they summarize the whole research programme of 20th century formal or formally oriented semantics, including the problems of vague predicates (Sorites), intensional contexts (Electra), and presuppositions (Horns). One might say that modern formal or formally oriented semantics is essentially an attempt at finding linguistically tenable answers to problems arising in the context of Aristotelian thought. It is a surprising and highly significant fact that a contemporary of Aristotle already spotted the main weaknesses of the Aristotelian paradigm.

Abstract

Translation of the first four chapters of Western linguistics: An historical introduction (1998)

Abstract

The prime purpose of this paper is, first, to restore to discourse-bound occasion sentences their rightful central place in semantics and secondly, taking these as the basic propositional elements in the logical analysis of language, to contribute to the development of an adequate logic of occasion sentences and a mathematical (Boolean) foundation for such a logic, thus preparing the ground for more adequate semantic, logical and mathematical foundations of the study of natural language. Some of the insights elaborated in this paper have appeared in the literature over the past thirty years, and a number of new developments have resulted from them. The present paper aims atproviding an integrated conceptual basis for this new development in semantics. In Section 1 it is argued that the reduction by translation of occasion sentences to eternal sentences, as proposed by Russell and Quine, is semantically and thus logically inadequate. Natural language is a system of occasion sentences, eternal sentences being merely boundary cases. The logic hasfewer tasks than is standardly assumed, as it excludes semantic calculi, which depend crucially on information supplied by cognition and context and thus belong to cognitive psychology rather than to logic. For sentences to express a proposition and thus be interpretable and informative, they must first be properly anchored in context. A proposition has a truth value when it is, moreover, properly keyed in the world, i.e. is about a situation in the world. Section 2 deals with the logical properties of natural language. It argues that presuppositional phenomena require trivalence and presents the trivalent logic PPC3, with two kinds of falsity and two negations. It introduces the notion of Σ-space for a sentence A (or A/A, the set of situations in which A is true) as the basis of logical model theory, and the notion of PA/ (the Σ-space of the presuppositions of A), functioning as a `private' subuniverse for A/A. The trivalent Kleene calculus is reinterpreted as a logical account of vagueness, rather than of presupposition. PPC3 and the Kleene calculus are refinements of standard bivalent logic and can be combined into one logical system. In Section 3 the adequacy of PPC3 as a truth-functional model of presupposition is considered more closely and given a Boolean foundation. In a noncompositional extended Boolean algebra, three operators are defined: 1a for the conjoined presuppositions of a, ã for the complement of a within 1a, and â for the complement of 1a within Boolean 1. The logical properties of this extended Boolean algebra are axiomatically defined and proved for all possible models. Proofs are provided of the consistency and the completeness of the system. Section 4 is a provisional exploration of the possibility of using the results obtained for a new discourse-dependent account of the logic of modalities in natural language. The overall result is a modified and refined logical and model-theoretic machinery, which takes into account both the discourse-dependency of natural language sentences and the necessity of selecting a key in the world before a truth value can be assigned