Three processes in natural language interpretation

Abstract

To address complications involving ambiguity, presupposition and implicature, three processes underlying natural language interpretation are isolated: translation, entailment and attunement. A metalanguage integrating these processes is outlined, elaborating on a proof-theoretic approach to presupposition. To appear: Festschrift for Solomon Feferman (ASL Lecture Notes series) x1. Introduction. However outrageous Montague's slogan \English as a formal language" 24] may sound, the pressure to push the claim as far as it can go is, for many, irresistible. Basic to Montague's understanding of a formal language is the possibility of a model-theoretic interpretation | of obvious interest in various applications (e.g. databases) that employ models. But formulas of predicate logic (rst-order or higher-order, modal or otherwise) di er signi cantly from English sentences marked with ambiguity and presupposition. Consider, for instance, (s) If Sylvester gets holds of a canary, the bird will perish. A very rough translation of (s) that falls short of predicate logic is (9y)(canary(y)^SylvesterGets(y)) willPerish(the bird) ; from which we might expect to extract various readings of (s), depending on how we treat the ill-formed expression the bird. For now, let us focus on the reading that construes the bird anaphorically as any canary Sylvester gets hold of. The obvious rendering in predicate logic, (8y) (canary(y)^SylvesterGets(y)) willPerish(y) ; As wide ranging as Solomon Feferman's work on logic is, natural language is not among his driving concerns. Nevertheless, I would like to think that studying papers such as Feferman 8, 9, 10] has helped me draw certain conceptual distinctions useful in natural language interpretation. And, as a grateful student of his, I want to try to say why. I am indebted to two anonymous referees for helpful comments, and to the Feferfest committee for the opportunity of contributing to this volume. How I regret that I could not properly thank Jon Barwise.

The Dynamics of Language

“…Moreover, in using left and right elimination operators as a central inferential tool, categorial grammar formalisms preclude asymmetry between left and right periphery effects, as whatever mechanism is available for leftward modes of combination, will in principle also be available for rightward combination. Not surprisingly, given the lack of emphasis on underspecification, the challenge of providing a unitary characterisation of anaphora is, with the honourable exception of type-theoretic grammar formalisms (Ranta 1994, Piwek 1998, Fernando 2002) ignored by categorialists, and the characterisation of anaphora is in terms equivalent to assumption-construction and abstraction creating resumptive pronoun binding within relative clauses or other such structures. As we saw in the characterisation of relative clauses, such an analysis precludes a unitary characterisation of the different forms of relative clause construal; and without an articulated account of anaphora, the account of relatives will remain, at best, incomplete.…”

A Type Reduction from Proof-conditional to Dynamic Semantics

“…8 That is, a relation I ⊆ Var M × Var N such that ∅I ∅ is a partial isomorphism between M and N iff for all f Ig, (b1) whenever f �ϕ� M f � , there is a g � such that g�ϕ� N g � and f � Ig � , and (b2) whenever g�ϕ� N g � , there is an f � such that f �ϕ� M f � and f � Ig � .…”

Context and Well-Formedness: The Dynamics of Ellipsis

“…Though model-theoretic characterisations of anaphora construal have been predominant in the literature, there are also proof-theoretic accounts(Ranta 1994;Fernando 2002;Piwek 1998), to which this account is allied.6 The specification of the metavariable as U Male here expresses a (presuppositional) constraint restricting potential substituends to the correct gender. The additional final constraint in the lexical action shown above is a case constraint determining relative configurational position in the resulting tree, here ?…”