scholarly journals The autonomy of grammar and semantic internalism

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 144-163
Author(s):  
Tamara Dobler
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Semantic Externalism ◽  
Main Motivation ◽  
The Core ◽  
Semantic Internalism

In his post-Tractatus work on natural language use, Wittgenstein defended the notion of what he dubbed the autonomy of grammar. According to this thought, grammar - or semantics, in a more recent idiom - is essentially autonomous from metaphysical considerations, and is not answerable to the nature of things. The argument has several related incarnations in Wittgenstein?s post-Tractatus writings, and has given rise to a number of important insights, both critical and constructive. In this paper I will argue for a potential connection between Wittgenstein?s autonomy argument and some more recent internalist arguments for the autonomy of semantics. My main motivation for establishing this connection comes from the fact that the later Wittgenstein?s comments on grammar and meaning stand in opposition to some of the core assumptions of semantic externalism.

scholarly journals What is special about L3 processing?

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
KEES DE BOT ◽  
CAROL JAENSCH
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Fundamental Question ◽  
Third Language ◽  
The Core ◽  
Dynamic Perspective ◽  
Core Issue ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Over Time

While research on third language (L3) and multilingualism has recently shown remarkable growth, the fundamental question of what makes trilingualism special compared to bilingualism, and indeed monolingualism, continues to be evaded. In this contribution we consider whether there is such a thing as a true monolingual, and if there is a difference between dialects, styles, registers and languages. While linguistic and psycholinguistic studies suggest differences in the processing of a third, compared to the first or second language, neurolinguistic research has shown that generally the same areas of the brain are activated during language use in proficient multilinguals. It is concluded that while from traditional linguistic and psycholinguistic perspectives there are grounds to differentiate monolingual, bilingual and multilingual processing, a more dynamic perspective on language processing in which development over time is the core issue, leads to a questioning of the notion of languages as separate entities in the brain.

scholarly journals Negation of Conditionals in Natural Language and Thought

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-63
Author(s):  
Gilberto Gomes
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Human Reasoning ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Language And Thought ◽  
Pragmatic Truth ◽  
Natural Language Pragmatics ◽  
Excluded Middle

External negation of conditionals occurs in sentences beginning with ‘It is not true that if’ or similar phrases, and it is not rare in natural language. A conditional may also be denied by another with the same antecedent and opposite consequent. Most often, when the denied conditional is implicative, the denying one is concessive, and vice versa. Here I argue that, in natural language pragmatics, ‘If $A$, $\sim B$’ entails ‘$\sim$(if $A, B$)’, but ‘$\sim$(if $A, B$)’ does not entail ‘If $A$, $\sim B$’. ‘If $A, B$’ and ‘If $A$, $\sim B$’ deny each other, but are contraries, not contradictories. Truth conditions that are relevant in human reasoning and discourse often depend not only on semantic but also on pragmatic factors. Examples are provided showing that sentences having the forms ‘$\sim$(if $A, B$)’ and ‘If $A$, $\sim B$’ may have different pragmatic truth conditions. The principle of Conditional Excluded Middle, therefore, does not apply to natural language use of conditionals. Three squares of opposition provide a representation the aforementioned relations.

scholarly journals 'Imperfecto' and 'indefinido' in Spanish: what, where and how

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Fábregas
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
The Core

This article aims to providing the reader with an overview of the main facts and analyses about the syntax and semantics of imperfecto and indefinido in Spanish. §1 presents the main views of the nature of tense in natural language; §2 introduces the main distinctions and classifications of tense in Spanish, from a descriptive perspective; §3 does the same with aspect. §4, the core of the article, reviews the facts and the analyses about the famous <em>imperfecto ~ indefinido</em> distinction in the Spanish temporoaspectual domain. §5 takes stock of the facts in Spanish, and outlines some conclusions.

Graph analytics and visualization for cyber situational understanding

2021 ◽  
pp. 154851292110513
Author(s):  
Steven Noel ◽  
Stephen Purdy ◽  
Annie O’Rourke ◽  
Edward Overly ◽  
Brianna Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Query Language ◽  
Software Components ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Graph Analytics ◽  
The Core ◽  
Interactive Visualizations ◽  
Graph Queries

This paper describes the Cyber Situational Understanding (Cyber SU) Proof of Concept (CySUP) software system for exploring advanced Cyber SU capabilities. CySUP distills complex interrelationships among cyberspace entities to provide the “so what” of cyber events for tactical operations. It combines a variety of software components to build an end-to-end pipeline for live data ingest that populates a graph knowledge base, with query-driven exploratory analysis and interactive visualizations. CySUP integrates with the core infrastructure environment supporting command posts to provide a cyber overlay onto a common operating picture oriented to tactical commanders. It also supports detailed analysis of cyberspace entities and relationships driven by ad hoc graph queries, including the conversion of natural language inquiries to formal query language. To help assess its Cyber SU capabilities, CySUP leverages automated cyber adversary emulation to carry out controlled cyberattack campaigns that impact elements of tactical missions.

scholarly journals Design and realization of a modular architecture for textual entailment

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
SEBASTIAN PADÓ ◽  
TAE-GIL NOH ◽  
ASHER STERN ◽  
RUI WANG ◽  
ROBERTO ZANOLI
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Knowledge Bases ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
World Knowledge ◽  
Modular Architecture ◽  
Open Platform ◽  
The Core ◽  
Textual Entailment

AbstractA key challenge at the core of many Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks is the ability to determine which conclusions can be inferred from a given natural language text. This problem, called theRecognition of Textual Entailment (RTE), has initiated the development of a range of algorithms, methods, and technologies. Unfortunately, research on Textual Entailment (TE), like semantics research more generally, is fragmented into studies focussing on various aspects of semantics such as world knowledge, lexical and syntactic relations, or more specialized kinds of inference. This fragmentation has problematic practical consequences. Notably, interoperability among the existing RTE systems is poor, and reuse of resources and algorithms is mostly infeasible. This also makes systematic evaluations very difficult to carry out. Finally, textual entailment presents a wide array of approaches to potential end users with little guidance on which to pick. Our contribution to this situation is the novel EXCITEMENT architecture, which was developed to enable and encourage the consolidation of methods and resources in the textual entailment area. It decomposes RTE into components with strongly typed interfaces. We specify (a) a modular linguistic analysis pipeline and (b) a decomposition of the ‘core’ RTE methods into top-level algorithms and subcomponents. We identify four major subcomponent types, including knowledge bases and alignment methods. The architecture was developed with a focus on generality, supporting all major approaches to RTE and encouraging language independence. We illustrate the feasibility of the architecture by constructing mappings of major existing systems onto the architecture. The practical implementation of this architecture forms the EXCITEMENT open platform. It is a suite of textual entailment algorithms and components which contains the three systems named above, including linguistic-analysis pipelines for three languages (English, German, and Italian), and comprises a number of linguistic resources. By addressing the problems outlined above, the platform provides a comprehensive and flexible basis for research and experimentation in textual entailment and is available as open source software under the GNU General Public License.

How dialogue creates opposite characters: An analysis of Arthur & George

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-58
Author(s):  
Deborah F. Rossen-Knill
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Relevance Theory ◽  
Language Ability ◽  
Secondary Effect ◽  
Politeness Theory ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Social Success ◽  
Social Disaster

This article offers an analysis of the dialogue in Julian Barnes’s Arthur & George, drawing on relevance theory (Grice, 1989; Sperber and Wilson, 1995) and politeness theory (Brown and Levinson, 1987; Fraser, 1990; Lakoff, 1973; Leech, 1983; Spencer-Oatey, 2002). The analysis demonstrates how Arthur’s and George’s particular ability to use language shapes their social situations. George’s inability to make sense of implicature and recover interpersonal messages leads to social disaster; whereas, Arthur’s heightened sensitivity to language’s creative possibilities leads to exceptional social success. The analysis has the secondary effect of revealing the intimate and indivisible relationship among natural language ability, language use, and social identity.

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