Semantics, Knowledge, and NP Modification
نویسندگان
چکیده
The goal of semantic theory is to provide a systematic account of the meanings of the well-formed expressions of natural language. This paper outlines a semantic theory of the workings of modifiers in English noun phrases. Our initial orientation is to pursue as far as possible a compositional, model-theoretic semantics that is indepen dent of knowledge and psychological processing. However, we find phenomena that suggest modifications to compositionality and model theory and that require some clarification of the interaction of semantics with both knowledge and processing. Like Montague (1970) and Keenan and Faltz (1985), our concern is with specifying how higher-level semantic constituents are synthe sized from lower-level constituents. Although this compositional ap proach is intuitively appealing and explains many phenomena, we find two classes of data that appear to violate compositionality, at least in its simplest, most straightforward form. That simple form is one in which the basic relationship between semantics and syntax is one of correspondence, where the syntax determines the order in which the semantic constituents combine. To accommodate the ob served violations of strict, simple compositionality, we briefly explore a generalized form of it. We also follow these authors in starting from a model-theoretic viewpoint. Thus, we will be concerned with the 'question of what object or set of objects a particular phrase can refer to, given appropriate circumstances. It is easier for both author and reader for the discussion to be in extensional terms, but it must be borne in mind that it is ultimately an intensional version of these remarks, such as that of Keenan and Faltz, that is needed. Even in Semantics, Knowledge, NP Modification 373
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