We present a set-theoretical model of the mental representation of classically quantified sentences (All P are Q, Some P are Q, Some P are not Q, and No P are Q). We take inclusion, exclusion, and their negations to be primitive concepts. It is shown that, although these sentences are known to have a diagrammatic expression (in the form of the Gergonne circles) which constitute a semantic repre...

research on l2 learners’ success at development and appropriate use of pragmatic ability and knowledge has mostly approached the issue from a cognitive or social perspective, and less attention has been devoted to the problem from the equally important emotional or individual-psychological lenses. this study sought to explore, first, the interplay between iranian advanced efl learners’ pragmati...

The main aim of the work presented here is to demonstrate that certain contextual information, traditionally considered to be beyond the scope of semantic representations, can be formalised sufficiently to allow its use in natural language generation (NLG) decisions, in particular syntactic choice. This ‘pragmatic’ information, where the term pragmatic is interpreted as indicating any reference...

In capturing future-time reference, semantic theory such as DRT (Kamp & Reyle 1993) relies on the representation of tense and hence has a difficulty with reconciling the reference of the temporal adverbial and the tense in (3) and (4). In order to capture the futurity of ‘plays’ and ‘is playing’ (traditionally called ‘tenseless future’ and ‘futurative progressive’ respectively), I propose to us...

Morpho-syntactic patterns device encompasses a subcategory of the cohesive devices that assists hearers to have an adequate mental representation for understanding speech. This article investigates the morpho-syntactic patterns employed in some Persian live sport radio and TV programs adapting Dooley and Levinsohn’s theoretical and analytical framework. The research data includes around 30,000 ...

In this study, the use of speech-like pragmatic markers in Iranian EFL students’ academic writing was investigated. Speech-like pragmatic markers, such as I think, well, I guess, actually, anyway, anyhow, etc. are linguistic components that are more specific to conversation than writing, and writers may wrongly include them in their academic writing. To examine the students’ use of speech-like ...

In this study, the use of speech-like pragmatic markers in Iranian EFL students’ academic writing was investigated. Speech-like pragmatic markers, such as I think, well, I guess, actually, anyway, anyhow, etc. are linguistic components that are more specific to conversation than writing, and writers may wrongly include them in their academic writing. To examine the students’ use of speech-like ...