Before children learn the specific meanings of numerals like six, do they know that they represent precise quantities? Previous studies have reported conflicting evidence and have found that children expect numerals to label precise quantities in some tasks but not in others (Condry & Spelke, 2008; Sarnecka & Gelman, 2004). In this article, we present evidence that some of children's apparent s...

This paper proposes a new approach to the interpretation of reciprocal expressions using the Strongest Meaning Hypothesis of Dalrymple et al. (1998). We propose a system in which reciprocal meanings are derived directly from semantic restrictions using the SMH, and characterize this derivation process. We present methods to construct a linguistic test for the availability of a reciprocal meanin...

Nesih meselesi, fıkıh usûlünün ihtilaflı konularından biridir. İlk dönemlerden itibaren neshin vukû bulmasının mümkün olup olmayacağı veya keyfiyeti hakkında farklı görüşler öne sürülmüş, neshe verilen lügavî, şer‘î, örfî ve ıstılâhî anlamlar çerçevesinde değerlendirmeler yapılmıştır. Bu çalışmanın amacı, yapılan bu değerlendirmelere göre usul âlimlerinin nesih kavramının hangi anlamı üzerinden...

Chalmers’s philosophical work exploits a distinctive version of two-dimensionalism, a formal modal framework from the 1960s and 1970s that one can use to define two kinds of possible worlds semantic values. Chalmers presents this as the best form of a Fregean account of content. One of the principal aims of Constructing the World is to provide its metaphysical foundations. Chalmers presents him...

Water has meaning for health, illness and wellbeing. Central themes of meaning can be identified consistently throughout history, sometimes easily discernible, while at other times more difficult to identify. These meanings have a substantial social dimension, and reflect physical and bodily interactions with water. This article considers how these aspects of water have caused specific meanings...

We have implemented an incremental lexical acquisition mechanism that learns the meanings of previously unknown words from the context in which they appear, as a part of the process of parsing and semantically interpreting sentences. Implement at ion of this algorithm brought to light a fundamental difference between learning verbs and learning nouns. Specifically, because verbs typically play ...

Recent models of language comprehension have assumed a tight coupling between the semantic representations of action words and cortical motor areas. We combined functional MRI with cytoarchitectonically defined probabilistic maps of left hemisphere primary and premotor cortices to analyse responses of functionally delineated execution- and observation-related regions during comprehension of act...

The concept of rationality differs between psychology, philosophy, economics and biology. For psychologists and philosophers, the emphasis is on the process by which decisions are made: rational beliefs are arrived at by reasoning and contrasted with beliefs arrived at by emotion, faith, authority or arbitrary choice. Economists emphasise consistency of choice, regardless of the process and the...

Drawing upon a recent review of the topic by Cross and Tolbert (2009), this paper briefly illustrates the diversity of theories concerning the nature of meanings in music and the challenges that need to be resolved to advance the field. A scheme for layered macroand micro-theories for neural, mental and behavioural systems is outlined to facilitate the development of a systematic and coherent b...

For the past 50 years, language acquisition researchers have explored the fascinating question of “the language explosion”: how children are able to rapidly acquire hundreds to thousands of new words in a brief period of time. Focusing primarily on how basic-level nouns, such as “cup”, are quickly mapped to visible objects, researchers have proposed several constraints guiding early word learni...