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In formal semantics, the scope of a semantic operator is the semantic object to which it applies. For instance, in the sentence " Paulina doesn't drink beer but she does drink wine ," the proposition that Paulina drinks beer occurs within the scope of negation , but the proposition that Paulina drinks wine does not.
Formal semantics is the study of grammatical meaning in natural languages using formal concepts from logic, mathematics and theoretical computer science. It is an interdisciplinary field, sometimes regarded as a subfield of both linguistics and philosophy of language .
In formal linguistics, discourse representation theory (DRT) is a framework for exploring meaning under a formal semantics approach. One of the main differences between DRT-style approaches and traditional Montagovian approaches is that DRT includes a level of abstract mental representations (discourse representation structures, DRS) within its formalism, which gives it an intrinsic ability to ...
Merge is assumed to have certain formal properties constraining syntactic structure, and is implemented with specific mechanisms. In terms of a merge-base theory of language acquisition , complements and specifiers are simply notations for first-merge (read as "complement-of" [head-complement]), and later second-merge (read as "specifier-of ...
However, this approach does not make predictions for some examples with inverse scope (wide scope in object position). For example, everyone loves someone. When there is no scope interaction in the relevant portion of the sentence, making either choice shows no difference in semantics. A short time later, May suggested a different idea.
Before the 1950s, there was no discussion of a syntax–semantics interface in American linguistics, since neither syntax nor semantics was an active area of research. [17] This neglect was due in part to the influence of logical positivism and behaviorism in psychology, that viewed hypotheses about linguistic meaning as untestable.
In formal semantics and philosophy of language, a meaning postulate is a way of stipulating a relationship between the meanings of two or more words. They were introduced by Rudolf Carnap as a way of approaching the analytic/synthetic distinction. [1]
Scope (formal semantics) Semantics of logic; Sloppy identity; Specificity (linguistics) Speech act; Strawson entailment; Strict conditional; Subsective modifier; Subtrigging; Syntax–semantics interface