P.J.E. Dekker

Meaning and Use of Indefinite Expressions

Sentences containing pronouns and indefinite noun phrases can be said toexpress open propositions, propositions which display gaps to be filled.This paper addresses the question what is the linguistic content ofthese expressions, what information they can be said to provide to ahearer, and in what sense the information of a speaker can be said tosupport their utterance. We present and motivate first order notions ofcontent, update and support. The three notions are each defined in acompositional fashion and brought together within a single and coherentframework.

A multi-dimensional treatment of quantification in extraordinary English

In this paper I revive two important formal approaches to the interpretation of natural language, that of Montague and that of Karttunen and Peters. Armed with insights from dynamic semantics (Heim, Krifka) the two turn out to stand up against age-old criticisms in an orthodox fashion. The plan is mainly methodological, as I only want to illustrate the technical feasibility of the revived proposals. Even so, there are illuminating and welcome empirical consequences on the subject of scope islands (as discussed by Abusch and Kratzer, among many others), as well as unintended theoretical implications in the contextualist debate (Grice, Recanati, Simons, Stanley, and many others again).

Meanwhile, within the Frege boundary

In this paper, I want to contribute to understanding and improving on Keenansintriguing equivalence result about reducible type < 2 > quantifiers (Keenan, 1992).I give an alternative proof of his result which generalizes to type < 2 > quantifiers, andI show how the reduction of a reducible type < 2 > quantifier to (the composition of) ntype < n > quantifiers can be effected.

The Cambridge Handbook of Formal Semantics

Formal semantics – the scientific study of meaning in natural language – is one of the most fundamental and longest-established areas of linguistics. This handbook offers a comprehensive yet compact guide to the field, bringing together research from a wide range of world-leading experts. Chapters include coverage of the historical context and foundation of contemporary formal semantics, a survey of the variety of formal/logical approaches to linguistic meaning, and an overview of the major areas of research within current semantic theory, broadly conceived. The handbook also explores the interfaces between semantics and neighbouring disciplines, including research in cognition and computation. This work will be essential reading for students and researchers working in linguistics, philosophy, psychology, and computer science.

1: The Semantics and Pragmatics of Questions

With this introduction we aim to give a sketch of the research area in which questions are studied from the perspective of a semanticist, a formal linguist interested in the notion of ‘meaning’. We start with explaining some general notions and insights in this area, and then zoom in on one of the most influential theories about questions, the partition theory of Groenendijk and Stokhof (section 1.1). In section 1.2 we concisely discuss some alternatives to the partition semantics, and some current issues in the debate about the meanings of questions, which will also pop up every now and then in the contributions to this volume. Then, in section 1.3, we have a thematic discussion of the contributions to this volume themselves, considering them one by one and in relation to each other. We end (section 1.4) with a sketch of some issues which, we think, still abide or have arisen from this volume as a whole.

There is something about might

In this paper we present an alternative interpretation of statements of epistemic possibility, which does not induce a consistency test on a common ground, as in (Veltman 1996), but which tests whether the possibility is supported by some update of the common ground, as in (Veltman 1984). The information space relative to which such claims are evaluated are taken to consist in the possible developements of a discourse in action. It is shown that this notion of Might not only behaves better logically and pragmatically speaking, but that it also allows for non-trivial attitude reports and questions about epistemic possibilities. These epistemic modal statements can also be understood to guide or focus the inquisitive actions of the discourse participants.

Exclusively indexical deduction

This paper presents a proof system for discourse representation theoretic reasoning and dynamic predicate logical inference. It gives a sound and complete characterization of the dynamic declaration of discourse referents and the essentially indexical means to refer back to them. The indexical outlook upon discourse reference is argued to further our understanding of some issues deemed relevant both theoretically (philo-logically) and practically (computationally).

Quantification and Modality

The fourth chapter extends the findings of the previous ones by giving an account of two types of phenomena intensively discussed in the dynamic semantics literature. They concern the representational and dynamic interpretation of generalized quantifiers and epistemic modalities. It is shown that these as well can be handled in a conservative fashion and without requiring a need to resort to another concept of meaning. In all three chapter the main idea is that of a Tarskian satisfaction semantics and that of the dynamic composition of meanings. The chapter concludes with a discussion of a variety of situation semantics, which is definitely useful, but arguably of no use for the treatment of the phenomena dealt with in any version of dynamic semantics, including the one offered in this book.