Sheila Glasbey

Distinguishing between events and times: Some evidence from the semantics of then

AbstractAn investigation into the behavior of sentence-final then suggests the need to distinguish between two uses:1.As a temporal anaphor referring back to a previously established explicit temporal referent (ETR).2.As a way of expressing relations between states/events, where no ETR is required. A means of making this distinction in Discourse Representation Theory (DRT) (Kamp and Reyle (forthcoming)) is proposed. This involves restricting the introduction of temporal referents into the universe of discourse to cases where certain types of temporal adverbials are present. In other cases, event or state referents but not temporal referents may be introduced. This contrasts with previous DRT accounts of temporal phenomena, which employ no such distinction.

Domain-transcending mappings in a system for metaphorical reasoning

We illustrate how the use of metaphorical views for reasoning with metaphor requires the mapping of information such as event shape, event rate and mental/emotional states from the source domain to the target domain. Such mappings are domain-independent and can be implemented by means of rules we call View Neutral Mapping Adjuncts (VNMAs). We give a list of the main VNMAs that appear to be required, and show how they can be incorporated into a pre-existing system (ATT-Meta) for metaphorical reasoning.

Reasoning in metaphor understanding: the ATT-Meta approach and system

A detailed approach has been developed for core aspects of the task of understanding a broad class of metaphorical utterances. The utterances in question are those that depend on known metaphorical mappings but that nevertheless contain elements not mapped by those mappings. A reasoning system has been implemented that partially instantiates the theoretical approach. The system, called ATT Meta, will be demonstrated. The paper briefly indicates how the system works, and outlines some specific aspects of the system, approach and the overall project.

Progressives, States and Backgrounding

Vlach (1981) proposed that the progressive should be seen as a stativizer — that is, an operator which converts a non-stative sentence into a stative one. His account goes some way towards explaining the discourse properties of progressive sentences, and has been adopted by a number of authors, including Moens (1987), Parsons (1990), and Kamp and Reyle (1993). Others, including Smith (1991), have argued against treating the progressive as a stativizer. I will begin by reviewing the main arguments for and against the progressive-as-stativizer (henceforth abbreviated to PAS) account. Following this, I will present new evidence concerning the distribution of at the time and at the same time in short discourse sequences which, I argue, weakens the case for the PAS account. I will present an analysis of these temporal modifiers which leads to a formal definition of the notion of discourse backgrounding.

Metaphorical reasoning with an economical set of mappings

This paper discusses the nature of the metaphorical transfer from the source domain to the target domain. More specifically, it explores the question as to how the mapping links between features of the source and the target are created. It is argued that, for many metaphors, it is incorrect to assume that all the elements of the source domain map to elements of the target domain, and that a much more economical set of mappings should be used instead.

Affect and Metaphor in an ICA: Further Developments

We describe a computational treatment of certain sorts of affect-conveying metaphorical utterances. This is part of an affect detection system used by intelligent conversational agents (ICAs) operating in an edrama system.

Metaphor and Affect Detection in an ICA

We discuss an aspect of an affect-detection system used in edrama by intelligent conversational agents, namely affective interpretation of limited sorts of metaphorical utterance. We discuss how these metaphorical utterances are recognized and how they are analysed and their affective content determined.