Barbara Partee

Linguistics and Philosophy, 1984

'donkey-pronouns'.1 Among the data to be accounted for, described more fully in Section II, are t... more 'donkey-pronouns'.1 Among the data to be accounted for, described more fully in Section II, are temporal analogs of deictic pronouns, anaphoric pronouns with definite and indefinite antecedents, 'bound-variable' pronouns, and 'donkey-sentence' pronouns. The unified treatment of all these uses of pronouns provided by the frameworks of Kamp and Heim is reviewed in Section III. In Section IV I describe and slightly modify Hinrichs' treatment of tenses, adverbs, and temporal anaphora in simple linear discourse and in sentences with when-, before-, and after-clauses. In Hinrichs' treatment, events, processes, and states are taken as primitives rather than instants or intervals of time, following Kamp (1979), (1980) (cf. also Bach (1980), (1981)); 'reference events' are added to take over the function of earlier authors' 'reference times'. Hinrichs' overall framework fits into Kamp's theory of discourse representation structures, allowing 'discourse events' to be treated similarly to 'discourse entities'. Section V summarizes the explanation provided by these accounts for the parailels between temporal and nominal anaphora in the deictic case and

format_quoteThe paper advocates a shift in formal semantics towards dynamic semantic interpretation, influenced by Reichenbach's work on temporal discourse.format_quote

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Andrei Anatolievich Zalizniak In Memoriam

Journal of Slavic Linguistics, 2018

and Alexander Wentzell for help gathering and clarifying information and improving translations, ... more and Alexander Wentzell for help gathering and clarifying information and improving translations, and Wayles Browne for invaluable help and advice at all stages. 1 Our transliteration practice: When we know that someone's long-standing personal preference for the transliteration of their name in English-language contexts is different from the JSL standard (e.g. 'Zalizniak', 'Paducheva', 'Sitchinava', 'Tolstaya' rather than 'Zaliznjak', 'Padučeva', 'Sičinava', 'Tolstaja'), we use their preferred transliteration if we are writing about them in our text, including when we are translating from Russian into English something someone else wrote about them. But in the bibliography, when transliterating citations of works in Russian, we use JSL standard in both author names and names occurring within titles of works. Exceptions: we write 'Zalizniak', 'Yanin', 'Testelets' as author names (though not within titles). For émigrés such as Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov, we use their American names, even when writing about pre-emigration times.

format_quoteZalizniak defined Russian inflection as an integral formal system, introducing six agreement classes and a novel 'fourth gender' for pluralia tantum nouns.format_quote

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Montague, Richard (1930–1971)

Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, 2006

Richard Montague, logician and philosopher, founded the theory of Montague grammar, a starting po... more Richard Montague, logician and philosopher, founded the theory of Montague grammar, a starting point for formal semantics. Montague studied at Berkeley under Tarski, and taught at UCLA from 1955 to 1971. He made major contributions to mathematical logic, then turned to the development of a theory of syntax, model–theoretic semantics, and formal pragmatics encompassing formal and natural languages. Crucial features of his theory include the truth-conditional foundations of semantics, the algebraic interpretation of the principle of compositionality, and the use of a higher-order typed intensional logic. Montague grammar became influential in linguistics by the 1970s, and evolved (with additional sources) into formal semantics.

Formal semantics and pragmatics. Discourse, context and models: Proceedings of the Symposium for Cognition, Logic and Communication

Nominal and temporal anaphora

Linguistics and Philosophy, Aug 1, 1984

'donkey-pronouns'.1 Among the data to be accounted for, described more fully in Section II, are t... more 'donkey-pronouns'.1 Among the data to be accounted for, described more fully in Section II, are temporal analogs of deictic pronouns, anaphoric pronouns with definite and indefinite antecedents, 'bound-variable' pronouns, and 'donkey-sentence' pronouns. The unified treatment of all these uses of pronouns provided by the frameworks of Kamp and Heim is reviewed in Section III. In Section IV I describe and slightly modify Hinrichs' treatment of tenses, adverbs, and temporal anaphora in simple linear discourse and in sentences with when-, before-, and after-clauses. In Hinrichs' treatment, events, processes, and states are taken as primitives rather than instants or intervals of time, following Kamp (1979), (1980) (cf. also Bach (1980), (1981)); 'reference events' are added to take over the function of earlier authors' 'reference times'. Hinrichs' overall framework fits into Kamp's theory of discourse representation structures, allowing 'discourse events' to be treated similarly to 'discourse entities'. Section V summarizes the explanation provided by these accounts for the parailels between temporal and nominal anaphora in the deictic case and

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Andrei Anatolievich Zalizniak In Memoriam

Journal of Slavic Linguistics, 2018

and Alexander Wentzell for help gathering and clarifying information and improving translations, ... more and Alexander Wentzell for help gathering and clarifying information and improving translations, and Wayles Browne for invaluable help and advice at all stages. 1 Our transliteration practice: When we know that someone's long-standing personal preference for the transliteration of their name in English-language contexts is different from the JSL standard (e.g. 'Zalizniak', 'Paducheva', 'Sitchinava', 'Tolstaya' rather than 'Zaliznjak', 'Padučeva', 'Sičinava', 'Tolstaja'), we use their preferred transliteration if we are writing about them in our text, including when we are translating from Russian into English something someone else wrote about them. But in the bibliography, when transliterating citations of works in Russian, we use JSL standard in both author names and names occurring within titles of works. Exceptions: we write 'Zalizniak', 'Yanin', 'Testelets' as author names (though not within titles). For émigrés such as Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov, we use their American names, even when writing about pre-emigration times.

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The Impossibility of Language Acquisition (And How They Do It)

Oxford University Press eBooks, Aug 20, 2020

This autobiographical article, which began as an interview, reports some reflections by Lila R. G... more This autobiographical article, which began as an interview, reports some reflections by Lila R. Gleitman on the development of her thinking and her research—in concert with a host of esteemed collaborators over the years—on issues of language and mind, focusing on how language is acquired. Gleitman entered the field of linguistics as a student of Zellig Harris and learned first-hand of Noam Chomsky’s early work. She chose the psychological perspective, later helping to found the field of cognitive science. With her husband and long-term collaborator, Henry Gleitman, for more than 50 years, she fostered a continuing research community aimed at answering fundamental questions in the theory of language and its acquisition.

Genitives, relational nouns, and the argument-modifier distinction

ZAS papers in linguistics, 2000

The argument-modifier distinction is less clear in NPs than in VPs since nouns do not typically t... more The argument-modifier distinction is less clear in NPs than in VPs since nouns do not typically take arguments. The clearest cases of arguments in NPs are found in certain kinds of nominalizations which retain some "verbal" properties (Grimshaw 1990). The status of apparent arguments of non-deverbal relational nouns like sister is more controversial. Genitive constructions like John's teacher, team of John's offer a challenging testing ground for the argument-modifier distinction in NPs, both in English and cross-linguistically. In the analyses of Partee (1983/1997) and Barker (1995), the DP in a genitive phrase (i.e. John in John's) is always an argument of some relation, but the relation does not always come from the head noun. In those split approaches, some genitives are arguments and some are modifiers. By contrast, recent proposals by Jensen and Vikner and by Borschev and Partee analyze all genitives as arguments, a conclusion we no longer support. In this paper, we explore a range of possible approaches: argument-only, modifier-only, and split approaches, and we consider the kinds of semantic evidence that imply that different approaches are correct for different genitive or possessive constructions in different languages. For English, we argue that a split approach is correct and we offer some diagnostics for distinguishing arguments from modifiers. 1. The argument-modifier distinction in NPs The argument-modifier distinction is less clear in NPs than in VPs since nouns do not typically take arguments. The clearest cases of arguments in NPs are found in some nominalizations (Grimshaw 1990). Non-deverbal relational nouns like sister, mayor, enemy, picture, edge, height in some sense also seem to take arguments. C. L. Baker (1978) proposed a test using English one anaphora whereby one substitutes for N-bar, which obligatorily includes all of a noun's arguments. By that test, to Oslo in (1a) is a modifier, while of Boston in (1b) is an argument. But neither this, nor any other known test, has seemed conclusive and the question of whether and in what sense "true nouns" take arguments remains controversial.

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The Semantics of Russian Genitive of Negation: The Nature and Role of Perspectival Structure

Semantics and Linguistic Theory, Apr 3, 2015

An affirmative AES obligatorily has a postverbal subject, while in a negative NES, where the diff... more An affirmative AES obligatorily has a postverbal subject, while in a negative NES, where the difference is marked by case, the word order can vary. A common view among Russian linguists is that NES's are impersonal, but not AES's 3 : "These sentences are impersonal only when negated. If one removes the negation, they become personal" (Peškovskij, 1938, p.334). Examples (5-8) illustrate alternating pairs and cases where either Gen or Nom is obligatory. (5) a. NDS: Stok talyx vod ne nabljudalsja. Runoff-NOM.M.SG melted water NEG was.observed-M.SG 'No runoff of thawed snow was observed.' b. NES: Stoka talyx vod ne nabljudalos'. Runoff-GEN.M.SG melted water NEG was.observed-N.SG 'No runoff of thawed snow was observed.' (= There was no runoff.) (6) a. NDS: Moroz ne čuvstvovalsja. Frost-NOM.M.SG NEG be.felt-M.SG 'The frost was not felt.' (E.g. we were dressed warmly). b. NES: Moroza ne čuvstvovalos'. Frost-GEN.M.SG NEG be.felt-N.SG 'No frost was felt (there was no frost).'

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Properties, Types, and Meaning, Volume 1

Possible Worlds in Model-Theoretic Semantics: A Linguistic Perspective

Possible Worlds in Humanities, Arts and Sciences

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2002. Genitive of negation and scope of negation in Russian existential sentences

Part of the Linguistics Commons This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Li... more Part of the Linguistics Commons This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Linguistics at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Linguistics Department Faculty Publication Series by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please

Genitives: A Case Study

Changing Notions of Linguistic Competence in the History of Formal Semantics

Oxford Scholarship Online, 2018

In the history of formal semantics, the successful joining of linguistic and philosophical work b... more In the history of formal semantics, the successful joining of linguistic and philosophical work brought with it some difficult foundational questions concerning the nature of meaning and the nature of knowledge of language in the domain of semantics: questions in part about “what’s in the head” of a competent language-user. This chapter, part of a project on the history of formal semantics, revisits the central issues of Partee (1979) in a historical context, as a clash between two traditions, Fregean and Chomskyan, a clash that accompanied early work combining Montague’s semantics with Chomskyan syntax. Recent advances in philosophy of mind (from, e.g., Stalnaker and Burge) go a long way towards changing the framework of arguments about “psychological reality” and “competence”, challenging the suppositions on which the original dichotomy rested, thus largely defusing the tension.

Properties, Types, and Meaning, Volume 1

15 Noun Phrase Interpretation and Type-shifting Principles

Subject and Object in Modern English

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Reading Passages for the Course of Semantics: Tests for Students

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014

The objective of this paper is to present and describe a teaching tool for linguistics students w... more The objective of this paper is to present and describe a teaching tool for linguistics students who are learning English, a tool which furthers their linguistic education at the same time as it gives them some challenging experience with reading practice with the kinds of tests they will encounter in the main international English language examinations, mainly, IELTS and TOEFL, and with English academic writing. The selected reading material introduces the foundations of formal semantics through a set of extracts from the works of classical semanticists of the 20th century, accompanied by a set of test-type questions for each of the reading passages. The comments after each test outline the characteristic features of test types presented. The importance of advancement in students' reading potential is highlighted as crucial for their academic life in general and for their overall performance in English.

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MGU0710.doc 1 Lecture 10: Tense, Aspect, and Events Current Topics in Formal Semantics, Lecture 10

2. Early innovations: Reichenbach’s reference times, Davidson’s events.............................. more

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On Semantic Bleaching and Compositionality: Subtraction or Addition? (On the bleaching of "lexical verbs" in Russian negated existential sentences)

Proceedings of Israel Association for Theoretical Linguistics, 2010

... This talk is related to our ongoing joint work, with valuable suggestions from more people th... more

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