Abstract
The accessibility constraints imposed on anaphora by dynamic theories of discourse are too strong because they rule out many perfectly felicitous cases. Several attempts have been made by previous authors to rectify this situation using various tactics. This paper proposes a more viable approach that involves replacing Heim’s notion of familiarity with a generalized variant due to Roberts. This approach is formalized in hyperintensional dynamic semantics, and a fragment is laid out that successfully deals with some problematic examples.
Thanks to Carl Pollard for comments on an earlier draft, and to Craige Roberts for discussion of the relevant data. Of course, any errors are my own.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Beaver, D.I.: Presupposition and Assertion in Dynamic Semantics. CSLI Publications (2001)
Chierchia, G.: Anaphora and dynamic binding. Linguistics and Philosophy 15, 111–183 (1992)
Chierchia, G.: The Dynamics of Meaning: Anaphora, Presupposition, and the Theory of Grammar. University of Chicago Press (1995)
Church, A.: A formulation of the simple theory of types. Journal of Symbolic Logic 5, 56–68 (1940)
Cooper, R.: The interpretation of pronouns. Syntax and Semantics 10, 61–92 (1979)
Evans, G.: Pronouns, quantifiers and relative clauses. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7, 467–536 (1977)
Geurts, B.: Presuppositions and Pronouns. Current Research in the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface, vol. 3. Elsevier (1999)
Groenendijk, J., Stokhof, M.: Dynamic Montague grammar. In: Stokhof, M., Groenendijk, J., Beaver, D. (eds.) DYANA Report R2.2.A: Quantification and Anaphora I. Centre for Cognitive Science, University of Edinburgh (1991)
de Groote, P.: Towards a Montagovian account of dynamics. In: Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory, vol. 16 (2006)
de Groote, P.: Typing binding and anaphora: Dynamic contexts as λμ-terms. Presented at the ESSLLI Workshop on Symmetric Calculi and Ludics for Semantic Interpretation (2008)
de Groote, P., Lebedeva, E.: Presupposition accommodation as exception handling. In: Proceedings of SIGDIAL 2010: the 11th Annual Meeting of the Special Interest Group on Discourse and Dialogue (2010)
Heim, I.: The Semantics of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases. Ph.D. thesis. University of Massachusetts, Amherst (1982)
Heim, I.: File change semantics and the familiarity theory of definiteness. In: Meaning, Use and the Interpretation of Language. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin (1983)
Henkin, L.: Completeness in the theory of types. Journal of Symbolic Logic 15, 81–91 (1950)
Kamp, H.: A theory of truth and semantic representation. In: Groenendijk, J., Janssen, T., Stokhof, M. (eds.) Formal Methods in the Study of Language. Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam (1981)
Kamp, H., Reyle, U.: From Discourse to Logic. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht (1993)
Kanazawa, M.: Weak vs. strong readings of donkey sentences and monotonicity inference in a dynamic setting. Linguistics and Philosophy 17(2), 109–158 (1994)
Lambek, J., Scott, P.: Introduction to Higher-Order Categorical Logic. Cambridge University Press (1986)
Lewis, D.: Scorekeeping in a language game. Journal of Philosophical Logic 8, 339–359 (1979)
Martin, S., Pollard, C.: Hyperintensional dynamic semantics: Analyzing definiteness with enriched contexts. In: Proceedings of The 15th Conference on Formal Grammar. Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (in press) (to appear)
Martin, S., Pollard, C.: A higher-order theory of presupposition. Studia Logica Special Issue on Logic and Natural Language (to appear)
Montague, R.: The proper treatment of quantification in ordinary English. In: Hintikka, K., Moravcsik, J., Suppes, P. (eds.) Approaches to Natural Language, D. Reidel, Dordrecht (1973)
Muskens, R.: Categorial grammar and discourse representation theory. In: Proceedings of COLING (1994)
Muskens, R.: Combining Montague semantics and discourse representation theory. Linguistics and Philosophy 19, 143–186 (1996)
Pollard, C.: Hyperintensional Questions. In: Hodges, W., de Queiroz, R. (eds.) WoLLIC 2008. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 5110, pp. 272–285. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)
Pollard, C.: Hyperintensions. Journal of Logic and Computation 18(2), 257–282 (2008)
Roberts, C.: Modal subordination and pronominal anaphora in discourse. Linguistics and Philosophy 12, 683–721 (1989)
Roberts, C.: Uniqueness in definite noun phrases. Linguistics and Philosophy 26(3), 287–350 (2003)
Roberts, C.: Pronouns as definites. In: Reimer, M., Bezuidenhout, A. (eds.) Descriptions and Beyond. Oxford University Press (2004)
Rooth, M.: Noun phrase interpretation in Montague grammar, file change semantics, and situation semantics. In: Gärdenfors, P. (ed.) Generalized Quantifiers. Reidel, Dordrecht (1987)
van der Sandt, R.A.: Presupposition projection as anaphora resolution. Journal of Semantics 9, 333–377 (1992)
Stalnaker, R.: Assertion. Syntax and Semantics 9: Pragmatics, 315–332 (1978)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Martin, S. (2012). Weak Familiarity and Anaphoric Accessibility in Dynamic Semantics. In: de Groote, P., Nederhof, MJ. (eds) Formal Grammar. FG FG 2010 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7395. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32024-8_19
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32024-8_19
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-32023-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-32024-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)