File Change Semantics and the Familiarity Theory of Definiteness

Heim, Irene

doi:10.1515/9783110852820.164

Cited by 230 publications

(140 citation statements)

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“…For example, despite its interest in how the form of referring expressions influences their interpretation in a discourse, the file-change semantics proposed in Heim (1983) is less useful to us because it takes as its input an abstract syntactic level of Logical Form (cf. May, 1985) while prominence seems to be influenced by factors represented in the surface constituent structure which forms the input in Kamp and Reyle's model.…”

Section: A Formalism For Modeling the Interpretation Of Reference Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The representation and processing of coreference in discourse

1998

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The phenomenon of coreference-where two linguistic expressions refer to the same thing-is a central topic in attempts to understand the meaning and structure of language. This is true both for disciplines that attempt to model knowledge of language and for disciplines that attempt to model language processing. Despite their often divergent goals, the disciplines of generative linguistics, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics and formal semantics have all expended considerable energy on aspects of coreference, particularly on the distinction between coreference with full referring expressions, such as names or descriptions, and with reduced referring expressions, such as pronouns. We believe that progress in these different disciplines has provided important ideas that converge in the Direct all correspondence to: Peter C. Gordon, Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3270; E-Mail: pcg@email.unc.edu; Randall Hendrick, Department of Linguistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3155; E-Mail: hendrick@email.unc.edu. 389 390GORDON AND HENDRICK domain of local coreference, that is coreference within sentences and short strings of sentences that are semantically coherent. In this paper we attempt to integrate that progress in such a way as to provide a unified account that addresses some of the central concerns of each of these disciplines. This account is based on the following principles: (1) The primary function of pronouns (and other reduced expressions) is to refer to things that have already been mentioned in a discourse and which are mentally represented in a discourse model; therefore pronouns are the natural vehicle for coreference. In contrast, the primary function of names (and of other full expressions) is to introduce entities into the discourse model; therefore coreference with repeated names requires additional mental processes. (2) The syntactic and sequential structure of language strongly influence mental representation in the discourse model which in turn influences the interpretation of referring expressions in linguistic input. (3) The discourse model is constructed incrementally with each utterance directly adding conditions that further specify the meaning embodied in the model; exceptions to this direct incremental construction occur in well-marked cases where linguistic forms indicate that a phrase or clause serves to modify the meanings that follow it rather than the meanings that precede it.The paper is organized as follows: First, we briefly review how reference and coreference are approached by different disciplines within cognitive science, with particular attention on how the work contributes to the present effort. Next, we sketch out some basics of the approach taken towards coreference in Kamp and Reyle's (1993) Discourse Representation Theory; our work employs the mechanisms developed in that approach to formal semantics. The main body of our work then shows how the three principles outlin...

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Section: A Formalism For Modeling the Interpretation Of Reference Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Jespersen (1964), in some approaches to semantics (e.g. Prince (1981) and Heim (1983)) and also in some current approaches to the comprehension of anaphora (Garrod et al, 1994). However, it is not embodied in other approaches to reference and coreference (e.g., Gemsbacher, 1989; Greene et al, 1992).…”

Section: Basic Mechanisms Of Coreferencementioning

confidence: 99%

The representation and processing of coreference in discourse

1998

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“…Models of discourse differ greatly depending on whether they originate in philosophy (e.g., Kamp, 1981;Lewis, 1979;Stalnaker, 1978), linguistics (Heim, 1983), artificial intelligence (Grosz & Sidner, 1986;Reichman, 1978;Polanyi and Scha, 1985), or psychology (Clark & Haviland, 1977; JohnsonLaird, 1983;van Dijk and Kintsch, 1983). Still, in one way or another, most of them make three assumptions.…”

Section: The Course Of Discourse "mentioning

confidence: 99%

Contributing to discourse

1989

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For people to contribute to discourse, they must do more than utter the right sentence at the right time. The basic requirement is that they odd to their common ground in on orderly way. People take part in conversation in order to plan, debate, discuss, gossip, and carry out other social processes. When they do take part, they could be said to contribute to the discourse. But how do they contribute? At first the answer seems obvious. A discourse is a sequence of utterances produced as the participants proceed turn by turn. All that participants have to do to contribute is utter the right sentence at the right time. They may make errors, but once they have corrected them, they are done. The other participants have merely to listen and understand. This is the view subscribed to in most discourse theories in psychology, linguistics, philosophy; and artificial intelligence.A closer look at actual conversations, however, suggests that they are much more than sequences of utterances produced turn by turn. They are highly coordinated activities in which the current speaker tries to make sure he or she is being attended to, heard, and understood by the other participants, and they in turn try to let the speaker know when he or she has succeeded. Contributing to a discourse, then, appears to require more than just uttering the right words at the right time. It seems to consist of collective acts performed by the participants working together.In this paper we describe a model of contributions as parts of collective acts. We first describe the need for such a model, next present the model We thank many colleagues for discussions on the issues presented here and Eve V. Clark, Florence H. Edwards, and several reviewers for suggestions on the manuscript. The research was supported in part by Grant BNS 83-20284 Quirk, 1980). The empirical claim is that the model accounts for the bulk of the successful talk in these conversations. THE COURSE OF DISCOURSE "Models of discourse differ greatly depending on whether they originate in philosophy (e.g., Kamp, 1981;Lewis, 1979;Stalnaker, 1978), linguistics (Heim, 1983), artificial intelligence (Grosz & Sidner, 1986;Reichman, 1978;Polanyi and Scha, 1985), or psychology (Clark & Haviland, 1977; JohnsonLaird, 1983;van Dijk and Kintsch, 1983). Still, in one way or another, most of them make three assumptions.(1) Common ground: The participants in a discourse presuppose a certain common ground. (2) Accumulation: In the course of a discourse, the participants try to add to their common ground.(3) Unilateral action: The principal means by which the participants add to their common ground is by the speaker uttering the right sentence at the right time. To take Kamp's proposal as an example, the content of a discourse is accumulated in a Discourse Representation Model, or DRM, which is tacitly assumed to be common ground for the participants. With each new utterance, new structures get added to the DRM. These structures are simply assumed to be what the speaker intended; there are no special...

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“…14 The theory presented in Heim (1983) is a slightly modified version of the one in the Chapter III of Heim (1982). A similar theory was suggested in Kamp (1981) for the treatment of indefinite descriptions and anaphoric pronouns.…”

Section: Chapter 5: Descriptions In Context 142mentioning

confidence: 99%

Problems of Compositionality

Szabó¹

2014

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File Change Semantics and the Familiarity Theory of Definiteness

Cited by 230 publications

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The representation and processing of coreference in discourse

The representation and processing of coreference in discourse

Contributing to discourse

Problems of Compositionality

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