Proceedings of the 13 ESSLLI Student Session - Multiple Choices ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Proceedings of the 13 th ESSLLI Student Session information, there is no way to say how it could change an information state in a way that answers a question. In the framework presented above this problem is dealt with by separating the common ground, and hence the information, from the salient possibilities. This change makes noninformative answers to questions possible: epistemic modals can eliminate possibilities without changing the information in the common ground. However, by connecting the meaning of a question to its possible answers in a context, and by identifying answers to questions with the elimination of possibilities, this approach retains much of the spirit of the partition theory of questions. 4 Further Issues and Expansions of the System In this section, I will discuss some expansions of the system defined above and consider two objections to it. First, I will discuss the objections. Though the idea that epistemic modals can answer wh-questions or other complex questions by suggesting possible answers is quite natural, some readers may find the suggestion that epistemic modals answer polar questions by suggesting possible answers a bit odd. After all, someone asking a polar question clearly has both possibilities in mind, so how can simply making one of them more salient in the context count as felicitously answering her question? Dealing with this objection involves delving into the pragmatics of epistemic modals, and more specifically the pragmatic role that salient possibilities play in a context. This topic would take a great deal of space to treat, and is beyond the scope of this paper. But to respond to the objection we note that one very plausible pragmatic principle governing the use of epistemic modals is that, in general, one should only focus attention to some possibility if one has some reason to believe that it is the case. To see this, note how infelicitous dialogue (5) sounds: (5) A: Are John and Bill coming to the party? B: They might. A: Why do you say that? B: I dont know; they just might. Thus, pragmatically, answering a polar question with an epistemic modal can commit the speaker to having some reason to believe that the possibility made salient by her answer actually obtains. This pragmatic dimension of epistemic modals makes it clear how a speaker can answer a polar question simply by making one of the possible answers rather than the other salient in the context. Another objection to this framework questions the idea that, given the informal description of salient possibilities in the introduction, it makes sense to say that epistemic modals actually eliminate salient possibilities that questions introduce. After all, if a question is answered by an epistemic modal, its possible answers that are inconsistent with the epistemic modal aren’t completely forgotten about. But in the formal system, these possibilities have the same status as many other possibilities that the interlocutors haven’t given any thought to. Thus, this objection concludes, holding that epistemic modals actually eliminate salient possibilities from a context is far too strong. 34
We take this objection seriously, and admit that the definition of salient possibilities given above is too coarse. A better definition would make salience into a scalar notion. With a scalar notion of salience, we could say that the salient possibilities eliminated by an epistemic modal acting as an answer to a question are less salient than those still in the context, but more salient than many other subsets of the common ground. A potential candidate for this scale is defined below: Scale. Let Γ = {CG, P1,,Pn, ∅} be an information state, and let P ⊆ CG. (i) P is 1-salient if P ∈ 〈Γ〉 and P - CG �∈ 〈Γ〉 (ii) P is 2-salient if P ∈ 〈Γ〉 and P - CG ∈ 〈Γ〉 (iii) P is 3-salient if P �∈ 〈Γ〉 and P - CG ∈ 〈Γ〉 (iv) P is 4-salient if P �∈ 〈Γ〉 and P - CG �∈ 〈Γ〉 Here, 1-salient propositions are most salient, and 4-salient propositions are least salient. In general, after an epistemic modal answers a question it changes its possible answers from 2-salient propositions to either 1-salient propositions or 3-salient propositions, thus making possible answers either more or less salient and not rendering any forgotten. Thus, replacing an absolute notion of salience with a scalar one solves the problem raised by the objection. In this papers semantics, epistemic modals can only focus attention on possibilities that are subsets of the common ground. This is problematic because some uses of epistemic modals make possibilities that lie outside of the common ground salient in a conversation. (6) A: There arent any deer in this part of the forest. B: (2 hours later) Look over there! Hoofprints! There might be deer after all. These modal assertions also challenge previously accepted information without directly contradicting it. To account for this use of epistemic modals, one could posit that if ⋄φ is inconsistent with the common ground of an information state, then ⋄φ acts on this information state by: (i) introducing a salient possibility corresponding to the revision of CG with φ, (ii) transforming the information states common ground into the union of this revision and the old common ground, and (iii) performing a similar operation on the other possibilities in the information state. Thus, though the papers theory itself cannot account for uses of epistemic modals like (6), augmented with a theory of belief revision it can provide an elegant analysis. I would like to thank Paul Dekker. References Proceedings of the 13 th ESSLLI Student Session Acknowledgements De Rose, K. (1991). Epistemic possibilities, Philosophical Review 100.: 581–605. Egan, A., Hawthorne, J. and Weatherson, B. (2005). Epistemic modals in context, in G. Preyer and P. Peter (eds), Contextualism in Philosophy, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 131– 170. 35
Page 1 and 2: Proceedings of the 13 th ESSLLI Stu
Page 3 and 4: Contents Preface . . . . . . . . .
Page 5 and 6: Preface Proceedings of the 13 th ES
Page 9 and 10: mechanism of the encoded function.
Page 13 and 14: The table below presents experiment
Page 17 and 18: SIMULATING SPOKEN DIALOGUE WITH A F
Page 19 and 20: 21 Speech Generation Speech generat
Page 31 and 32: We now state our update semantics f
Page 33: 3 Comparison With a Partition Seman
Page 37 and 38: BARE PREDICATION AND KINDS ∗ Bert
Page 39 and 40: The reason why the b-variants are o
Page 41 and 42: 2006)). The second is that nouns re
Page 43 and 44: 43 Non-bare predication and non-uni
Page 45 and 46: References Proceedings of the 13 th
Page 47 and 48: DIAGRAMMATIC REASONING WITH ENHANCE
Page 51 and 52: previously. Proceedings of the 13 t
Page 53 and 54: type theory of Euler diagrams based
Page 55 and 56: software (Stapleton and Delaney, 20
Page 57 and 58: FICTIONAL CONTINGENCIES Gemma Celes
Page 63 and 64: of as the individuals that these fi
Page 75 and 76: TOWARDS A NEW CHARACTERISATION OF C
Page 77 and 78: The following paper continues this
Page 81 and 82: only one increasing chain completel
Page 83 and 84: the minimal step width seems to be
Page 85 and 86:
Proceedings of the 13 th ESSLLI Stu
Page 87 and 88:
etrieved in order to check it again
Page 89 and 90:
Results The percentages of correct
Page 91 and 92:
The complexity of relative clauses
Page 93 and 94:
References Proceedings of the 13 th
Page 95 and 96:
A SALIENCE-DRIVEN APPROACH TO SPEEC
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
2. the linguistic salience or “re
Page 101 and 102:
Page 103 and 104:
where the expectations provided by
Page 105 and 106:
A LOGIC WITH A CONDITIONAL PROBABIL
Page 107 and 108:
• v : F orC × W −→ {0, 1} is
Page 109 and 110:
Page 111 and 112:
Lemma 4 M ∗ is a measurable model
Page 113 and 114:
is a tautology. Now we can equivale
Page 115 and 116:
A PROOF-THEORETIC APPROACH TO FRENC
Page 117 and 118:
Page 119 and 120:
Page 121 and 122:
Page 123 and 124:
References Abeillé, A., Godard, D.
Page 125 and 126:
INFINITE GAMES FROM AN INTUITIONIST
Page 127 and 128:
Page 129 and 130:
Page 131 and 132:
Page 133 and 134:
6 Further problems Proceedings of t
Page 135 and 136:
Page 137 and 138:
pointers to the text, containing th
Page 139 and 140:
example in a comparatively short te
Page 141 and 142:
Such an example is: Constant modifi
Page 143 and 144:
WORD SPACE MODELS OF SEMANTIC SIMIL
Page 145 and 146:
tween semantic similarity and seman
Page 147 and 148:
wu & palmer 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Page 149 and 150:
Page 151 and 152:
frequency F−score 0 100 200 300 4
Page 153 and 154:
EXAMINING THE NOTICING FUNCTION OF
Page 155 and 156:
Page 157 and 158:
effects of input flood and individu
Page 159 and 160:
Page 161 and 162:
Page 163 and 164:
Page 165 and 166:
CDIPROVER3: A TOOL FOR PROVING DERI
Page 167 and 168:
Page 169 and 170:
Example 8. Consider the TRS given i
Page 171 and 172:
Page 173 and 174:
Page 175 and 176:
THE RANK(S) OF A TOTALLY LEXICALIST
Page 177 and 178:
Page 179 and 180:
Page 181 and 182:
Page 183 and 184:
Page 185 and 186:
EXPRESSING CONJUNCTIVE AND AGGREGAT
Page 187 and 188:
Page 189 and 190:
(Rule) (Semantic Action) Qwh → In
Page 191 and 192:
(⇐) We will prove, by induction o
Page 193 and 194:
Page 195 and 196:
1 Introduction INTERROGATION IN DYN
Page 197 and 198:
Page 199 and 200:
to hold for questions to be felicit
Page 201 and 202:
5 Further research One goal for a s
Page 203 and 204:
THE SEMANTIC CHANGE OF THE FRENCH -
Page 205 and 206:
Page 207 and 208:
Page 209 and 210:
Page 211 and 212:
6 Conclusion In this paper, I inves
Page 213 and 214:
ADVERSARY IMPLICATURES ∗ Grégoir
Page 215 and 216:
Page 217 and 218:
Page 219 and 220:
2.2.1 The derivation of Q-Implicatu
Page 221 and 222:
of the first, the relation of Contr
Page 223 and 224:
List of authors Martin Avanzini Mar
show all

Proceedings of the 13 ESSLLI Student Session - Multiple Choices ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?