Search results for "Philosophy of language"
showing 10 items of 81 documents
Four Potential Meanings of Double Negation
2016
The figurative use of double negations (not uninteresting, not unhappy) has been described by linguists and rhetoricians with regards to the rhetorical figure litotes. Both mitigation and strengthening have been proposed as aims of litotes (Horn, 1989; Krifka, 2007; van der Wouden, 1996). An analysis of the construction nicht un-adjective (not un-adj.) on the basis of German corpora leads to a coherent system of pragmatic functions for this sort of double negations. The construction can function as denial, potential presumption denial, mitigation or understatement. Nevertheless, litotes exemplifies the “indeterminate nature of figurative meaning” as suggested by Colston/Gibbs (2012: 259) in…
Boris “Ich bin drin” Becker (‘Boris I am in Becker’). Syntax, semantics and pragmatics of a special naming construction
2016
Constructions such as Germ. Boris “Ich bin drin” Becker (‘Boris I am in Becker’) follow a startling pattern. A quotation (“Ich bin drin”) is inserted in between two constituents of a complex personal-name construction (Boris Becker). The quotation relates to the person bearing this name. Therefore, the whole construction cannot be understood without massive contextual knowledge, i.e. knowing when, where, and why Boris Becker said so, and how this is relevant in the interpretation of the construction. In general, N “CP” N constructions such as Boris “Ich bin drin” Becker not only differ from canonical personal-name constructions such as Boris Becker in requiring the import of background know…
Indexing epistemic incongruence: uy as a formal sign of disagreement in agreement sequences in Spanish
2018
Abstract This study explores epistemic incongruence in Spanish by focusing on the particle uy in Iberian Spanish. It is claimed that this interjection has a basic change-of-state meaning and that it is commonly used to stress disagreement. Despite its general association to disagreement, the particle can be used in agreeing responses, where it also treats the previous turn as problematic. In this sequential environment, however, it is not the content of the previous turn but rather the underlying assumptions (the basic epistemic configuration of an assertion-answer adjacency pair) that are challenged by the second speaker. The evidence for this analysis comes from the sequential context. Ty…
Animacy shifts and resolution of semantic conflicts: A typological commentary onShifting animacyby de Swart & de Hoop
2018
Desarrollo histórico y epistemológico de los conceptos elemento químico, sustancia y sustancia simple (Primera parte)
2020
<p>La epistemología de cualquier concepto científico adquiere su pleno significado teniendo en cuenta el problema que hizo posible su conceptualización en un momento histórico dado y su posterior desarrollo. El objetivo de este artículo consistirá en recordar el problema que originó la necesidad epistemológica de introducir la idea de elemento químico a lo largo de la historia y cómo se ha ido desarrollando hasta el siglo XVIII para incidir en la epistemología del concepto de sustancia (pura) y cómo fue cambiando su relación con la del elemento químico. Este manuscrito está dividido en cuatro apartados principales, el primero de ellos titulado “El mundo natural de los filósofos griego…
Representations of integers and Language theory
1984
Un alma enferma. La experiencia religiosa de Wittgenstein a la luz de Las variedades de la experiencia religiosa de William James
2016
Este artículo defiende que Wittgenstein puede ser considerado como un alma enferma a la luz de Las variedades de la experiencia religiosa de William James. Asimismo, se muestra que de la lectura de este libro Wittgen- stein extrajo un ideal religioso que explica varios aspectos de su biografía, su hostilidad a la civilización burguesa y el sentido religioso de su filosofía. This article maintains that Wittgenstein can be seen as a sick soul in the terms of William James" The Varieties of the Religious Experience. It also holds that from the reading of this book Wittgenstein adopted a religious ideal that explains some aspects of his biography, his hostility to bourgeois civilization and the…
Elements of Language Theory
1988
In this chapter we shall review the mathematical and computer science background on which the presentation in this book is based. We shall discuss the elements of discrete mathematics and formal language theory, emphasizing those issues that are of importance from the point of view of context-free parsing. We shall devote a considerable part of this chapter to matters such as random access machines and computational complexity. These will be relevant later when we derive efficient algorithms for parsing theoretic problems or prove lower bounds for the complexity of these problems. In this chapter we shall also discuss a general class of formal language descriptors called “rewriting systems”…
Models of Computation, Riemann Hypothesis, and Classical Mathematics
1998
Classical mathematics is a source of ideas used by Computer Science since the very first days. Surprisingly, there is still much to be found. Computer scientists, especially, those in Theoretical Computer Science find inspiring ideas both in old notions and results, and in the 20th century mathematics. The latest decades have brought us evidence that computer people will soon study quantum physics and modern biology just to understand what computers are doing.
The meaning of biological signals.
2020
We introduce the virtual special issue on content in signalling systems. The issue explores the uses and limits of ideas from evolutionary game theory and information theory for explaining the content of biological signals. We explain the basic idea of the Lewis-Skyrms sender-receiver framework, and we highlight three key themes of the issue: (i) the challenge of accounting for deception, misinformation and false content, (ii) the relevance of partial or total common interest to the evolution of meaningful signals, and (iii) how the sender-receiver framework relates to teleosemantics.