Search results for "Semantic"
showing 10 items of 941 documents
Pragmatic markers in contrast: The case of well
2008
Well is the most frequently analysed discourse marker. However, its meaning still remains elusive. The question explored in this paper is to what extent a contrastive analysis of a pragmatic marker can help identify its meaning and functions. The answer to this question is supported by an analysis of the occurrences of well in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral and their functional equivalents in the Catalan and Spanish dubbed versions. The analysis provides evidence that pragmatic markers such as well exhibit differences in meaning when compared with logical markers such as but. Their meaning is fully pragmatic since it does not refer properly to a propositional content but to structural…
MODULAR KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION IN ADVISOR AGENTS FOR SITUATION AWARENESS
2011
A modular knowledge representation framework for conversational agents is presented. The approach has been realized to suit the situation awareness paradigm. The modularity of the framework makes possible the composition of specific modules that deal with particular features, simplifying both the chatbot design process and its smartness. As a proof of concepts we have developed a modular, situation awareness oriented, KB for a conversational agent, which plays the role of an advisor aimed at helping a user to be in charge of a virtual town, inspired to the SimCity series game. The agent makes an extensive use of semantic computing techniques and is able to perceive, comprehend and project c…
Identical constituent compounds in German
2014
The status of identical constituent compounds (ICCs) (e.g. Künstler-Künstler, ‘artist-artist’) is discussed controversially in the morphological literature on German. In this paper, it is claimed that ICC formation is a productive word formation pattern in German. In the first part of the paper, I investigate the formal, semantic and pragmatic properties of ICCs in German. Based on this description, I discuss in more detail two conflicting claims about their meaning constitution: the ‘prototype reading claim’ and the ‘context-dependency claim’. I argue that ICCs do not behave differently, in principle, from canonical N+N compounds with respect to context-dependency. Based on a discussion o…
Subjective definitions of spirituality and religion. An explorative study in Germany and the USA
2015
This paper shows how corpus methods can be usefully employed in the field of psychology of religion in triangulation with other empirical instruments. Current international surveys mirror an on-going transformation in subjective meanings in religious discourse cumulating in the question: what do people actually mean when they describe themselves as spiritual, religious or neither? The paper presents results of a cross-cultural study with 1,886 participants in the US and Germany. The thematic goal is to explore subjective understandings by examining personal definitions ofreligionandspirituality. Methodologically, the study shows how the key word procedure can be used to compare the semantic…
Reconciling time, space and function: a new dorsal-ventral stream model of sentence comprehension.
2013
We present a new dorsal–ventral stream framework for language comprehension which unifies basic neurobiological assumptions (Rauschecker & Scott, 2009) with a cross-linguistic neurocognitive sentence comprehension model (eADM; Bornkessel & Schlesewsky, 2006). The dissociation between (time-dependent)syntactic structure-building and (time-independent) sentence interpretation assumed within thee ADM provides a basis for the division of labour between the dorsal and ventral streams in comprehension.We posit that the ventral stream performs time-independent unifications of conceptual schemata,serving to create auditory objects of increasing complexity. The dorsal stream engages in the time-depe…
Tautology as presumptive meaning
2008
Ever since the seminal work of Paul Grice, tautologies such as Business is business have been discussed from a number of angles. While most approaches assume that tautological utterances have to do with the operation of conversational maxims, an integrated analysis is still lacking. This paper makes an attempt at analysing tautologies within the framework of Levinson (2000), who proposes a distinction between three pragmatic levels, namely Indexical Pragmatics, Gricean Pragmatics 1, and Gricean Pragmatics 2. It is shown that observations of Ward and Hirschberg (1991) on the exclusion of alternatives, the claim of Autenrieth (1997) that the second NP in nominal equatives is predicative, and …
The Linguistics of Lying
2018
This review deals with the communicative act of lying from a linguistic point of view, linguistics comprising both grammar and pragmatics. Integrating findings from the philosophy of language and from psychology, I show that the potential for lying is rooted in the language system. The tasks of providing an adequate definition of lying and of distinguishing lying from other concepts of deception (such as bald-faced lying and bullshitting) can be solved when interfaces between grammar and pragmatics are taken into account and when experimental results are used to narrow down theoretical approaches. Assuming a broadly neo-Gricean background, this review focuses on four theoretical topics: the…
Discourse Markers of French: Multifaceted Look at a Controversial Category
2021
In this paper, we discuss the question of discourse markers (DM) – a category conceived differently by theoretical and applied linguistic approaches. Unlike in applied approaches, in which DMs are considered desemantized/grammaticalized lexical units devoid of their own semantics and therefore of status in the language, we consider DMs to constitute a full-fledged category of language, having its own semantics and distribution, both of which play a crucial role in the construction of discourse (Paillard 2011, 2012; Franckel 2008, 2019). This hypothesis has been developed in theoretical linguistics and has seen little evidence from a perspective of the acquisition and didactics of foreign la…
From pragmatics to semantics:Esto esin formulaic expressions
2006
Abstract This paper explores the transition of the Spanish marker esto es (English that is) from a free construction into a reformulative marker, as well as the pragmatic variables involved in this shift. Based on the occurrences of esto es between the 13th and the 15th centuries in the CORDE corpus, the study shows that, in order to account for this change, external factors have to be considered, especially the discourse traditions associated with the texts in which this marker appears. If this hypothesis is correct, then the problem of the pragmatics-semantics interface will have to include a new front, where non-linguistic factors trigger changes in language structure.
ALL OR NOTHING: A SEMANTIC ANALYSIS OF HYPERBOLE
2009
This paper focuses on hyperbole, a long neglected form of non-literal language despite its pervasiveness<br />in everyday speech. It addresses the production process of exaggeration, since a crucial limitation in<br />figurative language theories is the production and usage of figures of speech, probably due to the intensive<br />research effort on their comprehension. The aim is to analyse hyperbole from a semantic perspective in order<br />to devise a semasiological taxonomy which enables us to understand the nature and uses of the trope. In<br />order to analyse and classify hyperbolic items a corpus of naturally occurring conversations extracted from<br …