Search results for "Semantics"

On Referring to Gestalts

2010

This paper discusses a fresh approach to formal semantics based on mereology and Gestalt Theory. While Wiegand (2007, Spacial Cognition & Computation, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum) unfolds the technical details of this new approach, the following paper aims to discuss the philosophical motivation an implications of what I have called mereological semantics. Particular attention will be given to an ongoing debate on the nature of relations.

Notes on the Success of Speech Acts and Negotiating Commitments

1996

Technologies that support communication and models used in the development of communications need good underlying theories. One theory suggested as a base for design is speech act theory. Both communication support tools and modelling notations informed by speech act theory have been proposed. Speech act theory forms no unified, single theory, but actually houses several variants for dealing with semantics, pragmatics, and social context of communications. They all have one common feature: they assume that language is not merely a means of describing but also a means for doing things. In this paper we present an overview of speech act theories and their uses in information systems research.…

The evolution of evolvability

2005

Ever since Ruth Garrett Millikan burst on the scene with her famous 1984 book Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories [1] she has continued to make substantial contributions, in a remarkably sustained effort that significantly shaped the theoretical landscape in a number of fast-moving fields, from cognitive science to the philosophies of mind, language and biology [1–3]. One of her many achievements lies in the development of a new theoretical approach to cognitive semantics, which philosophers know under the heading of ‘teleofunctionalism’.

Default semantics. Foundations of a compositional theory of acts of communication

2009

Between Composition and Emergentness: A Cognitive Semantics Re-Reading of the Way-Construction

2016

This study re-analyzes the English way-construction by having recourse to diverse concepts and tools of Talmy’s cognitive semantics. Drawing on his theory of recombinance and its relevance for conceptualizing the construction, the article implements Talmy’s theory of event integration, categorizes the way-construction as an instantiation of the open path event frame, considers link-ups of the schematic systems of force dynamics and attention as they become instantiated in the construction, and probes into its motion-aspect patterning, grounded in a conformation of space and time and resulting in a strategy that is called de-conflation. Further, it will recruit Talmy’s types of semantic conf…

Default Semantics and the architecture of the mind

2011

In this paper, I explore the relationship between Relevance Theory and Jaszczolt's Default Semantics, framing this debate within the picture of massive modularity tempered by the idea of brain plasticity (Perkins, 2007). While Relevance Theory focuses on processing (see cognitive efforts and contextual effects interplay), Default Semantics focuses on types of sources from which addressees draw information and types of processes that interact in providing it. In particular, I argue that Relevance Theory interacts with default semantics by standardizing inferences which are ultimately compressed (to use a term by Bach, 1998) into a default semantics. I briefly discuss potential obstacles to t…

The Case of Gabriel: A Linguistic Therapy of Evaluation Perspective

2010

This article describes the treatment of Gabriel, 24, an undergraduate student suffering from performance anxiety. His main symptoms were heart palpitations, aching muscles, inability to relax, nervousness, worry, and negative anticipation about performance in various classes. The treatment applied was 13 sessions of linguistic therapy of evaluation (LTE), a variety of cognitive therapy based on the theory of general semantics. The main therapeutic techniques involved emphasizing the difference between words and “facts” (the “map” and the “territory”), general semantics debate, and the focusing on orders of abstraction. Across treatment Gabriel showed a clear shift from an intensional orient…

What Can Modularity of Mind Tell Us about the Semantics/Pragmatics Debate?

2010

In this paper I make connections between two domains of information, research on the semantics/pragmatics debate and on modularity of mind, in the hope that establishing connections and parallel structure may be fruitful in deepening knowledge of the interface between semantics and pragmatics. In particular I want to inquire if modularity of mind can help us move towards the resolution of important theoretical problems like Grice's circle, the cancellability of explicatures/implicatures, the analogy between perceptual enrichments and explicatures due to free enrichments, the routing problem for explicatures (do they strictly take input from implicatures?), and satisficing strategies in prag…

2021

Abstract Pantomime has a long tradition in clinical neuropsychology of apraxia. It has been much more used by researchers and clinicians to assess tool-use disorders than real tool use. Nevertheless, it remains incompletely understood and has given rise to controversies, such as the involvement of the left inferior parietal lobe or the nature of the underlying cognitive processes. The present article offers a comprehensive framework, with the aim of specifying the neural and cognitive bases of pantomime. To do so, we conducted a series of meta-analyses of brain-lesion, neuroimaging, and behavioral studies about pantomime and other related tasks (i.e., real tool use, imitation of meaningless…

Commentary on Jakab's “Ineffability of Qualia”

2000

Zoltan Jakab has presented an interesting conceptual analysis of the ineffability of qualia in a functionalist and classical cognitivist framework. But he does not want to commit himself to a certain metaphysical thesis on the ontology of consciousness or qualia. We believe that his strategy has yielded a number of highly relevant and interesting insights, but still suffers from some minor inconsistencies and a certain lack of phenomenological and empirical plausibility. This may be due to some background assumptions relating to the theory of mental representation employed. Jakab's starting assumption is that there is no linguistic description of a given experience such that understanding t…