Anaphora and Definite Descriptions: Two Applications of Game-Theoretical Semantics

ISBN-13: 9789027720566 / Angielski / Miękka / 1985 / 250 str.

Jaako Hintikka; Jack Kulas; Jaakko Hintikka

Opis

I n order to appreciate properly what we are doing in this book it is necessary to realize that our approach to linguistic theorizing differs from the prevailing views. Our approach can be described by indicating what distinguishes it from the methodological ideas current in theoretical linguistics, which I consider seriously misguided. Linguists typically construe their task in these days as that of making exceptionless generalizations from particular examples. This explanatory strategy is wrong in several different ways. It presupposes that we can have "intuitions" about particular examples, usually examples invented by the linguist himself or herself, reliable and sharp enough to serve as a basis of sharp generalizations. It also presupposes that we cannot have equally reliable direct access to general linguistic regularities. Both assumptions appear to me extremely dubious, and the first of them has in effect been challenged by linguists like Dwight Bol inger. There is also some evidence that the degree of unanimity among linguists is fairly low when it comes to less clear cases, even in connection with such relatively simple questions as grammaticality (acceptability). For this reason we have tried to rely more on quotations from contemporary fiction, newspapers and magazines than on linguists' and philosophers' ad hoc examples. I also find it strange that some of the same linguists as believe that we all possess innate ideas about general characteristics of humanly possible grammars assume that we can have access to them only via their particular consequences.

Recenzje

`Unlike previous work, (Hintikka and Kulas') theory offers a unified account of intrasentential and discourse anaphora, including deictic uses of anaphoric elements. Further, it deals with the well-studied syntactic constraints on anaphora while at the same time providing a precise truth-conditional semantics. In terms of comprehensiveness and theoretical elegance, this work sets a new standard for the study of anaphora.'
Tom Wasow, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University

Spis treści

I: Introduction to Game-Theoretical Semantics.- 1. General.- 2. Formal first-order languages.- 3. Equivalence with Tarski-type truth-definitions.- 4. Translation to higher-order languages.- 5. Partially ordered quantifiers.- 6. Subgames and functional interpretations.- 7. Extension to natural languages.- 8. Similarities and differences between formal and natural languages.- 9. Competing ordering principles.- 10. Atomic sentences.- 11. Further rules for natural languages.- 12. Explanatory strategies.- Notes to Part I.- II: Definite Descriptions.- 1. Russell on definite descriptions.- 2. Prima facie difficulties with Russell’s theory.- 3. Can we localize Russell’s theory?.- 4. Game-theoretical solution to the localization problem.- 5. Anaphoric “the” in formal languages.- 6. Applications.- 7. Epithetic and counterepithetic the-phrases.- 8. Vagaries of the alleged head-anaphor relation.- 9. The anaphoric use of definite descriptions as a semantical phenomenon.- 10. The quantifier-exclusion phenomenon in natural languages.- 11. Inductive choice sets.- 12. Other uses of “the”.- 13. The Russellian use.- 14. The generic use motivated.- 15. Conclusions from the “pragmatic deduction”.- Notes to Part II.- III: Towards a Semantical Theory of Pronominal Anaphora.- I: Different Approaches to Anaphora.- 1. Approaches to anaphora in terms of the head relation.- 2. Recent Approaches to anaphora in terms of coreference assignments.- 3. Discourse anaphora. Anaphora vs. deixis?.- II: A Game-Theoretical Approach to Anaphora.- 4. Anaphoric the-phrases as a paradigm case.- 5. Came rules for anaphoric pronouns.- 6. What is the logic of anaphoric pronouns?.- 7. Different kinds of pronouns.- 8. Consequences of the rules.- 9. Subgames and discourse anaphora.- 10. The nature of anaphoric pronouns and the concepts of sentence and scope.- III: The Exclusion Principle.- 11. Partially exclusive interpretation needed.- 12. Peculiarities of pronouns.- 13. The Exclusion Principle and reflexive pronouns.- 14. The Exclusion Principle is semantical in nature.- IV: General Theoretical Issues.- 15. Anaphoric pronouns and quantifier phrases.- 16. Pragmatic factors.- 17. Semantics and strategy selection.- 18. Irrelevance of the head-anaphor relation, and the semantical character of pronominal anaphora.- 19. Shortcomings of the notion of coreference.- V: GTS expalains Coreference Restrictions.- 20. Game rules and their order as explanation of coreferentiality restraints.- 21. Ordering principles and the Langacker-Ross restriction.- 22. The timing of rule applications.- 23. Rules for prepositional phrases.- 24. Don’t try to anticipate the course of a semantical game.- 25. Surface vs. deep structure.- 26. Other intervening rules.- 27. Coreferentiality and special ordering principles.- 28. Different explananda.- VI: Comparisons with Other Treatments.- 29. Comparisons: general perspectives.- 30. Comparisons: Chomsky.- 31. Comparisons: Reinhart.- 32. The Exclusion Principle is clausebound.- 33. The Exclusion Principle and different methods of identification.- 34. Apparent exceptions: pronouns of laziness.- 35. Apparent exceptions: syntactical control or not?.- Notes to Part III.- Name Index.

O autorze

Jaakko Hintikka is the author or co-author of thirty volumes and of some 300 scholarly articles in mathematical and philosophical logic, epistemology, language theory, philosophy of science, history of ideas and history of philosophy, including Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Peirce, The Bloomsbury Group, Husserl and Wittgenstein. He has also been active in international scholarly organizations, most recently as the First Vice-President of FISP, Vice-President of IIP and Co-Chair of the American Organizing Committee of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy. He has been Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal Synthese and the Managing Editor of Synthese Library since 1965.