.................................................................................................... ..................... 2 2 LF-Binding and Feature Deletion......................................................................................... 3..

After cataloguing various ‘improper’ sense of only, those which are taken with restricted scope (‘no more than [within a fixed domain]’) as opposed to the purely exclusive ‘proper’ sense, Ockham (1980:137) remarks that These are the senses, then, in which the exclusive expression can be taken improperly. And perhaps there are still other senses in which it can be taken improperly. But since they are not as widely used as the ones we have dealt with, I will leave them to (...) the specialists. Larry Horn: “A glorious picture indeed: monasteries crammed to the spires with specialists on only, laboring away on the fine points of the semantics of exclusive propositions. Those were the days!” (Horn 1996: 26-27). (shrink)

This paper is mainly concerned with tense in embedded constructions. I believe that recent research – notably the work by Ogihara (1989) and Abusch (1993) – has contributed much to our better understanding of its semantics. The proposals made by the two authors are, however, still too simplistic in some regards. Among other things, they neglect the interplay of tense with temporal adverbs of quantification and with frame-setters. To get this composition right is a touchstone for every theory of tense (...) and tense semanticists have been concerned with this problem from the beginning on, as witnessed by the analyses in Kratzer (1978), Bäuerle (1979), Dowty (1979/1982), to mention a few. (shrink)

Report on Lucerne Conference, 20-21 January 2001.

Summary Verbs of creation (create, make, paint) are not transparent. The object created does not exist during the event time but only thereafter. We may call this type of opacity temporal opacity. I is to be distinguished from modal opacity, which is found in verbs like owe or seek. (Dowty, 1979) offers two analyses of creation verbs. One analysis predicts that no object of the sort created exists before the time of the creation. The other analysis says that the object (...) exists throughout the act of creation. I investigate three theories: Theory I says that no object of the sort created and which is caused by the very act of creation exists before the creation. In this theory, verbs of creation must embed a property. Theory II can regard the indefinite object of a creation verb as a quantifier and gives it wide scope with respect to the verb. The theory has to make sure that the objects quantified over exist only after the event. While Theory I and II start from the assumption that the extension of all nouns depend on time, Theory III says that Individual Level predicates do not depend on time. This ontology will enable us to treat verbs of creation as first order relations. The theory will entail that a picture does not mean the same as there is a picture. The paper discusses various approaches to the problem: Krifka, Parsons, Landman, Kratzer and Zucchi. (shrink)

Our discussion is couched within a compositional implementation of the analysis of the Perfect developed by Iatridou et.al. (a version of Extended Now of McCoard 78, Dowty 72, 79). The basics.

A primary goal of research in the semantics/pragmatics interface is to investigate the division of labor between the truth-conditional component of the meaning of an expression and other factors of a more pragmatic nature. One favorite strategy, associated foremost with Grice (1967, 1989), is to keep to a rather austere semantics and to derive the overall meaning of an utterance by predictable additional inferences, called ``implicatures,'' which are seen as based on certain principles of rational and purposeful interaction. In this (...) chapter, I will explore a di¨erent way in which the truth-conditional component is complemented in context. Imagine that we have persuasive evidence that an expression a in context c expresses a proposition p. The straightforward way of capturing this in a semantic system is to attribute to a a context-dependent meaning that maps c to p in a systematic and adequate way. (shrink)

An Introduction to the Logic of the Computing Sciences provides an introduction to symbolic logic by creating connections with the diverse fields of philosophy, mathematics, computing sciences, law, business, popular culture, and ethics, so that students from varied backgrounds can grasp the ideas of logic. The author relates symbolic logic to computer science by introducing each logical principle by a truth table, flow chart, and algorithm. He emphasizes the connections between logic and the different subjects through over two hundred word (...) problems that relate to the different areas. Following a strategic plan that avoids intimidating students, the author introduces each new principle one at a time with a set of twenty exercises that require the use of that principle. He introduces the next principle with exercises that require the use of the new principle and the principles previously studied, gradually building on the knowledge of the student until he or she has a thorough understanding of symbolic logic. (shrink)

(i) Inferences from the (assumed) truth of the asserted sentence. Hearers may have conditional beliefs (if p, q) and upon hearing p asserted they can infer q by Modus Ponens (with suitable caveats about the reliability of their initial conditional belief and the new information that p).

Betr. u.a. Erasmus und die Reformation in Basel.

Lithopanspermia is a theory proposing a natural exchange of organisms between solar system bodies as a result of asteroidal or cometary impactors. Research has examined not only the physics of the stages themselves but also the survival probabilities for life in each stage. However, although life is the primary factor of interest in lithopanspermia, this life is mainly treated as a passive cargo. Life, however, does not merely passively receive an onslaught of stress from surroundings; instead, it reacts. Thus, planetary (...) ejection, interplanetary transport, and planetary entry are only the first three factors in the equation. The other factors are the quality, quantity, and evolutionary strategy of the transported organisms. Thus, a reduction in organism quantity in stage 1 might increase organism quality towards a second stress challenge in stage 3. Thus, robustness towards a stressor might in fact be higher in the bacterial population surviving after transport in stage 3 than at the beginning in stage 1. Therefore, the stages of lithopanspermia can themselves facilitate evolutionary processes that enhance the ability of the collected organisms to survive stresses such as pressure and heat shock. Thus, the multiple abiotic pressures that the population encounters through the three stages can potentially lead to very robust bacteria with survival capacities considerably higher than might otherwise be expected. This analysis details an outcome that is possible but probably rare. However, in addition to lithopanspermia, spacecraft mediated panspermia may also exist. The analogous stages in a spacecraft would result in a greater likelihood of increasing the stress tolerance of hitchhiking organisms. Furthermore, missions seeking life elsewhere will frequently be sent to places where the possibility of life as we know it is assumed to exist. Thus, we not only can transport terrestrial organisms to places where they are potentially more likely to survive but also may increase their invasive potential along the way. This analysis highlights further requirements that planetary protection protocols must implement and also provides a framework for analyses of ecological scenarios regarding the transmission of life, natural or artificial, between worlds in a solar system. (shrink)

Literary controversies are instructive both in themselves and by illuminating the historical contexts that surrounded them. The Zurich dispute between Johann J. Bottmer, Johann J. Breitinger, and J...

v. 1. Truth of the world -- v. 2 Truth of God -- v. 3. The spirit of truth.

* This work has been evolving for a while now. Some parts trace back to the few pages on the context-dependency of quantifiers in my dissertation. Reading Recanati’s paper on domains of discourse made me rethink some of my earlier conclusions without in the end actually changing them much. Other parts formed the material for several discussions in my seminar on context-dependency at MIT in the fall of 1995, which included several sessions exploring the issues raised in an early version (...) of Kratzer. Connecting the choice function approach to indefinites with a general analysis of contextual domain restriction was an idea that I considered then without however working out any details. Conversations with Lisa Matthewson and studying her paper inspired me to tackle the problem again. Connections to questions about the context-dependency of conditional sentences also tickled my fancy, since I have been working on conditionals for a while now. Having the opportunity to present this material at the Vilem Mathesius Series provided the impetus to flesh out some of my vague thoughts. Major influences come from the work done in recent years at MIT by Lisa Matthewson, Philippe Schlenker, Julie Legate, and Uli Sauerland. I thank Irene Heim, Lisa Matthewson, Orin Percus, Philippe Schlenker, and Jason Stanley for illuminating discussions about this material. At this point, I see this talk as a report on the state of the art, exploring an intriguing possible connection, but I do not claim substantial intellectual property rights. Mistakes are certainly mine, achievements are probably not. (shrink)

Every member of the club was convinced that if a (particular) friend of his from Texas had died in the fire, he would have inherited a fortune.

Excerpt from Der Spiritismus Man erkennt schon aus diesen vorausgeschickten Bemerkungen, dass man es bei dem Erscheinungsgebiet, auf welches der Spiritismus sich stutzt, mit wesentlich anderen Versuchsbedingungen zu thun hat, als bei Ex perimenten mit unorganischen Stoffen oder organischen Korpern. Nur ein kleiner Theil der mediumistischen Erscheinungen ist seiner Wirkung nach rein physikalisch; aber selbst dieser Theil ist seiner Entstehung nach an psychische Bedingungen, an Stimmung, Zuversicht, un gestorte Behaglichkeit des Mediums geknupft. Nun ist es ab er ganz ungerechtfertigt, wenn (...) Naturforscher die Unter suchung dieser Erscheinungen deshalb ablehnen, weil die selben an Bedingungen geknupft sind, deren Herstellung nicht zu jeder Zeit in der Macht des Forschers liegt. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Examines issues in legal and democratic theory found in the work of Jürgen Habermas.

An Epic of Technical Supremacy: Works and Words of Medieval Chinese Textile Technology. By Dieter Kuhn. Riggisberg (Switzerland): Abegg-Stiftung, 2022. Pp. 488. CHF 120.

Pop weiter denken versammelt Aufsätze, die sich diesem Motto auf zwei Weisen nähern: Zum einen wollen sie populäre Musik weiter denken, den Begriff also öffnen und einen stilistisch breiteren und historisch umfassenderen Zugang abbilden. Zum anderen will der Band Ansätze der Popforschung weiterdenken, also wieder aufgreifen und fortspinnen, die einst selbstverständliche Bestandteile des Denkens über Musik waren, in den letzten Jahren aber aus unserem Blickfeld geraten sind: die aktuelle Jazzforschung und die Musikphilosophie. In diesem Kontext werden auch musiktheoretische Zugänge zu (...) populärer Musik weiter gedacht, die in den USA seit vielen Jahren selbstverständlich und fruchtbar, hierzulande indes kaum gebräuchlich sind. (shrink)