A SEMANTIC CHARACTERIZATION OF NATURAL-LANGUAGE DETERMINERS
A SEMANTIC CHARACTERIZATION OF NATURAL-LANGUAGE DETERMINERS
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DOI:
10.1007/bf00630273
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发表时间:
1986-08-01
影响因子:
1.1
通讯作者:
STAVI, J
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
KEENAN, EL;STAVI, J
The principle goal of this paper is to characterize the possible deter miner denotations of English. Our major result is given by the Con servativity Theorem in section 2. It shows that the extensive and varied class of determiners (dets) we consider in section 1 all satisfy a very strong constraint on their semantic interpretation which we call Con servativity. The constraint strengthens Universal 3 of Barwise and Cooper (1981), and the theorem provides an explanation for the uni versal. In section 3 we discuss several linguistically motivated subclasses of dets. In two cases, classes distinguished by B&C are shown to extend in an enlightening way to the larger class of dets we consider. In a third case, the indefinite dets, we offer an alternative definition which we feel to be simpler and descriptively more adequate. Two new classes are defined in terms of which a second universal is posited. That generaliza tion leads to our second major result: the (In) effability Theorems, which place a certain constraint on the expressive power of English dets.