Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

This paper discusses three issues concerning the evolution of writing systems [8]. First, the paper critically examines Gelb’s [10] hypothesis which characterizes the development of writing systems as an evolution from primitive to advanced, with the most advanced system being alphabetic. Second, this paper discusses some possible reasons why the evolution of writing systems often deviates from the simplistic path proposed by Gelb. Finally, this paper compares three major writing systems, Maya, Egyptian, and Chinese, with a view to examining why, unlike Maya, both the Egyptian hieroglyphic and Chinese logographic writing systems developed extremely large inventories of symbols.

To study the development of graphical conventions, members of a simulated community were asked to play a series of graphical interaction games with partners drawn from the same pool. Once established, the community arrived at a set of conventional graphical referring expressions. The present paper offers a qualitative analysis of this interactive process, documenting the convergence and symbolization of participants’ initially iconic graphical productions. This global process is contrasted with the local process evident among pairs who interact in isolation. Consistent with an evolutionary perspective, I argue that the graphical conventions that evolved within the simulated community are optimized representations, developed via a dynamic, interactive process.

We argue that the intentional control of vocal organ is the most basic predisposition for vocal learning and thus for language acquisition. Anatomical substrates for intentional vocal control are the direct cortical-medullar projections that connect face motor cortecies and the nucleus retro-ambiguus. We ask how such projections may be reinforced in non-vocal learners including macaque monkeys and rodents by behavioral manipulations. We hypothesize how such connections may be prepared in humans.

This part of this volume is made up of revised and refined versions of the papers submitted to the First International Conference of Logic and Engineering of Natural Language Semantics, LELNS2004, held in Kanazawa, Japan, on May 31, 2004. LELNS2004 featured theories of Dynamic Semantics and their applications to natural language analysis and natural language engineering. Dynamic Semantics is one of the most vivid and promising areas of current research in natural language semantics.

In the progress of formal semantics of natural language, one of the main themes is formal semantics of questions and answers.

This paper considers how the interaction of quantification and dependent anaphora may be analysed in a dynamic semantics. It discusses a simple theory of the creation and accessibility of dependencies based on a dynamic semantics for distributivity and some basic assumptions on number agreement in discourse. This theory forms a partial defence of the line of semantics set out by van den Berg 1996. I argue, however, that it is essential to quantified anaphora to contextualise the labelling of antecedents.

Dynamic semantics has its roots in the research on anaphoric reference. It is well known that in general anaphoric relations are highly context sensitive and defeasible. However, most standard frameworks of dynamic semantics, such as Discourse Representation Theory (DRT) and Dynamic Predicate Logic, do not deal with problems of interpretation revision (cf. [6]). Furthermore, these frameworks are strictly incremental in the sense that any old information is more entrenched than any new information.

This paper is concerned with the interpretation of the ‘long-distance reflexive’ . I propose a new way to handle this item designed to account for intersentential binding facts. The account is couched within a version of dynamic semantics enriched with a notion of perspective. In the final part of the paper I show that this approach can be extended to account for intrasententially bound and indexical uses of .

In this case study we show how an unambiguous semantic representation can be constructed dynamically in left-to-right order while a text is written in PENG, a controlled natural language designed for knowledge representation. PENG can be used in contexts where precise texts (e.g. software specifications, axioms for formal ontologies, legal documents) need to be composed. Texts written in PENG look seemingly informal and are easy to write and to read for humans but have first-order equivalent properties that make these texts computer-processable.

This paper discusses how to establish an anaphoric link between an indefinite NP and a pronoun in intensional contexts, in particular, contexts where different belief-holders are concerned, such as Hob-Nob sentences. It is shown that anaphoric relations in Hob-Nob sentences cannot be accounted for by dynamic binding or the E-type strategy, based on the evidence from the differences in distribution between overt and null pronouns in Japanese. To account for such cases, it is claimed, following Porter [15], that pronouns in intensional contexts should be treated as demonstratives and argued that as far as “the mode of presentations” of the antecedent NP and the pronoun anaphoric to it are consistent, the anaphoric relation between them can be established.