The distinction between telic and atelic predicates has been described in terms of the algebraic properties of their meaning since the early days of model-theoretic semantics. This perspective was inspired by Aristotle’s discussion of types of actions that do or do not take time to be completed1 which was taken up and turned into a linguistic discussion of action-denoting predicates by Vendler (1957). The algebraic notion that seemed to be most conducive to express the Aristotelian distinction appeared to be the (...) mereological notion of a part, applied to the time at which these predicates hold: atelic predicates, like push a cart, have the subinterval property, that is, whenever they are true at a time interval, then they are true at any part of that interval; this does not hold for telic predicates, like eat an apple, cf. Bennett & Partee (1972), Taylor (1977), and Dowty (1979)2. Bach (1986) integrated these insights into a semantics based on events. (shrink)

Quantified NPs in questions may lead to an interpretation in which the NP quantifies into the question. Which dish did every guest bring? can be understood as: 'For every guest x: which dish did x bring?'. After a review of previous approaches that tried to capture this quantification formally or to explain it away, it is argued that such readings involve quantification into speech acts. As the algebra of speech acts is more limited than a Boolean algebra – it only (...) contains conjunction, not disjunction or negation – it is predicted that only universal quantifiers can scope out of questions or other speech acts. The approach is extended to indirect questions, which either are embedded speech acts or coerced to denote the true answers, depending on the embedding verb; in the latter case a Boolean structure results, and we find wide-scope readings of non-universal quantifiers. (shrink)

Computational methods and perspectives can transform the history of science by enabling the pursuit of novel types of questions, dramatically expanding the scale of analysis , and offering novel forms of publication that greatly enhance access and transparency. This essay presents a brief summary of a computational research system for the history of science, discussing its implications for research, education, and publication practices and its connections to the open-access movement and similar transformations in the natural and social sciences that emphasize (...) big data. It also argues that computational approaches help to reconnect the history of science to individual scientific disciplines. (shrink)

This work attempts to show that the Scottish common sense philosophers Thomas Reid, James Oswald and James Beattie, had a substantial influence upon the development of German thought during the period of the late enlightenment. Their works were thoroughly reviewed in German philosophical journals and translated into German soon after they had appeared in English. Whether it was Mendelssohn, a rationalist, Lossius, a materialist, Feder, a sensationalist, Tetens, a critical empiricist, or Hamann and Jacobi, irrationalist philosophers of faith, important philosophers (...) read the Scots and found them relevant for the solution of their problems. The Scots were seen as not just opposing Hume's skepticism, but also as complementing his more positive tenets. The most important chapter of this work shows that even Kant, who in this regard is known only for his devastating criticism of the Scots, learned much from them. It is argued that the Scottish influence opens a new perspective for the understanding of the German enlightenment, revealing how central were the twin problems of idealism versus realism, on the one hand, and of philosophical justification versus mere descriptive metaphysics, on the other. (shrink)

Foreword The collection of research papers in this book is a selection made from those which were presented at the eighth conference of the International ...

This book represents an effort to understand very old questions about biological form, function, and the relationships between them. The essays collected here reflect the diversity of approaches in evolutionary developmental biology, including not only studies by prominent scientists whose research focuses on topics concerned with evolution and development, but also historically and conceptually oriented studies that place the scientific work within a larger framework and ask how it can be pushed further. Topics under discussion range from the use of (...) theoretical and empirical biomechanics to understand the evolution of plant form, to detailed studies of the evolution of development and the role of developmental constraints on phenotypic variation. The result is a rich and interdisciplinary volume that will begin a wider conversation about the shape of Evo Devo as it matures as a field. (shrink)

In Krifka (2001) I argued that three distinct phenomena of question semantics – alternative questions like Did it rain or not?, multiple constituent questions with pair-list readings like Who bought what? and the focus patterns of answers to constituent questions – cannot be dealt with adequately within the framework of Alternative Semantics. In Krifka (to appear) I argue that Alternative Semantics also is problematic as a framework for focus semantics in general; in particular, it makes wrong predictions in case focus (...) occurs in syntactic islands. (shrink)

One of the difficult areas for persons learning a foreign language is to grasp the range of usages of syntactic patterns that exist in the foreign language. It is not sufficient to learn how passive formation works, or how pre- or postpositional phrases are constructed, or how perfect tenses are expressed. One also has to learn which verbs can passivize at all, which verbs go with which pre- or postpositions, and, in case perfect tenses are expressed, as in a number (...) of European languages, with different auxiliaries like ‘have’ and ‘be’, which verb needs which auxiliary. For English, Levin (1993) distinguishes no less than 57 verb classes, most of them with a number of subclasses, that show distinct syntactic behavior. (shrink)

Even though it is not very often admitted, partial functions do play a significant role in many practical applications of deduction systems. Kleene has already given a semantic account of partial functions using a three-valued logic decades ago, but there has not been a satisfactory mechanization. Recent years have seen a thorough investigation of the framework of many-valued truth-functional logics. However, strong Kleene logic, where quantification is restricted and therefore not truthfunctional, does not fit the framework directly. We solve this (...) problem by applying recent methods from sorted logics. This paper presents a tableau calculus that combines the proper treatment of partial functions with the efficiency of sorted calculi. (shrink)

Beeing sofar a part of mathematics Geography was drafted by Bernard Varenius in 1650 as full-geography which contents mathematical, physical and even human geography. Whereas the «Geographia Generalis» has been published in England for several times its influence in continental Europe seems to have been marginal. Therefore Varenius cannot be considered as founder of modern geography. The relation of general and special geography is discussed und a lot of mistakes and absurdities in Varenius' work is exposed.

This talk is based on Krifka (2001). Its topic is the interpretation of quantifiers in questions. I will use English data for illustration, but the phenomena to be discussed appear to be general enough to be relevant for other languages as well, at least those languages that have nominal quantifiers.

Reconstruction effects in relative clauses are a class of phenomena where the external head of the relative clause seems to behave as if it occupied a position within the relative clause, as far as some commonly accepted principle of grammar is concerned. An often cited type of example is "The [relative of his] [which every man admires most] is his mother.", where the pronoun "his" in the relative head appears to be bound by the quantified noun phrase "every man" in (...) the relative clause - although the latter does not c-command the former, which is commonly required for binding. Several solutions have been developed in various theoretical frameworks. One interesting aspect about reconstruction effects in relative clauses is that they can be used as a benchmark for competing theories of grammar: Which architecture of the syntax-semantics interface can provide the most satisfying explanation for these phenomena? This volume brings together researchers working in different frameworks but looking at the same set of empirical facts, enabling the reader to develop their own perspective on the perfect tradeoff between syntax and semantics in a theory of grammar. (shrink)

This paper argues in defense of theanti-reductionist consensus in the philosophy ofbiology. More specifically, it takes issues with AlexRosenberg's recent challenge of this position. Weargue that the results of modern developmentalgenetics rather than eliminating the need forfunctional kinds in explanations of developmentactually reinforce their importance.

This paper investigates relative constructions as in The gifted mathematician that you claim to be should be able to solve this equation, in which the head noun is semantically dependent on an intensional operator in the relative clause, even though it is not c-commanded by it. This is the kind of situation that has led, within models of linguistic description that assume a syntactic level of Logical Form, to analyses in which the head noun is interpreted within the CP-internal gap (...) by reconstruction or interpretation of a lower element of a chain. We offer a solution that views surface representation as the input to semantics. The apparent inverted scope effects are traced back to the interpretation of the head nominal gifted mathematician as applying to individual concepts, and of the relative clause that you claim to be as including an equational statement. According to this view, the complex DP in question refers to the individual concept that exists just in the worlds that are compatible with what is generally supposed to be the case, is a gifted mathematician in those worlds, and is identical to you in those worlds. Our solution is related to the non-reconstructionist analysis of binding of pronouns that do not stand in a c-command relationship to their binder, as in The woman that every man hugged was his mother in Jacobson Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory IV:161-178, 1994) and Sharvit Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory VI:227-244, 1996), and allows us to capture both similarities with and differences from the latter type of construction. We point out and offer explanations for a number of properties of such relative clauses—in particular their need for an internal intensional operator, their incompatibility with any determiner other than the definite article, and the fact that some of their properties are shared by demonstrably distinct kinds of relative clauses. (shrink)