This thesis proposes new analyses of English missing object constructions (mocs) (e.g. the tough construction, purpose infinitives, etc.) and parasitic gap formation. These analyses are formulated in the framework of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (hpsg). hpsg divides unbounded dependency constructions (udcs) into two classes depending on whether the filler is in argument or non-argument position. mocs have argument fillers and are classified as weak udcs. The evidence that motivates the weak udc analysis is re-evaluated and it is claimed that, in fact, mocs are not udcs. It is proposed that a lexical rule promotes missing objects from the comps to the subj list in much the same way as passive promotes objects. In contrast to passive, the original subject is not demoted and missing object vps have two elements in subj, both available to be controlled. Raising and Equi signs are modified to permit them to inherit second subj members from their complements: in this way the appare...

Krifka and others have recently developed modal accounts of the GEN operator that allows multiple readings of a generic sentence to be represented. These modal accounts do not satisfactorily deal with the observation that the truth of a generic sentence may be relative to a particular context. This problem is addressed using a model of generics based on Barwise and Seligman's Channel Theory, a recently-developed mathematical model of information-flow that accounts for context and exceptions. The Channel Theoretic model possesses several important properties, which allow an analysis of some traditionally problematic issues in the semantics of generics. 1 Introduction We begin with a brief discussion of the existence of multiple readings for some generic sentences, showing how Krifka (1995) represents the semantics of such sentences, using the quantificational account of generics developed by Wilkinson (1986, 1991), Kratzer (1995) and Diesing (1988) and a modal account of the semanti...

. The effects of discourse on disambiguating (sub)expressions and the problem of computing those effects are treated formally by imposing a labeling structure over discourse representation structures, leading to barebones forms of Segmented and Underspecified Discourse Representation Theory. 1. INTRODUCTION ?From a formal semantic perspective, interpreting natural language utterances can be broken down into two tasks: (I) Constructing logical forms or semantic representations of the utterances and (II) Manipulating well-formed semantic representations. Assuming semantic representations are drawn from a formal language, the problem (I) of formalization must be addressed before reasoning (II) within a formal system can commence. In Discourse Representation Theory (DRT, Kamp and Reyle 1993), the point is simply that a Discourse Representation Structure (DRS) must be associated with a natural language statement before one can speak of model-theoretic interpretations that lie behin...

To address complications involving ambiguity, presupposition and implicature, three processes underlying natural language interpretation are isolated: translation, entailment and attunement. A meta-language integrating these processes is outlined, elaborating on a proof-theoretic approach to presupposition. 1.

This paper discusses some issues in various approaches to Discourse Representation Theory. This is not intended to be detailed descriptions of various systems but general comparisons between both implementations of DRT and descriptions of DRT in some other context (e.g. a situation theoretic framework). The intention is to show how close (or how different) these approaches are and which aspects have been considered important by their developers. The view point is taken from a computational rather than a linguistic slant but these issues are not unrelated. 1 Background This paper discusses a number of approaches to Discourse Representation Theory, both in implementation and/or in description. DRT was originally described in [Kamp 81] but has been developed in many directions. Although the original work was concerned with tense, DRT to many people has been inextricably linked with "donkey sentences", for which it gives good treatment. In this paper we will look at the following treatmen...

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of talk given at Dagstuhl Workshop on Semantic Formalisms DRAFT -- March 6,1993 Abstract One of the problems with contemporary semantic theories of natural language, such as Situation Semantics, Discourse Representation Theory and Dynamic Semantics, is that although they address similar semantic phenomena their widely differing syntax and semantics make it difficult to compare their treatments of similar natural language semantic phenomena. It would be useful to describe these different semantic theories in a common framework so they could be more easily compared, and in the long run allow cross-pollination of their various treatments. In this extended abstract I will give a brief overview of a language called astl. Astl is based on fundamental aspects of situation theory. It is designed to be used as a meta-language for describing aspects of natural language semantic theories, offering a common framework for the description of semantic theories. Because astl has an implementation, de...

this paper appeared in the proceedings of that conference (Glasbey 1996), and in (Glasbey 1994a). The research is supported by an EPSRC postdoctoral fellowship. 1 Introduction Considerable effort has been expended over the last twenty-five years or so in attempting to capture the exact meaning of the English progressive. We will argue below that, while a great deal of progress has been made, no-one has yet produced an adequate account. In this paper we will present an analysis which, we argue, remedies some of the deficiencies. We will review some of the problems associated with pinning down exact truth conditions for progressive constructions. In particular, we will examine two recent accounts of the semantics of the progressive, those of Landman (1992) and Asher (1992). We argue that while neither account is completely satisfactory, both contain important insights which can be combined and made more precise in the treatment we develop based on Barwise and Seligman's Channel Theory (Barwise and Seligman 1994), a recent theory of information flow and reasoning with incomplete information. Our account is inspired in part by Hinrichs (1983), who gave an analysis of the progressive in terms of situation theoretic constraints (a precursor to some of the notions of channel theory), and Cooper (1985), who made further suggestions along these lines. We will argue that the notions of natural regularity and channel embodied in channel theory provide exactly what is needed to give an account of the progressive which is precisely expressed and explains the data. In particular, we will show how natural regularities, while related to "defaults" as used, for example, by Asher, are different in some significant respects which allow us to account for some examples that are problemati...

We argue that context plays an important role in the interpretation of generic sentences. The examples we use to demonstrate this have also been used to argue that normative approaches (upon which logics of normality are based) to generics have some fundamental problems related to scope. We use Barwise and Seligman's channel theory---a model of information-flow based on ideas from situation theory---as the basis for an analysis of generics that provides a context for each generic sentence and thereby avoids the problems raised. The channel-theoretic analysis provides the basis for a framework for reasoning both with generics (about the default properties of individuals) and about them (to infer new generics). Modelling the context of a generic also allows us to model the sort of misunderstandings that may occur in a dialogue, whereby a listener misinterprets the scope of an uttered generic sentence. 1 Generics and Context It is generally agreed that generic sentences are used to conv...

ing over X gives us a type corresponding to "being a dog in R". Now suppose we are are not interested in a particular R but in the type of "being a dog in some resource situation or other". We can express this by existentially quantifying over R, to give the type X 9 R R dog(X) which is the type corresponding to "being a dog in some or other resource situation", as we require. Thus the denotation of bare plurals differs from that of, say, proper names or pronouns which are taken in situation theory to denote parameters. Compare, for example, the representation for: (10) Fido barked. which is: S bark(X, T, P) R named(X, `Fido') Here, the "main" proposition is restricted by the proposition that a resource situation R supports the information that X is named `Fido'. The representation for: 7 See McNally 1995a for an independent but closely-related proposal that bare plurals in Spanish should be taken to refer to properties. 8 We ignore tense here, for simplicity. 9 We make the addit...