Alice G.B. ter Meulen

Bio: Alice G.B. ter Meulen is an academic researcher from University of Groningen. The author has contributed to research in topics: Natural language & Lexeme. The author has an hindex of 10, co-authored 32 publications receiving 1507 citations. Previous affiliations of Alice G.B. ter Meulen include Max Planck Society.

Handbook of Logic and Language

Abstract: From the Publisher: The combined study of logic and language goes back at least as far as the Middle Ages. In the last twenty-five years it has gained momentum with the formulation of Montague semantics and Generative Syntax, and the subsequent diversification of research programs. The Handbook of Logic and Language is the first comprehensive survey of the field. The twenty chapters show both sides of the interaction between logic and language: how logical systems are designed and modified in response to linguistic needs, and how mathematical theory arises out of this process and affects subsequent linguistic theory. Contributors: N. Asher, D. Beaver, W. Buszkowski, D. de Jongh, J. E. Fenstad, J. Groenendijk, H. Hendriks, J. Higginbotham, J. Hintikka, T. M. V. Janssen, H. Kamp, E. J. Keenan, J. T. Lonning, E. Martin, M. J. Moortgat, L. S. Moss, R. Muskens, D. Osherson, B. H. Partee, F. J. Pelletier, W. C. Rounds, G. Sandu, J. Seligman, M. Steedman, M. Stokhof, R. H. Thomason, R. Turner, J. van Benthem, J. van Eijck, A. Visser, D. Westerstahl

Mathematical Methods in Linguistics

Abstract: Preface. Part A. Set Theory. 1. Basic Concepts of Set Theory. 2. Relations and Functions. 3. Properties of Relations. 4. Infinities. Appendix A1. Part B. Logic and Formal Systems. 5. Basic Concepts of Logic. 6.Statement Logic. 7. Predicate Logic. 8. Formal Systems, Axiomatization, and Model Theory. Appendix B1. Appendix BII. Part C. Algebra. 9. Basic Concepts of Algebra. 10. Operational Structures. 11. Lattices. 12. Boolean and Heyting Algebras. Part D. English as a Formal Language. 13. Basic Concepts of Formal Languages. 14. Generalized Quantifiers. 15. Intensionality. Part E. Languages, Grammars, and Automata. 16. Basic Concepts of Languages, Grammars, and Automata. 17. Finite Automata, Regular Languages and Type 3 Grammars. 18. Pushdown Automata, Context-Free Grammars and Languages. 19. Turing Machines, Recursively Enumberable Languages, and Type 0 Grammars. 20. Linear Bounded Automata, Context-Sensitive Languages and Type 1 Grammars. 21. Languages Between Context-Free and Context-Sensitive. 22. Transformational Grammars. Appendix EI. Appendix EII. Review Problems. Index.

The representation of (in)definiteness

Abstract: "The Representation of (In)definiteness" collects the most important current research, reflecting a wide range of approaches, on a central theoretical issue in linguistics: characterizing the distinction between definite and indefinite expressions. The authors of these 11 original essays, which draw on current work in theoretical syntax and semantics, were charged by the editors to take more than usual heed of alternative analyses offered by other theories, thereby promoting cross-fertilization of syntactic and semantic ideas, concepts, and argumentation. The project as a whole is grounded in the belief that explicit comparison of seemingly incompatible approaches is essential to improve our understanding of the nature and structure of natural language. Eric J. Reuland and Alice ter Meulen are Professors of Linguistics at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen and the University of Washington respectively. "The Representation of (In)definiteness" is fourteenth in the series Current Studies in Linguistics, edited by Samuel Jay Keyser.

Representing Time in Natural Language: The Dynamic Interpretation of Tense and Aspect

Abstract: Part 1 Introduction: what are aspectual classes? controlling the flow of information - filters, plugs and holes situated reasoning about time. Part 2 The aspectual verbs: the linguistic data negation and duality - the basic tools monotonicity properties the aspectual cube. Part 3 Dynamic aspect trees: aspect as control structure DATs for texts reasoning with DATs - chronoscopes DATs - their syntax and semantics. Part 4 States, generic information and constraints: transient states progressive and perfect states generic information conditionals and temporal quantification. Part 5 Perspectives: perspectival coherence and chronoscopes perspectival refinement perspectival binding scenes and scenarios. Part 6 A fragment of English: syntax and lexicon DAT rules semantics further issues. Part 7 Epilogue: cognition and semantic representation referring with parameters naturalized semantic realism and universal grammar.

Thematic proto-roles and argument selection

Abstract: As a novel attack on the perennially vexing questions of the theoretical status of thematic roles and the inventory of possible roles, this paper defends a strategy of basing accounts of roles on more unified domains of linguistic data than have been used in the past to motivate roles, addressing in particular the problem of ARGUMENT SELECTION (principles determining which roles are associated with which grammatical relations). It is concluded that the best theory for describing this domain is not a traditional system of discrete roles (Agent, Patient, Source, etc.) but a theory in which the only roles are two cluster-concepts called PROTO-AGENT and PROTO-PATIENT, each characterized by a set of verbal entailments: an argument of a verb may bear either of the two proto-roles (or both) to varying degrees, according to the number of entailments of each kind the verb gives it. Both fine-grained and coarse-grained classes of verbal arguments (corresponding to traditional thematic roles and other classes as well) follow automatically, as do desired 'role hierarchies'. By examining occurrences of the 'same' verb with different argument configurations—e.g. two forms of psych predicates and object-oblique alternations as in the familiar spray/load class—it can also be argued that proto-roles act as defaults in the learning of lexical meanings. Are proto-role categories manifested elsewhere in language or as cognitive categories? If so, they might be a means of making grammar acquisition easier for the child, they might explain certain other typological and acquisitional observations, and they may lead to an account of contrasts between unaccusative and unergative intransitive verbs that does not rely on deriving unaccusatives from underlying direct objects.

Situation Models in Language Comprehension and Memory

Abstract: This article reviews research on the use of situation models in language comprehension and memory retrieval over the past 15 years. Situation models are integrated mental representations of a described state of affairs. Significant progress has been made in the scientific understanding of how situation models are involved in language comprehension and memory retrieval. Much of this research focuses on establishing the existence of situation models, often by using tasks that assess one dimension of a situation model. However, the authors argue that the time has now come for researchers to begin to take the multidimensionality of situation models seriously. The authors offer a theoretical framework and some methodological observations that may help researchers to tackle this issue.

Situations and Attitudes.

Abstract: In this provocative book, Barwise and Perry tackle the slippery subject of \"meaning, \" a subject that has long vexed linguists, language philosophers, and logicians.

The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science

Abstract: Talk of linguistic universals has given cognitive scientists the impression that languages are all built to a common pattern. In fact, there are vanishingly few universals of language in the direct sense that all languages exhibit them. Instead, diversity can be found at almost every level of linguistic organization. This fundamentally changes the object of enquiry from a cognitive science perspective. This target article summarizes decades of cross-linguistic work by typologists and descriptive linguists, showing just how few and unprofound the universal characteristics of language are, once we honestly confront the diversity offered to us by the world's 6,000 to 8,000 languages. After surveying the various uses of "universal," we illustrate the ways languages vary radically in sound, meaning, and syntactic organization, and then we examine in more detail the core grammatical machinery of recursion, constituency, and grammatical relations. Although there are significant recurrent patterns in organization, these are better explained as stable engineering solutions satisfying multiple design constraints, reflecting both cultural-historical factors and the constraints of human cognition. Linguistic diversity then becomes the crucial datum for cognitive science: we are the only species with a communication system that is fundamentally variable at all levels. Recognizing the true extent of structural diversity in human language opens up exciting new research directions for cognitive scientists, offering thousands of different natural experiments given by different languages, with new opportunities for dialogue with biological paradigms concerned with change and diversity, and confronting us with the extraordinary plasticity of the highest human skills.