Showing papers by "Nicholas Asher published in 1995"

Metaphor in Discourse

Abstract: Many have thought that the principles of metaphorical interpretation cannot be formally specified. We’ll attack this position with two claims. Our first claim is that some aspects of metaphor are productive, and this productivity can be captured by perspicuous links between generalisations that are specified in the lexicon, and general purpose circumscriptive reasoning in the pragmatic component. Indeed from a methodological perspective, we would claim the productive aspects of metaphor can give the lexicographer clues about how to represent semantic information in lexical entries.

Toward a geometry of common sense: a semantics and a complete axiomatization of mereotopology

Abstract: Mereological and topological notions of connection, part, interior and complement are central to spatial reasoning and to the semantics of natural language expressions concerning locations and relative positions. While several authors have proposed axioms for these notions, no one with the exception of Tarski [18], who based his axiomatization of mereological notions on a Euclidean metric, has attempted to give them a semantics. We offer an alternative to Tarski, starting with mereotopological notions that have proved useful in the semantic analysis of spatial expressions. We also give a complete axiomatization of this account of mereotopological reasoning.

Lexical Disambiguation in a Discourse Context

Abstract: Les AA. examinent la maniere dont la structure du discours affecte le sens des mots et comment le sens des mots affecte la structure du discours. Ils integrent trois elements: = une theorie de la structure du discours appelee SDRT, qui represente le discours en termes de relations rhetoriques; = une theorie de l'attachement du discours appelee DICE, qui evalue les relations rhetoriques qui s'etablissent entre les constituants; = un langage formel pour la specification de la connaissance lexicale, aussi bien syntaxique que semantique, appele LKB

A Typology and Discourse Semantics for Motion Verbs and Spatial PPs in French

Abstract: Les As. proposent une etude semantique et une classification des verbes de mouvement et des verbes de mouvement complexes. Sur la base des proprietes semantiques des verbes et de leurs arguments, ils definissent les proprietes semantiques spatiotemporelles des verbes de mouvement complexes. Ils montrent comment combiner l'information lexicale avec l'information du discours pour determiner la structure spatiotemporelle des textes et favoriser la desambiguisation lexicale

De l'espace-temps dans l'analyse du discours

Abstract: Cet article decrit une approche dynamique de l'interpretation du discours qui s'interesse plus particulierement au calcul de la structure spatio-temporelle des textes. Le cadre theorique choisi est la Theorie des Representations Discursives Structurees, une extension de la DRT qui rend compte a la fois de la semantique et de la pragmatique du discours. On montre que plusieurs composants sont necessaires au processus d'interpretation. Ces composants modelisent des informations sur : la structure (rhetorique) des discours, la semantique grammaticale, la semantique lexicale, l'ontologie de l'espace-temps et la connaissance extra-linguistique sur le monde. Afin d'illustrer cette approche, des textes decrivant des trajectoires en francais sont analyses et leurs representations (denommees SDRS, pour structures de representation du discours segmentees, en anglais) sont construites.

Spatial, temporal and spatio-temporal locating adverbials in discourse

Abstract: This paper deals with the semantics of French adverbials that can be used to localise the eventualities of a discourse (events and states) in space and/or in time. The discourses that are considered are narratives describing trajectories. We propose both a linguistic description and a formal representation in order to model the contribution of these adverbials to the spatio-temporal structure of a discourse. The descriptive part tries to classify temporal and spatial adverbials according to the different interpretations they can give rise (spatial, temporal and spatio-temporal). We show that several other factors also condition these possible interpretations (aspectuality, discourse context, etc.). The formalisation of adverbial semantics is done within Segmented Discourse Representation Theory.