I show that words with indefinite implicit complements occasion a dilemma for their model theory. There has been only two previous attempts to address this problem, one by Fodor and Fodor (1980) and one by Dowty (1981). Each requires that any word tolerating an implicit complement be treated as ambiguous between two different lexical entries and that a meaning postulate or lexical rule be given to constrain suitably the meanings of the various entries for the word. I show that the positing of such an ambiguity runs counter to the facts and propose an alternative solution which does not appeal to ambiguity, meaning postulates or lexical rules. Indeed, I show that the dilemma posed by indefinite implicit complements is posed by all implicit complements and that a general solution to the problem of implicit complements follows from an independently motivated, single treatment of five other problems, that of subcategorization, that of phrasal projections of words, that of defining a model theoretic structure for phrase structure grammars, that of complement polyvalence and that of complement polyadicity.

Logics and languages

Implicit complements: a dilemma for model theoretic semantics

The purpose of this paper is to describe and motivate the leading ideas behind the MiMo notation, a formalism for transfer-based machine translation which is especially appropriate for intermediate representations based on Dependency Grammar. The most important of these ideas concern properties of the translation relation such as compositionality, reversibility, modularity, and autonomy of levels of description. The final section considers some issues relating to rule interaction.

background

The theoretical basis of MiMo

A generalized Wittgensteinian semantics for propositional languages is presented, based on a lattice of elementary situations. Of these, maximal ones are possible worlds, constituting a logical space; minimal ones are logical atoms, partitioned into its dimensions. A verifier of a proposition α is an elementary situation such that if real it makes α true. The reference (or objective) of a proposition is a situation, which is the set of all its minimal verifiers. (Maximal ones constitute its locus.) Situations are shown to form a Boolean algebra, and the Boolean set algebra of loci is its representation. Wittgenstein's is a special case, admitting binary dimensions only.

A formal ontology of situations

The aim of this paper is to shew that, given certain plausible assumptions about meaning, a semantic theory which uses propositions must accept that they are unstructured sets of 'semantical indices'. This does not preclude the possibility that in addition a semantic theory may require structured entities which play some of the roles that propositions have played-in particular that structured entities may provide the input to certain ascriptions of propositional attitude. For this reason the thesis of the paper may be less objectionable to the friends of structured propositions than they might at first suppose. Indeed, one might even describe the conclusion of the paper as claiming that semantics requires two notions, each of which might lay claim to the word 'proposition'. However I will maintain that the unstructured notion is the primary one. The claim that propositions have structure goes back at least to Russell 1903 (see especially Chapter IV, pp. 42-52) and perhaps further. The details of Russell's view may be unclear, and his view notoriously changed over time, but at this stage he certainly appears to have held that propositions have a structure which mirrors the structure of the sentences which express them.' So for instance the proposition expressed by

Why Propositions Have No Structure

Examinant le statut epistemique de la these de Kripke concernant la necessite a posteriori des jugements d'identite, l'A. adopte une approche propositionnelle-relative de l'a priorite et de la posteriorite qui reprend l'appareil conceptuel de R. Stalnaker et repond aux objections de K. Donnellan

Logics and languages

Citations

Implicit complements: a dilemma for model theoretic semantics

The theoretical basis of MiMo

A formal ontology of situations

Why Propositions Have No Structure

Sentence-relativity and the necessary a posteriori

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