Antecedent (grammar)

About: Antecedent (grammar) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1392 publications have been published within this topic receiving 41824 citations.

Method and device for grouping rules and method and device for fuzzy inference according to grouped rules

Abstract: PURPOSE:To divide set rules into groups while paying attention to input/output variables and to operate fuzzy inference for each group as well. CONSTITUTION:Concerning plural rules, (1) the input variable contained in the antecedent part of one rule is extracted (step 1), (2) all the rules having the extracted input variables in the antecedent parts are extracted (step 3), (3) all the input variables containing the antecedent parts of the extracted rules are extracted (step 4), and (4) the processing is repeated from (2) concerning these all input variables. Therefore, one group is formed by the rules containing all the input variables related mutually at the antecedent parts.

Subordination in 15th- and 16th-Century Judeo-Arabic

Abstract: Judeo-Arabic sources from the 15th and 16th centuries are of great interest for research into subordinate syntax, as they are written in a repertoire that echoes the Classical Arabic elements of Medieval Judeo-Arabic as much as the colloquial forms of Late Judeo-Arabic. The most interesting phenomena concern the adverbial clauses, which show a great variation of adverbial connectives. It is also notable that compounds of prepositions and relativizers or complementizers appear to have become very popular, whereas few of the inherited non-prepositional Classical Arabic adverbial connectives occur. This article also raises the possibility that adverbial clauses may have only developed in the course of the codification of the Semitic languages, and perhaps of languages in general. Relative and complement clauses in the 15th- and 16th-century sources are less conspicuous, but in relative clauses, the form ʾan, homophonous with the complementizer and originating from constructions using the tanwīn, may occur as relativizer after indefinite antecedent. A noteworthy point regarding complement clauses is the lack of asyndetical constructions as compared with earlier Judeo-Arabic documentary material.

Obligatory control and local reflexives

Abstract: Why do locally bound reflexives (LBR) and obligatorily controlled PRO (OC-PRO) only have de se interpretations in the scope of verbs like ‘expect’ and ‘believe’, while other pronouns can but need not support such interpretations? We argue that occurrences of LBR and OC-PRO result from copying , which is distinct from co-indexing , and that copying is construed as a special case of co-indexing Often, this distinction is truth-conditionally irrelevant Even when a psychological verb lies between coindexed expressions, the resulting sentence can be “made true” in many ways, including de se ways But if the matrix and embedded subjects are copies, this imposes a further constraint that only de se interpretations meet, given available distinctions in thought On this view, which posits no special pronouns that conspire with an antecedent to create distinctively first-personal meanings, de se interpretations are accommodated with spare theoretical apparatus in syntax and semantics

Anaphora without indices: Dynamics of centering

Abstract: The standard way to represent anaphoric dependencies is to co-index the anaphor with its antecedent in the syntactic input to semantic rules, which then interpret such indices as variables. Dynamic theories (e.g. Kamp’s DRT, Heim’s File Change Semantics, Muskens’s Compositional DRT, etc) combine syntactic coindexation with semantic left-to-right asymmetry. This captures the fact that the anaphor gets its referent from the antecedent and not vice versa. Formally, a text updates the input state of information to the output state. In particular, an indexed antecedent updates the entity assigned to its index, and the output entity is then picked up as the referent by any subsequent co-indexed anaphor. The elephant in the room is that the all-important indices have no audible reflex in any natural language—e.g. no language contrasts !" !" #vs. !" !$% &#Adding to the embarrassment, actual anaphoric contrasts are not interpreted like contrasting variables in formal logics—e.g. zero (i.e. missing argument) vs. pronoun #$ in Mandarin Chinese; or proximate vs. obviative 3rd person in languages with grammatical obviation (e.g., %&'(vs. ') in Kalaallisut). Yet actual anaphoric systems render anaphora unambiguous (Mandarin, Kalaallisut), or much less ambiguous than predicted (English), by mechanisms that index-based theories have no tools to explicate. A yet another mystery for index-based theories is why anaphora resolution does not get increasingly harder as discourse progresses, since every sentence adds to the set of potential antecedents. Yet, intuitively, in a long novel a pronoun at the end is just as easy to resolve as a pronoun in paragraph one. #

Hume on Our Notion of Causality

Abstract: 1. In his recent 'David Hume and Necessary Connections' (Philosophy 62 (1987), 49-58), T. F. Lindley has suggested that Hume's subjective explication of necessary connection has been designed 'to weaken our notion of causality' (57). Citing a well-known passage from Hume's Enquiry in support of his suggestion, Lindley goes on to claim that we need not accept Hume's explication of the term 'necessary connection', and by implication, his (negative) assessment of the notion of causality. For as Lindley puts it: I have argued that there is a least one use of 'necessary connection' that refers to an objective relation. And if Hume had taken note of it, he would have had to distinguish, at the very least, between it and some more nebulous idea for which he had no antecedent impression (58). Now Lindley may, or may not, be correct in his specification of an objective use of 'necessary connection'. I shall not take issue with him on this score: this is something that others may want to decide on. However, where his interpretation of Hume's account of necessary connection is concerned, as I see it, Lindley is wide of the mark. For it appears that Hume does not maintain that the idea of necessary connection lacks an impression. Rather than argue that the idea of necessary connection is a 'nebulous idea for which he [i.e. Hume] had no antecedent impression' (58), my contention is that Hume endorses the quite different view according to which the idea of necessary connection is associated with an impression, and that this impression is a specific internal propensity, or determination of the mind. Before we consider the case for my interpretation, consider the basis of Lindley's version of Hume's views on necessary connection.