University of Stuttgart
Institute for Computational Linguistics
The ... Project

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Goals:

1. The provenance and management of variables;
2. the logically transparent representation of modal and intentional information and the source of such representations in overt linguistic form; and
3. the semantic analysis of sentence-embedding constructions. Point of departure are the assumptions about the introduction and binding of variables (discourse referents) in discourse representations that form the conceptual basis of DRT.

Description:

1. The role of variables has been one of the central issues in understanding how content is determined by syntactic form since the beginnings of generative syntax and formal semantics and yet many questions relating to variables remain unanswered. The present project focusses in particular on
   1. the part played by various types of indefinites (singular and plural indefinites with indefinite determiners, bare plurals and mass nouns);
   2. the connections and differences between syntactic and semantic binding;
   3. the role of variables in the interpretation of tense, aspect and modality, especially in connection with adverbial quantification; and
   4. the behaviour of variables within modal and attitudinal contexts.
2. A central concern of the project is to explore the semantic contributions made by anaphoric and other NPs occurring within modal or attitudinal contexts. The correct analysis of these contributions is closely connected with, and in fact provides important clues to, finding the right representations for modal and attitudinal contexts, including a satisfactory denotational semantics for these representations.
3. The third main concern of the project, which is continuous with (ii), is to determine the semantic import of various embedded and unembedded German sentence constructions, such as various types of direct and embedded questions, verb-initial sentences that are not questions and "verb zweit" embedded clauses.