Re: RT list: VS: Ray Gibbs on logical form

Billy, thanks for this useful clarification. I should also make haste
to point out that there are considerably more people working on Dynamic
Syntax than the less than minimal
set of references I provided in my overly-swift note sent earlier. The
link I provided gives a much fuller set.

Best wishes,

Ruth.

On 16/02/2011 15:02, Billy Clark wrote:
> Thanks for this link, Ruth. I'm sure I'm not the only person on this list who is aware of but not well enough informed on dynamic syntax.
>
> Can I also ask a question to everyone about the meaning of 'logical form'? And also about the meaning of 'semantic representation'. I wonder whether 'logical form' has been used in two ways in Relevance Theory. In one sense, a logical form is a representation with logical properties. A subset of logical forms are fully propositional and so they're termed 'propositional forms'. I think these terms can both be used without any reference to linguistic meaning or utterance interpretation. In another sense, 'logical form' has been used as a synonym (or near synonym) for 'semantic representation', i.e. as a representation of the linguistically encoded meanings of linguistic expressions. I don't think it follows from Relevance Theory that we entertain logical forms in this latter sense as part of the interpretation process, even though we might want to represent them as part of our theory to account for linguistic meaning and utterance interpretation. Maybe we should use a term such as 'semantic representation' f
or a theoretical representation of the encoded meanings of linguistic expressions, which is understood as separate from claims about processing?
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Billy
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: owner-relevance@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk [owner-relevance@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Ruth Kempson [ruth.kempson@kcl.ac.uk]
> Sent: 16 February 2011 14:31
> Cc: relevance@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk
> Subject: [SPAM: 11.135] Re: RT list: VS: Ray Gibbs on logical form
>
> Ray Gibbs observes that there is no need to posit a relevance-theoretic concept of logical form, and Thorstein Fretheim asks whether there is a framework to hand which replaces the concept of logical form as a context-independent output with a competitive alternative. As Chris Lucas has already pointed out, the answer is that indeed there is. This is the Dynamic Syntax framework of Kempson et al 2001, Cann et al 2005, Cann et al 2010. Dynamic Syntax involves an explicit characterisation of ellipsis and split utterances of the type discussed in this debate; and those of us working on this framework have been advocating for some time that no concept of logical form is warranted. On this view syntax itself is the set of mechanisms for incremental projection of a propositional formula as identified in context, with both speakers and hearers projecting a propositional structure relative to their own context (with actual choices being determined by relevance constraints) The shift of perspective is
 radical in that one aspect of "performance" is incorporated into the model of grammar -- the concept of incrementally projecting structural representations of content in a way that reflects real-time dynamics. So underspecification and mechanisms for progressive update become core parts of the grammar.
>
> As noted by Chris Lucas, contributors to this debate might like to access the Dynamics of Conversational Dialogue website, where papers accumulated during the progression of our research project of this name, along with other Dynamics Syntax related papers:
> http://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/groups/ds/publications.html
>
> Ruth
>
>
>
Received on Wed Feb 16 16:39:25 2011