From LINGUIST List: Vol-13-467. Feb 20 2002. ISSN: 1068-4875.
Home Page: http://linguistlist.org/
Editor for this issue: Terence Langendoen
Kempson, RM, W Meyer-Viol & D Gabbay
Dynamic Syntax: The Flow of Language Understanding.
Blackwell, 2000. xii + 348pp. ISBN: 0-631-17613-6 (pb) 0-631-17612-8 (hb)
Reviewed by S Musgrave. "... provides an introductory account of an
approach to the syntax of natural language based on incremental parsing of
strings of words in temporal/linear sequence. [...] Underspecification is
integral to the parsing process. At any point, including the final
representation, the logical formula may include metavariables. The
reference of these may be resolved by later updates or it may be left to
pragmatics to provide appropriate reference (Relevance Theory, Sperber &
Wilson 1995, is assumed by the authors to be a suitable model of such
processes). [...] the meaning communicated in language must be
representational rather than denotational, and [...] such representations
must inevitably include un- or under-specified elements. These
representations must underdetermine meaning, but in association with
pragmatic processes, they can provide a context-specific content. [...
Processes by which trees are constructed] are of three types: computational
rules, lexical actions and pragmatic actions [...] Pragmatic actions add
information to a tree which is not contained in the string or is not a
result of principles
within the language system. These actions can be inferences using external
information in association with
annotations at a node, or the replacement of metavariables by more complete
terms. [...T] he account also predicts that [...] crossover structures with
resumptive pronouns should be acceptable. [The authors] claim that such
pronouns are used frequently in natural data, but note that judgments are
divided and may be influenced by pragmatic factors. [... The authors] argue
that it is preferable to retain a less restrictive computational system and
rely on (a not yet detailed) pragmatics to rule out some possibilities and
to account for the gradations in judgments. [... The authors provide] data
that at least suggests the possibility of resumptive pronouns in English
questions under some pragmatic circumstances. [...] The initial step in the
argument is to show that the construal of indefinite determiners has the
same character of pragmatic choice as the construal of pronouns. [...]
Indefinites have no scope statement, and therefore their relative scope is
open to pragmatic choice in the final evaluation. [...U]nderspecification
in a formula, and the interaction of computational and pragmatic actions
which results from this,can be extended to the realm of quantification
[...A] distinction between well-formedness and acceptability can be made
within the framework, despite the extensive reliance on pragmatics. [...]
The discussions which [the authors] give on this topic centre on the
question of whether the framework should be restricted or whether
pragmatics can do the work. The answer they choose, that pragmatics can do
a lot of work, is a principled one for the cases they discuss.
REFERENCES
Sperber, Dan & Deirdre Wilson (1995) Relevance: Cognition and
Communication. Oxford: Blackwell (2nd ed)
==
J L Speranza, Esq
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