Dear Christoph
Your proposal sounds very interesting. You might like to check out the
thoroughly procedural characterisation provided by Dynamic Syntax (eg
Kempson et al. 2001, Cann et al. 2005). A DS website is currently
underway at:
http://semantics.phil.kcl.ac.uk/ldsnl/
However, note that DS models lexical items more generally in procedural
terms, and doesn't just restrict this to the "functional" ones.
best
Andrew Gargett
Christoph Unger wrote:
>Dear relevance list readers,
>
>I would be interested in your reaction to the following statements:
>
>1. All functional categories encode procedural information. In this way a
>purely grammatical notion can in the end be traced back to a cognitive one.
>
>2. Procedurally encoded information is not a monolythic block; rather,
>different types of procedurally encoded information function differently,
>e.g. while semantic constraints on implicatures ('after all, so') do not
>surface in the langauge of thought representations, pronouns are replaced by
>concepts of the referents they point to. Therefore it is doubtful that a
>clear correspondence between functional categories and procedural encoding
>could be established; and even it could, this wouldn't mean much.
>
>3. Following Baker (2003: Lexical Categories. CUP), prepositions are
>functional categories. Following statement 1, they encode procedural
>information. ('Construct a relational concept with the properties X')
>
>4. Prepositions are the paradigm case for polysemic expressions. Polysemy is a
>lexical pragmatic phenomenon consisting of the inferential construction of
>ad-hoc concepts on the basis of lexically encoded concepts or ad-hoc concept
>formation templates. Prepositions are best analysed as encoding conceptual
>information in the form of templates for ad-hoc concept formation.
>
>With best wishes,
>
>Christoph
>
>
>
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