Centre for the Study of Language & Information – förlag

This textbook/software package covers first-order language in a method appropriate for a wide range of courses, from first logic courses for undergraduates (philosophy, mathematics, and computer science) to a first graduate logic course. The accompanying online grading service instantly grades solutions to hundreds of computer exercises. The second edition of "Language, Proof and Logic" represents a major expansion and revision of the original package and includes applications for mobile devices, additional exercises, a dedicated website, and increased software compatibility and support.

A comprehensive introduction to logic’s central concepts.This book provides a concise but detailed account of modern logic's three cornerstones: the completeness of first-order logic, Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems, and Turing's analysis of computability. In addition to the central text, an appendix explains the required technical terminology and facts. The main ideas behind the three cornerstones are explained in a simple, easy-to-grasp manner, and it is possible to select among the chapters and sections so that the reader becomes familiar with these ideas, even if some technicalities are skipped or postponed. A wealth of exercises accompany a wide selection of materials, including the histories and philosophical implications of the three main premises, making it useful as a textbook for undergraduate or graduate courses focusing on any of the three main themes. The material is rigorous and detailed but keeps the main ideas in sight, and there are numerous excursions into more advanced material for curious readers to explore.

The first comprehensive bibliography of the publications of polymath Martin Gardner.Martin Gardner (1914–2010) was a polymath whose international reputation extended from mathematics to literature, philosophy to science, and magic to fiction. This comprehensive bibliography covers every aspect of Gardner’s lengthy publishing career, from 1930 to 2010, and features detailed descriptions and indices of his writings on mathematics and many other topics. Editor Dana Richards worked directly with Gardner on this project from 1978 until Gardner’s death; it draws on the two hundred boxes of Gardner’s mathematical papers held in the Stanford archives

Not limited to merely mathematics, probability has a rich and controversial philosophical aspect. A Philosophical Introduction to Probability showcases lesser-known philosophical notions of probability and explores the debate over their interpretations. Galavotti traces the history of probability and its mathematical properties and then discusses various philosophical positions on probability, from the Pierre Simon de Laplace's “classical” interpretation of probability to the logical interpretation proposed by John Maynard Keynes. This book is a valuable resource for students in philosophy and mathematics and all readers interested in notions of probability.

This second edition of "Syntactic Theory: A Formal Introduction" expands and improves upon a truly unique introductory syntax textbook. Like the first edition its focus is on the development of precisely formulated grammars whose empirical predictions can be directly tested. There is also considerable emphasis on the prediction and evaluation of grammatical hypotheses, as well as on integrating syntactic hypotheses with matters of semantic analysis. The book covers the core areas of English syntax from the last quarter century, including complementation, control, "raising constructions", passives, the auxiliary system, and the analysis of long distance dependency constructions. "Syntactic Theory's" step-by-step introduction to a consistent grammar in these core areas is complemented by extensive problem sets drawing from a variety of languages. The book's theoretical perspective is presented in the context of current models of language processing, and the practical value of the constraint-based, lexicalist grammatical architecture proposed has already been demonstrated in computer language processing applications.This thoroughly reworked second edition includes revised and extended problems sets, updated analyses, additional examples and more detailed exposition throughout.

A systematic study of information dynamics that extends beyond what is found in standard logic textbooks.Everything we do is driven by information, but the dynamic process of acquiring information and adjusting our views based on it has seldom been put at the center place in logic, and there are few textbooks introducing readers to this line of work. The present book introduces the reader to major logical techniques for studying information dynamics and interaction between agents, based on a variety of intuitive scenarios as well as recent research. Readers will learn styles of modeling, as well as the basic features of the new logical systems emanating from this line of work. All the separate strands in the book are brought together in a comprehensive study of information flow and action in games, forming a logic-based complement to standard perspectives in game theory.

Situation Theory and situation semantics are recent approaches to language and information, approaches first formulated by Jon Barwise and John Perry in Situations and Attitudes (1983). The present volume collects some of Barwise's papers written since then, those directly concerned with relations among logic, situation theory, and situation semantics. Several papers appear here for the first time.

A thorough investigation into idioms and their grand meaning, including how best to analyze them.Any theory of idioms should be part and parcel of a general theory of grammar, adding as little machinery to one's overall grammatical approach as possible in describing both the syntactic and semantic idiosyncrasies and regularities of this large class of linguistic expressions.  This volume presents several lexicalist analyses of idioms within the framework of Sign-Based Construction Grammar, reflecting three guiding principles: many but not all idioms are syntactically and semantically compositional, dividing into distinct classes; idioms are analyzable in terms of a suitably rich lexicon and a set of constructions (lexical and syntactic rules) with corresponding meaning representations; and idiomaticity is a gradient phenomenon, exhibiting wide variation in degree of syntactic flexibility and meaning.

In this second collection in the series, Knuth explores the relationship between computers and typography.

This volume has brought together research from both 'cognitive' and 'functional' approaches to linguistics. The collection includes work from cognitive science disciplines whose concerns overlap with linguistics, such as artificial intelligence, neurolinguistics and psychology. Despite their diversity, the papers in this volume are all inspired by the same fundamental question: to what extent is the structure of languages affected by human cognitive structures and language use? This book will appeal to graduate students, professors, and researchers - in particular, cognitive and functional linguists; psychologists; and artificial intelligence scholars.

During the last few years, a new approach to linguistic analysis has started to emerge. This approach, which has come to be known under various labels such as 'data-oriented parsing', 'corpus-based interpretation' and 'treebank grammar', assumes that human language comprehension and production works with representations of concrete past language experiences rather than with abstract grammatical rules. It operates by decomposing the given representations into fragments and recomposing those pieces to analyze (infinitely many) new utterances. This book shows how this general approach can apply to various kinds of linguistic representations. Experiments with this approach suggest that the productive units of natural language cannot be defined by a minimal set of rules or principles, but need to be defined by a large, redundant set of previously experienced structures. Bod argues that this outcome has important consequences for linguistic theory, leading to an entirely new view of the nature of linguistic competence.

This book provides a simple but precise framework for describing complex predicates and related constructions, and applies it principally to the analysis of complex predicates in Romance, and certain serial verb constructions in Tariana and Miskitu. The authors argue for replacing the projection architecture of LFG with a notion of differential information spreading within a unified feature structure. Another important feature is the use of the conception of argument-structure in Chris Manning's Ergativity to facilitate the description of how complex predicates are assembled. In both of these aspects the result is a framework that preserves the descriptive parsimony of LFG while taking on key ideas from HPSG.

What happens to our conception of mind and rational agency when we take seriously future-directed intentions and plans and their roles as inputs into further practical reasoning? The author's initial efforts in responding to this question resulted in a series of papers that he wrote during the early 1980s. In this book, Bratman develops further some of the main themes of these essays and also explores a variety of related ideas and issues. He develops a planning theory of intention. Intentions are treated as elements of partial plans of action. These plans play basic roles in practical reasoning, roles that support the organization of our activities over time and socially. Bratman explores the impact of this approach on a wide range of issues, including the relation between intention and intentional action, and the distinction between intended and expected effects of what one intends.

The concept of 'strong generative capacity' (SGC) of a linguistic formalism was introduced by Chomsky in the early sixties in order to characterize descriptive capacity. However, the original definition proposed by Chomsky turned out to be unusable, especially when one wished to compare the SGC of different types of formalisms. This book provides for the first time a rigorous and useful characterization of SGC, defining it as the model theoretic semantics of linguistic formalism. Specifically, abstract interpretation domains are defined in theory-neutral set-theoretical terms, and the SGC of a theory with respect to a given interpretation domain is characterized as the range of a specific interpretation function mapping structural descriptions of that theory into elements of that domain. Interpretation domains are defined for such notions as labeled constituency, dependency, endocentricity and linking and applied to the analysis of a range of linguistic formalisms, among which context-free grammars, dependency grammars, X-bar grammars, tree-adjoining grammars, transformational grammars and categorial grammars.

The Stanford Alpine Club was formed in 1946 by three returning Word War II veterans, Al Baxter, Larry Taylor and Fritz Lippman. The mountineering club's identity was forged in the crucible of Yosemite Valley's steep, smooth granite spires and cliffs. Members made important contributions to the development of the Yosemite rockclimbing technique, and helped pass them on around the world. However, the main focus of the club was the personal, social and recreational growth of its members. Men and women alike were encouraged to try things which seemed beyond their limits and capabilities, testing both physical and mental strength. The dangers involved - the club saw its fair share of tragedy, injury and death - did even more to bring members together and change their lives. This book is a photographic history of the club through its inception, its first trips to Yosemite, its daring moments in the Himalayas, and its later days of scaling the campus buildings. It contains text by John Rawlings, as well as photographs, reflections, lyrics from the SAC songbook and other "tidbits" from club members to provide a history of almost 40 years of the Stanford Alpine Club.

Japanese and Korean are typologically quite similar, so a linguistic phenomenon in one language often has a counterpart in the other. The papers in this volume are intended to further compare and/or contrast research in both languages. This volume is a collection of papers presented at the 9th Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference, Ohio 1999. Some papers explore the historical roots of japanese linguistics and its impact on modern day Japanese and Korean, others investigate the languages' vowel and consonant systems. Contributors also discuss the importance of syllable structure, difficulties in possession construction, acquisition of passive construction in Japanese, and the influence of sentence structure on the interpretation of Korean words.

This book includes famous papers such as "The Problem of the Essential Indexical" and Frege on "Demonstratives and Cognitive Significance and New Theories of Reference"; papers co-authored with Mark Crimmins ("The Prince and the Phone Booth") and David Israel ("Fodor on Psychological Explanations") and related papers on situation semantics, direct reference, and the structure of belief. Perry has added afterwords that discuss responses to his work by Gareth Evans, Robert Stalnaker, Barbara Partee, Howard Wettstein and others. The word "I" is called an indexical which means who it stands for depends on who says it, not just on its meaning. Other indexicals are "you," "here" and "now." Perry discusses how these words work, and why they express important philosophical thoughts. He claims that indexicals pose a challenge to traditional assumptions about language and thought, and for that reason a number of these papers sparked lively debates.

Modal logic originated in philosophy as the logic of necessity and possibility. Now it has reached a high level of mathematical sophistication and has many applications in a variety of disciplines, ranging from artificial intelligence, computer science and mathematics via natural language syntax and semantics to philosophy. It is the main source of formal languages aimed at analyzing complex notions such as common knowlwdge and formal provability. This volume presents a broad, contemporary view of the field, with contributions covering the foundations of modal logic as well as its many application areas.

Buildings appear to rest on the Earth's surface, yet the surface has actually been permeated by the building's foundations. If blueprints of the foundation are unavailable, excavation would be needed to discover what actually supports a specific building. Geometry and topology have easily observable concepts resting on the surface of theoretical underpinnings that have not been completely discovered, unearthed or understood. Geometrical and topological principles of superposition provide insight into probing the connections between accessible superstructures and their hideen underpinnings. This book develops and applies these insights, from physics to mathematics to philosophy. This text examines the dimensionality of surfaces, how superpositions can make stable frameworks and gives a quasi-Leibnizian account of the relative "spaces" that are defined by these frameworks.

Rapid innovations in digital technology deeply influence views on language and information processing. Any new developments raise many questions for researchers, and can help shed new light on old approaches. Logic is a tool that researchers can use to gain insight into investigations of the relation between form and content, the ways that linguistic utterances change information content and the dynamics of information change. This text presents a broad range of logical investigations into language and information processing. Topics covered include: the notion of "reasonable belief" in commonsense reasoning, perpetual reports in natural languages, the logic of creation and modification of objects, the verification of temporal aspects of reactive systems, analysis of scope by combining model theory and situation semantics, and semantic analysis of the information articulation of linguistic statements.

This volume traces the work and thinking of Charles Fillmore throughout his 30 year career. It is a collection which reflects his desire to make sense of the workings of language in a way that keeps in mind questions of language form, language use and conventions linking form, meaning and practice. Papers include: "The position and embedding of transformations in a grammar"; "Towards a modern theory of case"; "The case of case"; "Types of lexical information"; "Subjects, speakers and roles"; "Verbs of judging"; "On generativity"; "The case for case reopened"; "Topics in lexical semantics"; "On the organization of semantic information in the lexicon"; "Innocence"; "Towards a descriptive framework for spatial deixis"; "Monitoring the reading process"; "Some thoughts on the boundaries and components of linguistics"; "Frames and the semantics of understanding"; "Linguistics as a tool for discourse analysis"; "Pragmatically controlled zero anaphora"; "Grammatical construction theory and the familiar dichotomies"; "Clause connectives in Japanese and related mysteries"; "Constituency vs dependancy"; Humour in academic discourse".

This volume traces the work and thinking of Charles Fillmore throughout his 30 year career. It is a collection which reflects his desire to make sense of the workings of language in a way that keeps in mind questions of language form, language use and conventions linking form, meaning and practice. Papers include: "The position and embedding of transformations in a grammar"; "Towards a modern theory of case"; "The case of case"; "Types of lexical information"; "Subjects, speakers and roles"; "Verbs of judging"; "On generativity"; "The case for case reopened"; "Topics in lexical semantics"; "On the organization of semantic information in the lexicon"; "Innocence"; "Towards a descriptive framework for spatial deixis"; "Monitoring the reading process"; "Some thoughts on the boundaries and components of linguistics"; "Frames and the semantics of understanding"; "Linguistics as a tool for discourse analysis"; "Pragmatically controlled zero anaphora"; "Grammatical construction theory and the familiar dichotomies"; "Clause connectives in Japanese and related mysteries"; "Constituency vs dependancy"; Humour in academic discourse".

This text introduces a new approach to the issue of radical scientific revolutions, or "paradigm-shifts", given prominence in the work of Thomas Kuhn. The book articulates a dynamic and historic version of the conception of scientific "a priori" principles first developed by the philosopher Immanuel Kant. Focusing on the development of "scientific philosophy" from Kant to Rudolf Carnap, along with the developments within science at the same time, the author provides a dynamic conception of relativized "a priori" principles. This idea within the physical sciences aims to show that rational intersubjective consensus is intricately preserved across radical scientific revolutions or "paradigm-shifts" and how this is achieved. This book defends the Enlightenment ideal of scientific objectivity and universality while also doing justice to the revolutionary changes within the sciences that have undermined Kant's original defense of this ideal.

The use of diagrams in logic and geometry has encountered resistence throughout the years. For a proof to be valid in geometry it must not rely on the graphical properties of a diagram. In logic the teaching of proofs depends on the sentenial representations, ideas formed as natural language sentences such as "if A is true and B is true...". No serious formal proof system is based on diagrams. This text explores the reasons why structured graphics have been ignored in modern formal theories of axiomatic systems. The effects of historical forces on the evolution of diagrammatically-based systems of inference in logic and geometry are explored, from antiquity to the early 20th-century work of David Hilbert. From this exploration emerges an understanding that the present negative attitudes towards the use of diagrams in logic and geometry owe more to implicit appeals to their history and philosophical background than to any technical incompatibility with modern theories of logical systems.

In this volume, author John Perry develops a "reflexive-referential" account of indexicals, demonstratives and proper names. On these issues the philosophy of language in the 20th century was shaped by two competing traditions, descriptivist and referentialist. Referentialist tradition is portrayed as holding that indexicals contribute content that involves individuals without identifying conditions on them. Descriptivist tradition is portrayed as holding that referential content does not explain all of the identifying conditions conveyed by names and indexicals. This text reveals a coherent and structured family of contents - from reflexive contents that place conditions on their actual utterance to the fully incremental contents that place conditions only on the objects of reference - reconciling the insights of both traditions.

This collection of work in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar focuses on interfaces between different grammatical components; its 15 papers explore interface phenomena such as auxiliary contraction in English, analysis of illocutionary force in HPSG, syntactic and semantic aspects of Korean relative clause formation, negation in Welsh and several others.

Language and Sexuality explores the question of how linguistic practices and ideologies relate to sexuality and sexual identity, opening with a discussion of the emerging field of "queer linguistics" and moving from theory into practice with case studies of language use in a wide variety of cultural settings. The resulting volume combines the perspectives of the field's top scholars with exciting new research to present new ideas on the ways in which language use intersects with sexual identity.

The papers collected here focus on probabilistic causality, addressing topics such as the search for causal mechanisms, epistemic and metaphysical views of causality, Bayesian nets and causal dependence, and causation in the special sciences. Some papers stress the statistical analysis of probabilistic data; others address causal issues in physics, with an emphasis on physical processes that are also probabilistic—i.e., stochastic processes.