We are happy to announce a talk by Paul Koenig (Frankfurt) in the Semantics Colloquium.
The talk will take place on campus in IG 4.301.
If you wish to participate virtually via Zoom, please contact Lennart Fritzsche for the link.
Date: October 28, 2024
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm c.t.
Title: Scale theory in adjective semantics
Abstract:
Gradable adjectives cause difficulties in the analysis of their semantic and logical form due to different phenomena such as references to comparative classes, dimensional references, units of measurement, factor phrases and norm references. How the constants of the semantic form relevant for graduation are represented in the logical form, taking into account the factors mentioned, is part of the work of Bierwisch (1987), on which the approaches in this paper are based. The main objective is to use a new definition of directed intervals to specify the definitions given in Bierwisch 1987, which are intended to provide a mathematical/logical framework for the representation of the logical form, and to close problems that arise and gaps in the underlying scale theory. Directional intervals are an extension of the classic interval with a directional component. The idea is that an interval differs in whether the direction is specified, for example, from 5 to 10 or from 10 to 5. This distinguishes [5;10] from [10;5], whereby both directed intervals still contain the set of all real numbers between 5 and 10 (inclusive). With these intervals and the new definitions of e.g. combination and multiplication of directed intervals, some definitions relevant for graduation, which were only vaguely specified by Bierwisch (1987), can be made more precise. In addition, antonym pairs and sentences with units of measurement can be better represented using directed intervals.