• oὐκ ἐμοῦ ἀλλὰ τοῦ λόγου ἀκούσαντας ὁμολογεῖν σοφόν ἐστιν ἓν πάντα εἶναι (Herakleitos)
• Welcome to the site of a philologist. I work in the ILLC group Logic and Language, as a researcher for the Philosophy Department of the Faculty of Humanities. My work is concerned with formal aspects of the meaning and use of natural language. Specific interests include intentionality, quantification and information structure. Generic interests include belief, indexicality, and satisfaction.

The Live Principle of Compositionality

I argue for a live understanding of the principle of compositionality to the effect that it can be strictly maintained, unaffected by contextualist challenges, and, as a matter of fact, swallowing the contextualist findings. The conception proves valuable in the clarification of a number of old and new issues at the semantics / pragmatics interface. The paper has appeared in: Daniel Gutzmann, Jan Köpping, Cécile Meier (eds.), Approaches to Meaning: Composition, Values, and Interpretation, Brill, Leiden.

• Compositionality Live

Not Only Barbara

This paper explicate a fully general and transparent syllogistics for a cube of oppositions, and pleads for a non-conservative theory of generalized quantifiers in natural language. It has appeared in the Journal of Logic, Language and Information, 2015, and can be retrieved from

• http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10849-015-9215-6

Heraclitean Oppositions

The pre-socratic philosopher Herakleitos has demonstrated a logos, which contains more of a logic then the syllogos of his postdecessors. The paper appears in New Dimensions of the Square of Opposition, 2014, Jean-Yves Beziau and Katarzyna Gan-Krzywoszynska (eds.), Philosophia, München.

 

• Herakleitos' Logos

De Nobis

Starting from the assumption that all belief is self-locating belief (de se), proceeding by the insight that knowledge consists in us-locating belief (de nobis), we conclude that meaning involves you-locating belief (de te). Thinking of it, this constitutes a truly dynamic notion of meaning. Below are some slides indicative of the story.

• De Nobis

Monograph on Dynamic Semantics

The monograph Dynamic Semantics appeared with Springer August 2012. I argue for a classical notion of meaning, plus a dynamic notion of the conjunction of meanings. Here is the flyer.

• Flyer

Presupposition

This is a lemma on the subject of presupposition  in The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Language, edited by Delia Graff Fara and Gillian Russell, 2012.

• Presupposition11

Jigsaw Semantics

This is a contribution on the viability of formal semantics in Formal Semantics and Pragmatics. Discourse Context and Models , edited by Barbara Partee and Jurgis  Skilters, 2011.

• JSS

Dynamic Semantics

This is a lemma on the subject of dynamic semantics in The Handbook of Semantics, edited by Klaus von Heusinger, Claudia Maienborn and Paul Portner, 2011.

• DynamicSemantics2010

Only If an Indefinite is Topical, the Pronoun Picks it Up

This is about irregular anaphoric dependencies, partly motivated by an internet search. The paper is from 2000, and has appeared in Rainer Baeuerle, Uwe Reyle, and Ede Zimmermann (eds.), 2010, Presuppositions in Discourse, CRiSPI volume 21.

• OnlyIfAnIndefiniteIsTopical

Something About Might

A much needed provocative statement about epistemic `might' appeared in the Amsterdam Colloquium Proceedings, edited by Maria Aloni and Katrin Schulz, Springer 2010.

• SomethingAboutMight2010

A Guide to Dynamic Semantics

ILLC Prepublications PP-2008-42.

This paper gives an introduction to the idea and workings of dynamic semantics.

• A Guide to Dynamic Semantics

A Multi-dimensional Treatment of Quantification in Extraordinary English

Linguistics and Philosophy 31, 2008, 101--127.

Montague Semantics and Karttunen and Peters pragmatics are combined into an up to date treatment of presupposition and quantification.

• A Multi-Dimensional Treatment

De Uitleg

De werktitel van het boekje luidde "De Grap", maar die werd niet begrepen; vandaar de titel.

• De Uitleg (.cover)

Questions in Dynamic Semantics, 2007

Maria Aloni, Alastair Butler, Paul Dekker (eds.), Elsevier, CRiSPI 17, pp. 358

This volume presents state of the art work of Amsterdam style work on the dynamic semantics of questions

• Introduction QiDS

Optimal Inquisitive Discourse, 2004/2007

Research on Language and Computation, Volume 2, Number 3, September 2004, pp. 35, also appeared in Aloni (et al.), Questions in Dynamic Semantics, Elsevier, CRiSPI 17, pp. 20.

A notion of "Optimal Inquisitive Discourse" is defined integrating informal ideas from structured meanings (Krifka) and dynamic (Groenendijk) semantics with insights from Gricean pragmatics as developed in relevance theory.

• OID

The Pragmatic Dimension of Indefinites, 2004

Research on Language and Computation, Volume 2, nr. 3, pp. 365--399.

A natural pragmatic explanation of the interpretation of singular indefinite noun phrases combines and improves upon dynamic, E-type and choice function approaches.

• tPDoI

Dynamics and Pragmatics of "Peirce' Puzzle", 2001

Journal of Semantics, Volume 18, Number1, pp. 30

"If everybody passes, then everybody passes." is shown to be not fully equivalent with "There is someone such that if he passes then everybody passes." An intriguing puzzle in first order predicate logic, due to and initially solved by Charles Sanders Peirce, is given its solution in a dynamic semantic framework.

• DaPoPP

"She"'s Character, 2001

Myriam Bras and Laure Vieu, Semantic and Pragmatic Issues in Discourse and Dialogue, CRiSPI Volume 9, pp. 22

The indexical interpretation of pronouns is characterized in an `intentional space', a concept which is formulated within a many-sorted type theory.

• SC

Meanwhile, Within the Frege Boundary, 2001

Linguistics and Philosophy, Volume 26, number 5, pp. 10.

When and how can we reduce one type n quantifier to (the composition of) n type one quantifiers? The question, raised by Keenan, is very interesting, and answered.

• MwtFB

Coreference and Representationalism, 2000

K. von Heusinger and U. Egli (eds.), Reference and Anaphorical Relations, pp. 23.

Is a level of representation indispensable in the analysis of the semantics of natural language? The semantic frameworks of discourse representation theory,  dynamic predicate logic, and situation semantics, are evaluated as to their representational status. With surprising outcomes.

• CaR

Cases, Adverbs, Situations and Events, 1997/2004

In: Hans Kamp and Barbara Partee (eds.), Proceedings of the Workshop on Context Dependence, IMS,Stuttgart and UFAL, Prague, appeared as Context-Dependence in the Analysis of Linguistic Meaning, Elsevier, CRiSPI, pp. 22.

Should the `situation-based approaches' to adverbial quantification turnout equivalent with the  `bound variable approaches'? Proponents may have thought so, but if you make the idea precise, it rather should not.

• CASE

Predicate Logic with Anaphora, 1994

Lynn Santelmann and Mandy Harvey (eds.), Proceedings of the Fourth Semantics and Linguistic Theory Conference, DMLL Publications, Cornell University, pp. 17.

Hans Kamp's discourse representation theoretic results can be formulated in a compositional way, using an orthodox interpretation of a language of predicate logic, which is extended with pronouns.

• PLA

Existential Disclosure, 1993/2003

Linguistics and Philosophy, Volume 16, number 6, pp. 27, also appeared in J. Gutierrez-Rexach (ed.), Semantics: Critical Concepts in Linguistics, Volume VI, pp. 25, Routledge, London/New York.
This is an observation about dynamic semantics. If quantifiers or other operators are "dynamic", they are not "closed". This turns out to have interesting linguistic applications.

• ED

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