Proposes to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a "Radial Category," a type of structured polysemy that explicitly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations that bind them. The model is tested by considering the semantics of the diminutive in…

This paper examines some of the problems associated with interpreting metonymy, a figure of speech in which an attribute or commonly associated feature is used to name or designate something. After defining metonymy and outlining the principles of metonymy, the paper explains the differences between metonymy, synecdoche, and metaphor. It is…

According to the author, most grammarians have been writing stratificational grammars without knowing it because they have dealt with units that are related to one another, but not simply as a whole to its parts, or as a class to its members. The question, then, is not whether a grammar is stratified but whether it is explicitly stratified. This…

The paper shows informally how model-theoretical semantics may be used by a computer to give a straight-forward analysis of the meaning of children's language. This approach to semantics grows out of the main thrust of work in mathematical logic. It is discussed in the framework of generative grammar and is based on the application of the…

This paper cites the inadequacy of transformational generative grammar theories in their attempts to describe the meaning of a given sentence. The author sees the specification of meaning involving the recovery of the particular section or sections of the world model communicated or represented by the sentence. As a corollary, the author argues…

The descriptive contents (cognitive meanings) of the modals "can,""may,""could,""might,""must,""need,""ought,""should," compared with paraphrastic verbs and adjectives, motivate two cross-classifying dimensions: logical modality (possibility, impossibility, necessity)…

This document includes the abstracts of papers presented at a seminar intended to provide a survey of how the models and techniques of linguistics may be applied to the description of the German language, with a view to improving the understanding of some of the practical problems of first and second language learning. Topics range over a wide…

This document describes a format for analyzing the information content of sentences and the language patterns that accompany particular information content. The author writes in terms of information structures, each information structure having a corresponding linguistic structure composed of distinctive features. The information structure of a…