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Plural semantics for natural language understanding : a computational proof-theoretic approach
(2005)
The semantics of natural language plurals poses a number of intricate problems – both from a formal and a computational perspective. In this thesis I investigate problems of representing, disambiguating and reasoning with plurals from a computational perspective. The work defines a computationally suitable representation for important plural constructions, proposes a tractable resolution algorithm for semantic plural ambiguities, and integrates an automatic reasoning component for plurals. My solution combines insights from formal semantics, computational linguistics and automated theorem proving and is based on the following main ideas. Whereas many existing approaches to plural semantics work on a model-theoretic basis using higher-order representation languages I propose a proof-theoretic approach to plural semantics based on a flat firstorder semantic representation language thus showing that a trade-off between expressive power and logical tractability can be found. The problem of automatic disambiguation of plurals is tackled by a deliberate decision to drastically reduce recourse to contextual knowledge for disambiguation but rely instead on structurally available and thus computationally manageable information. A further central aspect of the solution lies in carefully drawing the borderline between real ambiguity and mere indeterminacy in the interpretation of plural noun phrases. As a practical result of my computational proof-theoretic approach to plural semantics I can use my methods to perform automated reasoning with plurals by applying advanced firstorder theorem provers and model-generators available off-the shelf. The results are prototypically implemented within the two logic-oriented natural language understanding applications DRoPs and Attempto. DRoPs provides an automatic plural disambiguation component for uncontrolled natural language whereas Attempto works with a constructive disambiguation strategy for controlled natural language. Both systems provide tools for the automated analysis of technical texts allowing users for example to automatically detect inconsistencies, to perform question answering, to check whether a conjecture follows from a text or to find equivalences and redundancies.
This dissertation investigates developments in the performance of J. S. Bach’s music in the second half of the 20th century, as reflected in recordings of the Mass in B Minor, BWV 232. It places particular emphasis on issues relating to concepts of expression through performance. Between the 1950s and the 1980s, most Bach performers shared a partial consensus as to what constitutes expression in performance (e.g., intense sound; wide dynamic range; rubato). Arguments against the application of such techniques to Bach’s works were often linked with the view that his music is more “objective” than later repertoires; or, alternatively, that expressive elements in Bach’s music are self-sufficient, and should be not be intensified in performance. Historically-informed performance (HIP), from the late 1960s onwards, has been characterised by greater attention to the inflection of local details (i.e., individual figures and motifs). In terms of expressive intensity, this led to contradictory results. On the one hand, several HIP performances were characterised by a narrow overall dynamic range, light textures, fast tempi and few contrasts; these performances were often considered lightweight. On the other hand, HIP also promoted renewed interest in the practical application of Baroque theories of musical rhetoric, inspiring performances which projected varied intensity within movements. More recently, traditional means of expression have enjoyed renewed prominence. Ostensibly “romantic” features such as broad legati, long-range crescendi and diminuendi, and organic shaping of movements as wholes have been increasingly adopted by HIP musicians. In order to substantiate the narrative outlined above, the significance of the evidence preserved in sound recordings had to be checked against other sources of information. This dissertation is divided into two main parts. The first part focuses on specific “schools” of prominent Bach performers. Complete recordings of the Mass are examined in relation to the biographical and intellectual backgrounds of the main representatives of these schools, their verbally-expressed views on Bach’s music and on their own role as performers, and their style as documented in recordings of other works. The second part examines the performance history of specific movements within the Mass, comparing the interpretations preserved in sound recordings with relevant verbal analyses and commentaries. The dissertation as a whole therefore combines the resources of reception and performance studies. Beyond its specific historical conclusions concerning Bach performance in the post-war era, it also provides specific insights into Bach’s music, its meaning and its role in contemporary culture.
The paper focuses on business negotiation in settings in which participants from different mothertongue backgrounds choose French, English andfor German as one of their languages of communication. A general scheme of the action-pattem of buying and selling will be sketched out which allows us to analyze specific Courses of verbal actions according ta their communicative functions within the negotiation process. In particular, the discourse of business communication is to be specified as a decision making process on the part of the buyer which is executed in a step-by-step order, and which is Open to the application of a bundle of the seller's strategies, tactics, and communicative techniques. In international negotiations, effects of unobserved miscommunication are, among others, far-stretched communicative circles, prolongation of negotiation time, non-functional explanations and several other repetitive structures. 1. Languages of trade and commerce - languages of communication 2. Communication in a Buy-Sell-Context is patterned 2.1. Entering the Pattern 2.2. The Main Phase 2.3. The Bidding Phase 2.4. The Specifc Conditions 2.5. Negotiating the Contract 3. The Central Point 3.1. The Buyer's Decision-Making Process 3.2 Decision-Making and Role-Playing 3.3. Intercultural Difference of the Decision-Making Process 4. Bridging the Buyer's Gap of Knowledge 5. The Language of Trade and Commerce 6. The Needs of Further Research: Data References
Northern Chile, which includes the extremely arid Atacama Desert and the semiarid Andean Highlands, has more than 100 basins with interior drainage; most contain salars (salt-ilncrusted playas). The area of interior drainage totals more than 38,000 square miles, within which salara and clay playas extend over a total area of about 2,800 square miles. In addition, hills and valleys in the Atacama Desert are extensively covered either with a thin hard saline crust, chiefly salt-cemented soil, or with a powdery soil that has a high content of saline material, chiefly anhydrite and gypsum. The region has an exceptional variety of types of hard saline crusts that are generally rare in other deserts, and many morphological and structural salt features, some of which may be unique. Soft saline crusts and clay playas, more characteristic of arid regions elsewhere, are also present. Hard salar crusts have formed by deposition of saline material in open water or by capillary migration and evaporation of near-surface ground water. Such crusts generally range from a few inches to several feet in thickness. Locally, crusts may attain thicknesses of several tens of feet, and one salar, Salar Grande, is a basin filled with high. purity rock salt to a local depth of at least 560 feet. Six general types of hard salar crusts are distinguished: (1) layered massive rock salt with a rugged surface, (2) slabby or nodular silty rock salt, (3) rugged gypsum or anhydrite, (4) massive coarsely crystalline rock salt, (5) smooth rock salt, and (6) silty nitrate-bearing saline crust. Soft surfaces or crusts include moist gypsum-bearing crusts, which commonly contain nodules and layers of ulexite in Andean salars, and moist to dry puffy soils and crusts that contain gypsum, thenardite and mirabilite as the principal saline constituents. An unusual chemical feature of the salars and the desert soils of northern Chile is the general paucity of carbonate minerals (for example, trona, calcite, and aragonite) which are widespread in other desert regions. Among the many morphological and structural features that can be recognized in and near salars of northern Chile, the most unusual occur in hard rock-salt crusts, which in themselves are scarce in other arid regions. Included are features due to corrosion of rock-salt crusts by windblown water or free-flowing surface water, such as: (1) salt cusps and crenulate margins of salars, (2) salt channels, (3) salt pseudobarchans, and (4) salt tubes. Constructional features in the salars include: (1) gypsum buttresses at borders of saline ponds, (2) salt veins, (3) salt stalactites, and (4) salt cones. In some salars, new fresh-water springs have formed steep-walled brine pools in thick rock-salt crusts. Prominent salt cascades and constructional salt terraces have been built up in one Andean valley by springs that are fed by brine from a nearby salar (Salar de Pedernales). Sag basins and prominent scarps occur along faults that cut through the salt mass of Salar Grande. Of, the 67 closed basins in the Andean Highlands of northern Chile, at least 35 show shorelines or deltas of former perennial lakes. Today only flve perennial lakes occur in this area. The former lakes probably formed at one or more times during the Pleistocene and perhaps continued to form into Holocene time. They indicate a climate that was either more rainy or cooler, or both, during the time of their formation. However, the absence of glacial features throughout most of the northern Chilean Andes indicates that the climate during the Pleistocene glacial stages was not greatly different from today's climate. It is estimated that perennial lakes would form in nearly all thil Andean basins if the mean annual rainfall of the region above 10,000 feet in altitude were increased to 15 inches from its present 8 inches, and if the mean annual temperature were about 2° F. less than it is at present.
Second April
(1959)