Jiang, Yan; (1995) Logical dependency in quantification: A study conducted within the framework of Labelled Deductive Systems, with special reference to English and Mandarin Chinese. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This thesis is a study on quantification in the formal logical system of Labelled Deductive Systems as applied to Natural Language Understanding (LDSNL for short). Chapter 1 starts with a discussion on the treatment of quantification in the GB framework, followed by an examination on branching quantification. Then, in Chapter 2, details of LDSNL are introduced in a way that its logical motivations are explained in the context of natural language understanding. Chapter 3 first discusses Game-theoretic Semantics and its treatment of quantifiers. This is followed by discussions of some other procedural treatments of quantification alternative to the first-order treatments. After that, detailed treatments of quantification in English by LDSNL as proposed by Gabbay & Kempson (1992b) are presented in Chapter 4. Instead of viewing quantifiers as operators, I have followed the works of Gabbay and Kempson in treating them as words projecting meta-variables over the labels, whose values are to be instantiated in the dynamic process of utterance interpretation, which is conceived as a procedural, proof-deductive process. Instantiation of variables will bring about the construction of dependency relation, the varieties of which lead to ambiguity of scope. Chapter 5 first presents the crucial data in Chinese and a short survey of the past literature. It then gives an analysis of Chinese quantification in LDSNL as well as a comparative study of the phenomenon between Chinese and English. Different properties of quantification between English and Chinese are attributed to a delaying mechanism which is at work in English but not in Chinese. A deeper linguistic motivation is given in the form of the Kempson and Jiang Hypothesis. Additional supporting evidence for the hypothesis is also provided from the study of double-object constructions and dative/locative constructions. A comparative discussion between LDSNL and treatments in Categorial Grammars and Discourse Representation Theory is given in Chapter 6. The thesis also attempts to relate the notions, mechanisms and findings in LDS to other linguistic frameworks, notably the Government-Binding Theory, Montague Semantics, Categorial Grammars, Discourse Representation Theory, Game-Theoretical Semantics and Branching Quantifier Theory.

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