This paper deals with the conditions under which singular definites, on the one hand, and universally quantified DPs, on the other hand, receive interpretations according to which the sets denoted by the NP-complements of the respective determiner vary with the situations quantified over by a Q-adverb. I show that in both cases such interpretations depend on the availability of situation predicates that are compatible with the presuppositions associated with the respective determiner, as co-variation in both cases comes about via the binding of a covert situation variable that is contained within the NP-complement of the respective determiner. Secondly, I offer an account for the observation that the availability of a co-varying interpretation is more constrained in the case of universally quantified DPs than in the case of singular definites, as far as word order is concerned. This is shown to follow from the fact that co-varying definites in contrast to universally quantified DPs are inherently focus-marked.

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[pt] A quantização eficiente dos coeficientes do filtro de síntese utilizado em codificadores de voz CELP (Code Excited Linear Prediction) é fundamental para o bom desempenho desta classe de codificadores, especialmente quando se considera a operação em taxas inferiores a 8 Kbps. Neste trabalho são examinados três quantizadores vetoriais distintos que apresentam bom potencial para utilização em codificadores que operem a baixas taxas de bits. Cada um desses quantizadores foi implementado dentro da estrutura do codificador VSELP (Vector Sum Excited Linear Prediction) uma variação importante do codificador CELP padronizada para uso na telefonia celular digital americana. Estas três técnicas de quantização vetorial dos coeficientes do filtro baseiam-se na representação LSP e são comparadas em termos da robustez aos erros no canal de transmissão, da complexidade computacional de implementação e, principalmente, da qualidade da voz sintetizada (avaliada em função de medidas objetivas de razão sinal ruído ponderada e de testes de escuta informais). Também é examinada a aplicação da técnica de Simulated Annealing para associação de índices aos níveis de saída dos quantizadores, visando diminuir a sua sensibilidade aos erros no canal de transmissão. / [en] Efficent quantization of synthesis filter coefficients on CELP (Code Excited Linear Prediction) coders is very important for a good performance of this class of coders, specially when operating below 8 Kbps. Three vector quantizers with good potential for utilization on low rate coders are studied. Each of them was implemented inside the structure of VSELP( Vector Sum Linear Prediction) coder, an important menber in the class of CELP coders: VSELP is the north American cellular Communication standard. These three vector quantizers work with LSP parameters and are compared considering the robustness to channel errors, complexity and quality of sythesized speech. The quality of synthesized speech is evaluated considering objective measures of frequency weighted signal to noise ratio and subjective results obtained from informal listening tests. In order to improve the robustness to channel errors, the problem of binary indices assignment to the output levels of the quantizer is also investigated. The technique used to determine good indices assignments is Simulated Annealing

abstract: This study investigates several students’ interpretations and meanings for negations of various mathematical statements with quantifiers, and how their meanings for quantified variables impact their interpretations and denials of these quantified statements. Eight students participated in three separate exploratory teaching interviews and were selected from Transition-to-Proof and advanced mathematics courses beyond Transition-to-Proof. In the first interview, students were asked to interpret mathematical statements from Calculus contexts and provide justifications and refutations for why these statements are true or false in particular situations. In the second interview, students were asked to negate the same set of mathematical statements. Both sets of interviews were analyzed to determine students’ meanings for the quantified variables in the statements, and then these meanings were used to determine how students’ quantifications influenced their interpretations, denials, and evaluations for the quantified statements. In the final interview, students were also be asked to interpret and negation statements from different mathematical contexts. All three interviews were used to determine what meanings comprised students’ interpretations and denials for the given statements. Additionally, students’ interpretations and negations across different statements in the interviews were analyzed and then compared within students and across students to determine if there were differences in student denials across different moments. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Mathematics Education 2020

Cette thèse a pour objet de décrire précisément le sémantisme des quantificateurs vagues du français quelques et plusieurs, et de l’allemand einig-, ein paar, etlich- et mehrer- afin d’en proposer une comparaison. Une analyse qualitative d’un corpus littéraire français nous a permis de dégager des critères de fonctionnement sémantique permettant de rapprocher et de différencier les deux quantificateurs entre eux. Ces critères de fonctionnement ont pu, pour la plupart, être appliqués ensuite aux quantificateurs de l’allemand, analysés à partir d’un corpus parallèle au corpus français. L’étude d’un second corpus allemand, journalistique, a permis de cerner des préférences d’emploi relatives à ce genre de discours. Tous ces quantificateurs vagues partagent un noyau dur de sens « petite quantité vague » et ce sont donc les sèmes et les traits potentiels secondaires qui permettent de connaître le profil sémantique propre de chacun, de comprendre leur fonctionnement et donc leurs préférences d’emploi. Dans une dernière partie nous rapprochons le fonctionnement des quantificateurs des deux langues, proposons des équivalences par contextes d’emploi et des améliorations de leur traitement lexicographique aussi bien monolingue que bilingue. / The purpose of this thesis is to describe precisely the semantics of the French vague quantifiers quelques and plusieurs, and of the German einig-, ein paar, etlich- and mehrer- in order to propose a comparison. A qualitative analysis of a French literary corpus has allowed us to extricate semantic operating criteria allowing to differentiate the quantifiers from each other. These operating criteria had the possibility, for the most part, to be then applied to German quantifiers, analyzed from a similar corpus to the French one. The study of a second German corpus, journalistic, has allowed to hone on the preferences of use relative to that kind of speech. All these vague quantifiers share a core meaning of “small vague quantities” and therefore the semes and the secondary potential traits allow to know each’s own semantic profile, to understand their operation and thus their preferred use. In the last part we put together the functioning of both language’s quantifiers, offer equivalencies by context and improvements of their monolingual and bilingual lexicographic treatment.

Constraint satisfaction is a very well studied and fundamental artificial intelligence technique. Various forms of knowledge can be represented with constraints, and reasoning techniques from disparate fields can be encapsulated within constraint reasoning algorithms. However, problems involving uncertainty, or which have an adversarial nature (for example, games), are difficult to express and solve in the classical constraint satisfaction problem. This thesis is concerned with an extension to the classical problem: the Quantified Constraint Satisfaction Problem (QCSP). QCSP has recently attracted interest. In QCSP, quantifiers are allowed, facilitating the expression of uncertainty. I examine whether QCSP is a useful formalism. This divides into two questions: whether QCSP can be solved efficiently; and whether realistic problems can be represented in QCSP. In attempting to answer these questions, the main contributions of this thesis are the following: - the definition of two new notions of consistency; - four new constraint propagation algorithms (with eight variants in total), along with empirical evaluations; - two novel schemes to implement the pure value rule, which is able to simplify QCSP instances; - a new optimization algorithm for QCSP; - the integration of these algorithms and techniques into a solver named Queso; - and the modelling of the Connect 4 game, and of faulty job shop scheduling, in QCSP. These are set in context by a thorough review of the QCSP literature.

This Thesis addresses issues that lie at the intersection of two broad philosophical projects: inferentialism and contextualism. It discusses and defends an account of the logical concepts based on the following two ideas: 1) that the logical concepts are constituted by our canonical inferential usages of them; 2) that to grasp, or possess, a logical concept is to undertake an inferential commitment to the canonical consequences of the concept when deploying it in a linguistic practice. The account focuses on the concept of universal quantification, with respect to which it also defends the view that linguistic context contributes to an interpretation of instances of the concept by determining the scope of our commitments to the canonical consequences of the quantifier. The model that I offer for the concept of universal quantification relies on, and develops, three main ideas: 1) our understanding of the concept’s inferential role is one according to which the concept expresses full inferential generality; 2) what I refer to as the ‘domain model’ (the view that the universal quantifier always ranges over a domain of quantification, and that the specification of such a domain contributes to determine the proposition expressed by sentences in which the quantifier figures) is subject to a series of crucial difficulties, and should be abandoned; 3) we should regard the undertaking of an inferential commitment to the canonical consequences of the universal quantifier as a stable and objective presupposition of a universally quantified sentence expressing a determinate proposition in context. In the last chapter of the Thesis I sketch a proposal about how contextual quantifier restrictions should be understood, and articulate the main challenges that a commitment-theoretic story about the context-sensitivity of the universal quantifier faces.

Cette thèse est une contribution à la théorie des modèles des corps valués. Les principaux résultats de ce texte sont des résultats d’éliminations des quantificateurs et des imaginaires. Le premier chapitre contient une étude des imaginaires dans les extensions finies de Qp. On y démontre que ces corps ainsi que leurs ultraproduits éliminent les imaginaires dans le langage géométrique. On en déduit un résultat de rationalité uniforme pour les fonctions zêta associées aux familles de relations d’équivalences définissables dans les extensions finies de Qp. La motivation première du deuxième chapitre est l’étude de W(F_p^alg) en tant que corps valué analytique de différence. Plus généralement, on démontre un théorème d’élimination des quantificateurs de corps dans le langage RV pour les corps valués analytiques -Henséliens de caractéristique nulle. On donne aussi une axiomatisation de la théorie de W(F_p^alg) ainsi qu’une preuve qu’elle est NIP. Dans le troisième chapitre, on prouve la densité des types définissables dans certains enrichissements d’ACVF. On en déduit un critère pour l’élimination des imaginaires et la propriété d’extension invariante. Ce chapitre contient aussi des résultats abstraits sur les ensembles extérieurement définissables dans les théories NIP. Dans le dernier chapitre, les résultats du chapitre précédent sont appliqués à VDF, la modèle complétion des corps valués munis d’une dérivation qui préserve la valuation, pour obtenir l’élimination des imaginaires dans le langage géométrique ainsi que la densité des types définissables et la propriété d’extension invariante. Ce chapitre contient aussi des considérations sur les fonctions définissables, les types et les groupes définissables dans VDF. / This thesis is about the model theory of valued fields. The main results in this text are eliminationsof quantifiers and imaginaries. The first chapter is concerned with imaginaries in finite extensions of Qp. I show that these fields and their ultraproducts eliminate imaginaries in the geometric language. As a corollary, I obtain the uniform rationality of zeta functions associated to families of equivalence relations that aredefinable in finite extensions of Qp.The motivation for the second chapter is to study W(F_p^alg) as an analytic difference valued field. More generally, I show a field quantifier elimination theorem in the RV-language for -Henselian characteristic zero valued fields with an analytic structure. I also axiomatise the theory of W(F_p^alg) and I show that this theory is NIP.In the third chapter, I prove the density of definable types in certain enrichments of ACVF. From this result, I deduce a criterion for the elimination of imaginaries and the invariant property. This chapter also contains abstract results on externally definable sets in NIP theories. In the last chapter, the previous chapter is applied to VDF, the model completion of valued fields with a valuation preserving derivation, to obtain the elimination of imaginaries in the geometric language, as well as the density of definable types and the invariant extension property. This chapter also contains considerations about definable functions, types and definable groupes in VDF.

Huang, Aijun. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 157-166). / Abstract also in Chinese. / Acknowledgement --- p.i / List of tables and figures --- p.vi / Abstract --- p.viii / 摘要 --- p.x / Chapter CHAPTER ONE --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Outline of the thesis --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Organization of the thesis --- p.9 / Chapter CHAPTER TWO --- Count-mass distinction and acquisition issues --- p.12 / Chapter 2.0 --- Introduction --- p.12 / Chapter 2.1 --- "Syntactic, semantic and ontological aspects of the count-mass distinction" --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2 --- Semantic account of the count-mass distinction --- p.17 / Chapter 2.3 --- Syntactic account of the count-mass distinction --- p.19 / Chapter 2.4 --- Acquisition of the count-mass distinction --- p.23 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- Semantic account of the acquisition of the count-mass distinction --- p.23 / Chapter 2.4.2 --- Syntactic account of the acquisition of the count-mass distinction --- p.26 / Chapter 2.4.3 --- Excursion into the syntactic account of the acquisition of the count-mass distinction --- p.31 / Chapter CHAPTER THREE --- Interpretation of bare nouns and classifiers in Chinese and review of the acquisition of Chinese classifiers --- p.39 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.39 / Chapter 3.2 --- Interpretation of bare nouns in Chinese --- p.39 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Bare nouns in Chinese are unspecified in number and individuation --- p.39 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Arguments against a lexically-based count-mass distinction in Chinese nouns --- p.43 / Chapter 3.3 --- Dimensions of classifiers --- p.48 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Taxonomy of classifiers --- p.48 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Quantification function of classifiers: classifiers as units of measures --- p.52 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- Individuation function of classifiers: a distinction between individuating classifiers and non-individuating classifiers --- p.54 / Chapter 3.3.4 --- Classification function of classifiers --- p.58 / Chapter 3.3.5 --- "Relation between the quantification, individuation and classification functions of classifiers" --- p.60 / Chapter 3.4 --- Arguments against Cheng and Sybesma´ةs (1998，1999，2005) account of the count- mass distinction in Chinese --- p.62 / Chapter 3.5 --- Review of the acquisition of Chinese classifiers --- p.68 / Chapter 3.5.1 --- Preponderant use of the general classifier ge: early acquisition of the quantification function of classifiers --- p.69 / Chapter 3.5.2 --- Delayed mastery of specific classifiers --- p.70 / Chapter 3.5.3 --- Acquisition order of individual classifiers and non-individual classifiers --- p.73 / Chapter 3.5.4 --- Experiments on children´ةs sensitivity to the distinction between count classifiers and mass classifiers --- p.75 / Chapter CHAPTER FOUR --- Experiments on the acquisition of individual classifiers and container classifiers --- p.86 / Chapter 4.0 --- Setting the stage --- p.86 / Chapter 4.1 --- General introduction of research questions and experimental design --- p.88 / Chapter 4.2 --- Experiment 1: Acquisition of individual classifiers and bare nouns --- p.95 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- "Subjects, Material and test items" --- p.95 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Procedures --- p.101 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Findings in Experiment 1 --- p.105 / Chapter 4.2.3.1 --- Interpretation of number and quantification function of classifiers in the individual classifier and the bare noun contexts --- p.105 / Chapter 4.2.3.2 --- Interpretation of partial object situations in the individual classifier and the bare noun contexts --- p.109 / Chapter 4.3 --- Experiment 2: Acquisition of container classifiers --- p.116 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Method --- p.117 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Findings in Experiment 2 --- p.124 / Chapter 4.3.2.1 --- Interpretation of the quantification function of container classifiers --- p.124 / Chapter 4.3.2.2 --- Interpretation of noun denotation in the container classifier context --- p.127 / Chapter 4.4 --- Experiment 3: Acquisition the general classifier ge paired with substance situations --- p.131 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- Method --- p.132 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- Findings in Experiment 3 --- p.134 / Chapter 4.5 --- Summary of the findings in Experiment 1，Experiment 2 and Experiment 3 --- p.139 / Chapter CHAPTER FIVE --- General discussion --- p.144 / Chapter 5.1 --- Count-mass distinction in Chinese revisited --- p.145 / Chapter 5.2 --- Quantification and individuation in the acquisition of noun denotations --- p.150 / Chapter 5.3 --- Further research --- p.155 / References --- p.157 / Appendix 1 List of test sentences used in Experiment 1 --- p.167 / Appendix 2 List of test sentences used in Experiment 2 --- p.170 / Appendix 3 List of test sentences used in Experiment 3 --- p.172 / Appendix 4 Pictures of whole and partial objects paired with individual classifiers and bare nouns in Experiment 1 --- p.173 / Appendix 5 Pictures of whole and partial objects and substances paired with container classifiers used in Experiment 2 --- p.174 / Appendix 6 Picture of substance situations with or without a container paired with the general classifier ge in Experiment 3 --- p.175

Linguists and philosophers of language have shown increasing interest in the expressions that refer to quantifiers: determiners like 'every' and 'many', in addition to determiner phrases like 'some king' and 'no cat'. This thesis addresses several puzzles where the way we understand quantifier expressions depends on features that go beyond standard truth conditional semantic meaning. One puzzle concerns the fact that it is often natural to understand 'Every king is in the yard' as being true if (say) all of the kings at the party are in the yard, even though the standard truth conditions predict it to be true if and only if every king in the universe is in the yard. Another puzzle emerges from the observation that 'Every American king is in the yard' sounds odd relative to contexts where there are no American kings, even though the standard truth conditions predict it to be trivially true. These puzzles have been widely discussed within linguistics and philosophy of language, and have implications for topics as diverse as the distinction between semantics and pragmatics and the ontological commitments of ordinary individuals. Yet few attempts have been made to incorporate discussions from the linguistics literature into the philosophical literature. This thesis argues that attending to the linguistics literature helps to address these puzzles. In particular, my solutions to these puzzles rely on notions from work on information structure, an often overlooked area of linguistics. I will use these notions to develop a new theory of the pragmatics of ordinary discourse, in the process of resolving the puzzles. In the first two chapters, I provide accessible overviews of key notions from the literature on quantifier expressions and information structure. In the third chapter, I discuss the problem of contextual domain restriction. In the fourth chapter, I consider the problems posed by empty restrictors. In the final chapter, I tackle the issue of category mistakes.