Temporal constructions in Afrikaans are ambiguous with respect to aspectual meaning. The past tense construction with het ge-, for instance, can be interpreted as progressive, perfective or anterior. In the same vein, the unmarked present tense construction can be interpreted as a construction with a progressive or a perfective meaning. This aspectual ambiguity of the Afrikaans verbal system has a significant effect on the way in which Afrikaans grammar is described or understood. The observation by native speakers, linguists, literary specialists and writers that the temporal constructions in Afrikaans are vague or ambiguous with regard to aspectual meaning has led to certain views about the expression of tense in the language. In Afrikaans literature, for example, there is a tradition to write prose primarily in the present tense, because of the perception that the past tense is not adequate to convey particular semantic nuances. Furthermore, certain speakers of Afrikaans and linguists believe that Afrikaans grammar has been simplified and just does not have aspect. However, Afrikaans possesses alternative strategies to specify aspectual meaning. The five prototypical ways of expressing aspectual meaning in Afrikaans are i) lexical constructions (such as adverbs and conjunctions); ii) constructions with affixes, iii) reduplication constructions; iv) passive constructions; and v) periphrastic constructions. Aspectual meaning in Afrikaans is an almost entirely unexplored research field. In my opinion, the literature on the expressions of aspectual meaning in Afrikaans contains two shortcomings. First, Afrikaans aspect needs to be described theoretically. Second, more research is needed concerning the specific ways in which aspectual meaning is expressed in Afrikaans. The scope of this entire research field is too large for a single study. For that reason, the present study aims to reveal the way in which periphrastic constructions are used to convey progressive meaning. As far as temporal meaning is concerned, it is possible to make a distinction between tempus meaning, which stands for deictic temporal meanings (i.e. past, present and future tense), and aspectual meaning, which stands for non-deictic temporal meanings such as duration, point of view and the internal structure of the situation. One can also distinguish between lexical and grammatical aspect. Lexical aspect has to do with the conceptual properties of a situation or, in other words, with the question whether it is static or dynamic, telic or atelic and durative. There are five situation types: states, activities, achievements, accomplishments and semelfactives. Grammatical aspect concerns the point of view from which the situation is perceived. One can make a distinction between perfective and imperfective grammatical aspect. The latter can be subdivided into imperfectives conveying habitual meaning and imperfectives conveying progressive meaning. Grammaticalisation theory is useful and a relevant tool to provide answers to the afore-mentioned research questions. First, it offers insight into the manner in which the ambiguous tempus constructions of Afrikaans came into being. Second, it can be used to show how the alternative aspectual constructions have developed and how they are currently employed in the language. For the purpose of this study, grammaticalisation is regarded as language change in which a construction loses its lexical meaning and comes to express grammatical meaning. Grammatical constructions can be used in more contexts than their lexical counterparts, as grammaticalised uses have been generalized contextually. Grammatical constructions lose the morphosyntactic properties typical of their lexical counterparts and assume grammatical properties. Grammaticalisation is a typological phenomenon and the lexical origin of a grammatical construction is often the same in different languages. Grammaticalizing constructions exhibit an increase in frequency. Afrikaans and Dutch are closely related languages and possess cognate periphrastic progressive constructions, viz. i) the aan het- / aan die- ii) VPOS te / VPOS en-; en iii) bezig- / besig- progressive constructions. To examine the use of periphrastic progressive constructions in Afrikaans from a grammaticalisation perspective, I compare the results of a study of these constructions in an Afrikaans corpus to those of previous studies of the periphrastic progressive constructions in Dutch. The respective constructions are compared on the basis of four criteria, viz. i) frequency; ii) verb collocations; iii) transitivity; and iv) combinatorial possibilities with other aspectual periphrastic constructions. The lexical origins of the various constructions are also considered. The comparison of the constructions on the basis of the afore-mentioned criteria makes it possible to demonstrate how the periphrastic progressive constructions in Afrikaans came into being and how they have developed into grammatical constructions conveying aspectual meaning and in which way the different Afrikaans periphrastic constructions express progressive meaning. / PhD (Afrikaans and Dutch), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

<p align="justify">Cette thèse analyse les propriétés sémantiques et discursives des prédicats d'état (<i>laid, généreux</i>) ainsi que des prédicats causatifs et résultatifs, et plus particulièrement des verbes psychologiques à Expérienceur objet (<i>stimuler, encourager</i>). Le cadre adopté est celui de la sémantique néo-davidsonienne (Parsons, 1990) et de la sémantique du discours (Kamp & Reyle 1993, Asher 1993). La première partie (chap 1-7) est consacrée aux prédicats d'état, et la seconde aux prédicats causatifs et résultatifs (chap. 8-9). </p><p><p><p align="justify">Dans le chapitre 1, on expose les arguments en faveur de l'idée que les verbes d'état ont un argument implicite davidsonien comme les verbes d'action. Abordant ensuite les constructions en <i>by/in</i> (<i>by/in smoking, he broke his promise</i>), l'auteur propose de considérer, avec Goldman et contre Davidson, que celles-ci décrivent deux événements distincts, liés par une relation de génération. L'analyse goldmanienne de ces constructions est ensuite étendue aux prédicats d'état (<i>in doing this, he was clever</i>), ce qui permet de distinguer les prédicats qui dénotent un état dépendant d'une action, comme <i>clever</i> en usage occurrentiel, des prédicats qui dénotent un état indépendant d'une action, comme <i>beautiful</i> (cf. <i>in doing this, he was beautiful</i>). </p><p><p><p align="justify">Le chapitre 2 fait le point sur les spécificités des prédicats d'état par rapport aux prédicats d'activité. Y est notamment montré que certains prédicats d'état acceptent le "progressif interprétatif" (<i>tu es en train de croire au Père Noël!</i>). Ce type de progressif est distingué du progressif standard et du progressif actif anglais (<i>he was being clever</i>); sont définis également les "prédicats interprétatifs" qui n'acceptent que ce progressif.</p><p><p><p align="justify">Le chapitre 3 élabore une typologie aspectuelle des prédicats d'état. Sont d'abord distingués quatre types d'états en fonction de l'intervalle pendant lequel l'état en cause est vérifié. On montre que cette quadri-partition rend mieux compte des données linguistiques que la dichotomie classique en <i>stage level predicates et individual level predicates</i>. Ensuite sont définis les "prédicats d'état pur" comme <i>beau</i>, qui dénotent un état indépendant de toute action, et les "prédicats d'état endo-actionnel" comme <i>généreux/bruyant</i> en usage occurrentiel, qui dénote un état généré par une action. On présente des arguments contre l'assimilation de ces derniers prédicats à des prédicats d'action. Est alors analysée l'ambiguïté des prédicats comme "généreux" dans l'emploi occurrentiel: <i>Pierre m'a donné des bonbons. Il a été généreux</i> peut vouloir dire soit que Pierre a été généreux de (décider de) me donner des bonbons (lecture-d), soit qu'il a été généreux dans la manière de me les donner (lecture-m). Dans la foulée, on examine la relation temporelle qui prend place entre un état <i>s</i> et l'action <i>e</i> dont il dépend. Enfin, on montre que l'analyse proposée peut rendre compte de la concurrence entre passé composé et imparfait dans les phrases dénotant un état occurrentiel.</p><p><p><p align="justify">A partir de la typologie aspectuelle élaborée au chapitre 3, le chapitre 4 revisite le problème que soulèvent certains prédicats d'état dans les constructions à prédicat second descriptif (<i>Pierre a donné des bonbons saoul/?généreux</i>) et propose une nouvelle solution. On montre ensuite que cette solution peut être adaptée pour résoudre un problème moins étudié, à savoir celui que posent certains prédicats d'état dans les subordonnées temporelles en <i>quand</i> (cf. <i>Il était généreux, quand il a distribué les bonbons versus ?Il a distribué des bonbons quand il était généreux</i>). Enfin, on fait le point sur la difficulté qu'éprouvent les prédicats évaluatifs à entrer dans les constructions présuppositionnelles, parmi lesquelles les subordonnées temporelles, mais les GN définis (<i>La femme rousse/?généreuse commanda une bière</i>).</p><p><p><p align="justify">Le chapitre 5 est consacré aux relations rhétoriques qui s'établissent entre la description d'un état et la description d'un événement, aux combinaisons possibles entre ces relations rhétoriques, et à la manière dont tel ou tel prédicat d'état, vu ses propriétés sémantiques, contribue à établir telle ou telle relation rhétorique avec la description d'événement. </p><p><p><p align="justify">Le chapitre 6 revient sur le problème que soulève l'indéfini des en lecture non générique avec certains prédicats d'état, notamment les prédicats évaluatifs (<i>Des livres étaient sales versus ?Des livres étaient merveilleux</i>). En se fondant sur les outils de la <i>Decision Theoretic Semantics</i> (Merin 1999), l'auteur fait l'hypothèse qu'un prédicat <i>P</i> n'accepte <i>des</i> que si la quantité des éléments satisfaisant <i>P</i> dans le contexte est non pertinente pour les fins du discours, et s'il est clair, par ailleurs, que les <i>qualités</i> implicites que peuvent instancier les dits éléments ne contribuent en aucune façon à expliquer qu'ils satisfont <i>P</i>. On montre que ces deux conditions sont respectées (resp. violées) avec les prédicats d'état compatibles (resp. incompatibles) avec <i>des</i> dans sa lecture non générique.</p><p><p><p align="justify">Le chapitre 7 est consacré à la sémantique qu'il faut assigner aux prédicats d'état <i>évaluatifs</i>. On expose tout d'abord les arguments en faveur d'une sémantique "réaliste", qui analyse les prédicats évaluatifs comme des prédicats unaires dénotant de vraies propriétés. On distingue ensuite, dans le contenu informationnel des énoncés évaluatifs, un composant assertif et deux implicatures associées. On termine par l'analyse des prédicats évaluatifs superlatifs (<i>merveilleux</i>); est argumentée l'idée que ces prédicats ont un composant expressif, en ce sens que le locuteur, en les utilisant, implicite qu'une entité satisfaisant le prédicat a déclenché en lui une émotion, vécue ou rejouée lors de l'énonciation. On montre en quoi ce composant expressif contribue à expliquer pourquoi de tels prédicats sont difficilement utilisables à l'impératif ou dans certains types de questions.</p><p><p><p align="justify">Le chapitre 8 répertorie trois classes parmi les verbes, dits "résultatifs", qui présupposent l'occurrence d'un événement <i>e</i> causant ou générant l'événement asserté <i>e'</i>. On présente d'abord le problème que pose la définition de cette présupposition, puis une nouvelle solution est exposée. On montre alors que la présupposition des verbes résultatifs -- achèvements droits et accomplissements strictement forts --- est de nature scalaire et peut s'expliquer par la Loi d'exhaustivité de Ducrot.</p><p><p><p align="justify">Le chapitre 9 est consacré aux verbes psychologiques à Expérienceur objet (VPEO). Après avoir classé ces verbes en fonction de leur structure événementielle, on fait le point sur les différentes lectures qu'ils peuvent accepter. On montre ensuite qu'à la différence des VPEO acceptables dans les constructions agentives, les VPEO qui y sont peu acceptables exhibent deux propriétés cruciales. D'abord, ils présupposent toujours, à l'instar des verbes étudiés dans le chapitre 8, l'occurrence de l'événement impliquant le sujet; ensuite, certains d'entre eux sont "interprétatifs", en ce sens que l'assertion du changement d'état psychologique ne s'avère pertinente pour les fins du discours que si l'interprétant connaît, par ailleurs, l'événement qui cause ce changement. Cela permet d'expliquer pourquoi les verbes en question ne peuvent faire avancer la narration comme le ferait un prédicat d'action normal, et pourquoi ils sont peu compatibles avec les adverbes de manière orientés sur l'agent, les pseudo-clivées ou les compléments de lieu.</p><p><p align="justify">On termine par l'analyse aspectuelle de la classe des VPEO, en montrant qu'on y trouve des membres des cinq classes aspectuelles distinguées dans le chapitre précédent.</p><p><p> / Doctorat en philosophie et lettres, Orientation linguistique / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Among Urdu’s many verb+verb constructions, this thesis focuses on those constructions, which combine the stem of a main content verb with another inflected verb which is used in a semantically bleached sense. Prior work on these constructions has been focused on their structural make-up and syntactic behavior in various environments. While there is consensus among scholars (Butt 1995, Hook 1977, Carnikova 1989, Porizka 2000 et al.) that these stem+verb constructions encode aspectual information, to date no clear theory has been put forward to explain the nature of their aspectual contribution. In short, we do not have a clear idea why these constructions are used instead of simple verbs. This work is an attempt to understand the precise function of these constructions. I propose that simple verbs (henceforth SV) in Urdu deal only with the action of the verb whereas (regardless of the semantic information contributed by the second inflected verb,1) the stem+verb constructions essentially deal with the action of the verb as well as the state of affairs resulting from this action. The event represented by these constructions is essentially a telic event as defined by Comrie (1976), whose resultant state is highlighted from the use of these constructions. The attention of the listener is then shifted to the result of this telic event, whose salience in the discourse is responsible for various interpretations of the event; hence my term ‘resultive construction’ (henceforth RC). When these constructions are made using the four special verbs (rah ‘stay’, sak ‘can’, paa ‘manage’ and cuk ‘finish’), the product is not resultive. Each of these verbs behaves differently and is somewhere between a resultive and an auxiliary verb construction. This work can be extended to other verb-verb construction in Urdu and other related and non-related languages as well. The analysis of the precise function of the RCs can also help in developing a model for them in various functional grammars. The proposed properties of RCs can be utilized in the semantic analysis of the Urdu quantifiers. This work should aid in identification and explanation of constructions in other languages, particularly those that are non-negatable under normal contexts. [1] All second inflected verbs with the exception of four special verbs rah ‘stay’, sak ‘can’, paa ‘manage’ and cuk ‘finish’. These four special verbs are either auxiliaries or modals as identified in prior literature.

Nous présentons une recherche en ingénierie des connaissances appliquée aux prédicats linguistiques et aux définitions lexicographiques de la théorie Sens-Texte (TST). Notre méthodologie comporte trois étapes. 1. Nous montrons en quoi la conceptualisation de la TST devrait être étendue pour faciliter sa formalisation. Nous justifions la nécessité de définir un niveau sémantique profond (SemP) à base de graphes. Nous y définissons la notion de type d'unité sémantique profonde et sa structure actancielle, de sorte que leur organisation hiérarchique puisse correspondre à une hiérarchie de sens au sein de laquelle ces structures actancielles sont héritées et spécialisées. Nous reconceptualisons les définitions lexicographiques au niveau SemP, et au niveau du dictionnaire. Finalement, nous présentons un prototype d'éditeur de définitions basé sur la manipulation directe de graphes. 2. Nous proposons un formalisme de représentation des connaissances adapté à cette conceptualisation. Nous démontrons que les logiques de description et le formalisme des Graphes Conceptuels ne sont pas adaptés, et nous construisons alors un nouveau formalisme, dit des Graphes d'Unités. 3. Nous étudions l'opérationnalisation du formalisme des Graphes d'Unités. Nous lui associons une sémantique formelle basée sur la théorie des modèles et l'algèbre relationnelle, et montrons que les conditions de décidabilité du raisonnement logique correspondent aux intuitions des lexicographes. Nous proposons également une implémentation du formalisme avec les standards du web sémantique, ce qui permet de profiter des architectures existantes pour l'interopérationnalisation sur le web des données lexicales liées. / We present our research in applying knowledge engineering to linguistic predicates and lexicographic definitions of the Meaning-Text Theory (MTT). We adopt a three-step methodology. 1. We first show how the MTT conceptualization should be extended to ease its formalization. We justify the need of defining a new graph-based deep semantic level. We define the notion of deep semantic unit types and its actantial structure, so that their hierarchical organization may correspond to a hierarchy of meanings, inside which actantial structures are inherited and specialized. We re-conceptualize lexicographic definitions at the deep semantic level, and at the level of dictionaries. Finally, we present a definition editor prototype based on graph direct manipulation, which will allow us, in future work, to integrate our formal model into explanatory combinatorial lexicographic projects. 2. We then propose a knowledge representation formalism (KR) adapted for this conceptualization. We demonstrate that Description Logics and the Conceptual Graphs formalism do not fit our needs. This leads us to construct a new knowledge representation formalism: the Unit Graphs formalism. 3. Finally, we operationalize the Unit Graphs formalism. We assign it a formal semantic model, which we create based on model theory and relational algebra. We then show that the reasoning decidability conditions match the intuitions that lexicographers have. We also provide an implementation using semantic web standards, which enable us to use existing architectures for sharing, interoperability, and knowledge querying over the web of lexical linked data.

In the Northern Athabaskan languages Tlicho Yatiì, Dene and Dene Dzage, copulas and auxiliary verbs are based on reflexes of two Proto-Athabaskan roots, *-LII and *-T’E’. I propose that in the first two languages, copulas with nominal complements show distributional differences that derive from a stage-/individual-level predicate distinction, and that historically, this distinction in the proto-language motivated the development of auxiliaries marking tense/aspect/mode distinctions solely from the copulas based on *-LII. Further, I propose that subsequent to this development, the original stage-/individual-level predicate distinction between the copulas disappeared in Dene Dzage, leaving the TAM markers as evidence of its historical existence. I provide support for these contentions with data from fieldwork in Tlicho Yatiì and from textual sources in all three languages, grounding the work in current theories of syntax and of temporal grammar.

<p>The purpose of this dissertation is to provide a proper treatment for two groups of logical paradoxes: semantic paradoxes and set-theoretic paradoxes. My main thesis is that the two different groups of paradoxes need different kinds of solution. Based on the analysis of the diagonal method and truth-gap theory, I propose a functional-deflationary interpretation for semantic notions such as ‘heterological’, ‘true’, ‘denote’, and ‘define’, and argue that the contradictions in semantic paradoxes are due to a misunderstanding of the non-representational nature of these semantic notions. Thus, they all can be solved by clarifying the relevant confusion: the liar sentence and the heterological sentence do not have truth values, and phrases generating paradoxes of definability (such as that in Berry’s paradox) do not denote an object. I also argue against three other leading approaches to the semantic paradoxes: the Tarskian hierarchy, contextualism, and the paraconsistent approach. I show that they fail to meet one or more criteria for a satisfactory solution to the semantic paradoxes. For the set-theoretic paradoxes, I argue that the criterion for a successful solution in the realm of set theory is mathematical usefulness. Since the standard solution, i.e. the axiomatic solution, meets this requirement, it should be accepted as a successful solution to the set-theoretic paradoxes.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This dissertation is about the nature of perspectival thoughts and the context-sensitivity of the language used to express them. It focuses on two kinds of perspectival thoughts: ‘subjective' evaluative thoughts about matters of personal taste, such as 'Beetroot is delicious' or 'Skydiving is fun', and first-personal or de se thoughts about oneself, such as 'I am hungry' or 'I have been fooled.' The dissertation defends of a novel form of relativism about truth - the idea that the truth of some (but not all) perspectival thought and talk is relative to the perspective of an evaluating subject or group. In Part I, I argue that the realm of ‘subjective' evaluative thought and talk whose truth is perspective-relative includes attributions of knowledge of the form 'S knows that p.' Following a brief introduction (chapter 1), chapter 2 presents a new, error-theoretic objection against relativism about knowledge attributions. The case for relativism regarding knowledge attributions rests on the claim that relativism is the only view that explains all of the empirical data from speakers' use of the word "know" without recourse to an error theory. In chapter 2, I show that the relativist can only account for sceptical paradoxes and ordinary epistemic closure puzzles if she attributes a problematic form of semantic blindness to speakers. However, in 3 I show that all major competitor theories - forms of invariantism and contextualism - are subject to equally serious error-theoretic objections. This raises the following fundamental question for empirical theorising about the meaning of natural language expressions: If error attributions are ubiquitous, by which criteria do we evaluate and compare the force of error-theoretic objections and the plausibility of error attributions? I provide a number of criteria and argue that they give us reason to think that relativism's error attributions are more plausible than those of its competitors. In Part II, I develop a novel unified account of the content and communication of perspectival thoughts. Many relativists regarding ‘subjective' thoughts and Lewisians about de se thoughts endorse a view of belief as self-location. In chapter 4, I argue that the self-location view of belief is in conflict with the received picture of linguistic communication, which understands communication as the transmission of information from speaker's head to hearer's head. I argue that understanding mental content and speech act content in terms of sequenced worlds allows a reconciliation of these views. On the view I advocate, content is modelled as a set of sequenced worlds - possible worlds ‘centred' on a group of individuals inhabiting the world at some time. Intuitively, a sequenced world is a way a group of people may be. I develop a Stalnakerian model of communication based on sequenced worlds content, and I provide a suitable semantics for personal pronouns and predicates of personal taste. In chapter 5, I show that one of the advantages of this model is its compatibility with both nonindexical contextualism and truth relativism about taste. I argue in chapters 5 and 6 that the empirical data from eavesdropping, retraction, and disagreement cases supports a relativist completion of the model, and I show in detail how to account for these phenomena on the sequenced worlds view.

<p>Ovim se istraživanjem na primeru osnovnih predikata (glagola) percepcije ruskog i srpskog jezika odgovara na pitanja vezana za sistemske odnose u oblasti leksike, klasifikaciju jezičkih jedinica, definisanje leksema, međusobnu zavisnost značenja leksema i njihovih morfolo&scaron;kih i sintaksičkih obeležja. Osnovni predikati (glagoli) percepcije ruskog i srpskog jezika pozicioniraju se unutar semantičkih paradigmi, zasnovanih na interakciji diferencijalnih i zajedničkih komponenata značenja svojih članova. Članovi paradigmi izdvajaju se na osnovu kriterijuma određenih u skladu s principima organizacije centra i periferije leksičkog sistema. Pozicioniranje izdvojenih predstavnika vizuelne, auditivne, olfaktorne, gustativne i taktilne percepcije, kao i njihovih vidskih korelata, rezultira utvrđivanjem strukture paradigmi i smerova semantičke derivacije u njima.</p> / <p>This dissertation focuses on systemic relationships among the basic predicates (verbs) of perception in Russian and Serbian. It investigates issues related to the lexicon, the classification of linguistic units, the relationships between the meanings of lexemes and their morphological and syntactic features, as well as the definition of the main members of the analysed lexico-semantic group. The basic predicates of perception in Russian and Serbian are positioned within the semantic paradigms, based on the interaction of differential and general components of meaning of their members. The members of the paradigms are selected based on criteria established in accordance with the principle of the organization of lexical systems into core and periphery. The positioning of the selected representatives of visual, auditory, olfactory, gustative and tactile perception, as well as their aspectual correlates, results in determining the structure of the paradigms and the directions of semantic derivation in them.</p>

This master's thesis deals with implementation of ISO C99 language interpreter. The goal of this thesis is to provide support of education in C language programming and fast algorithm prototyping. It enables students to create own C programs and to experiment with language constructions without compiling. User interface includes editor and simple debugger. The interpreter is implemented in a novel grammar development environment written in Java language - ANTLRWorks which includes ANTLR language tool.