This thesis is mainly concerned with semantic data modelling related to database design. The domain of this research is restricted to general data modelling and the discussion is carried out at the conceptual level. The thesis assesses a number of serious modelling shortcomings of the conventional data models and reviews several basic principles and mechanisms developed in current semantic data modelling research. Based on these findings, the thesis identifies the inadequacy of the conceptualization of data modelling and develops the two-view conceptualization of data modelling. The basic idea behind the two-view conceptualization is that the conceptual structure of the applications being modelled should be separated from its external data representation. A new semantic database model, SDBM, is designed based on the conceptualization. The model makes a clear separation between the conceptual structure and its external data representation. It offers a data type mechanism to deal with the data representation, a window mechanism to model the conceptual structure, and a transaction mechanism to provide database operations. One of the major extensions of the current semantic data models is that with SDBM the specialization relationship is just a special case of constraints that can be specified among SDBM windows. A formal syntax and informal semantics of SDBM are given in the thesis along with comparisons between SDBM and a closely-related semantic data model, Taxis. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

Temporal monoreferentials in French (hier, aujourd'hui, demain, the names of the days and the names of the months), although used frequently, were never the subject of a comprehensive study before Curat (1999), resulting in imprecision and inconsistency in their classification. Defining their status is thus at the centre of this study, which shows that hier, aujourd'hui, demain and the names of the days are substantives, but unlike other substantives, they can, in themselves, refer to a «sole individual* and play the role of noun phrases without a determiner. Their usage without a determiner depends on their link to the nexus ego-hic-nunc (they are defined by the time of their enunciation) and the unicity of their referent. They do, however, require the presence of a determiner once detached from that nexus or when they refer to several referents (real or not). A more or less strong lexical predisposition for «nynegocentric» (i.e speaker referential) deicticity allows their lexeme to have a special link with the nexus ego-hic-nunc, and the nexus thus imposes the monoreferential constraint - hence the use without a determiner. In first place on the scale of nynegocentric deicticity are the terms which make up the enunciative framework (je, tu, ici, etc.). Hier, aujourd'hui and demain are placed second: they but rarely accept the presence of a determiner. Next are the names of the days, which may be used with or without a determiner, followed by the other substantives which require the presence of a determiner for reference purposes. One can thus conclude that hier, aujourd'hui, demain and the names of the days make up a subcategory of common nouns. The operation of the names of the months differs from that of the names of the days in terms of both syntax and reference (they seldom vary in number, refer to one individual, and function without a determiner most of the time, independently of any link with the nexus ego-hic-nunc); it more closely reflects that of proper nouns. They form a subcategory of proper nouns. The approach used, based primarily on the work of Kleiber and Curat, was grammatical, semantic and deictic. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

This thesis examines the semantic definition of a programming language by a form of attribute grammar for ease of understanding. The attributes are expressed in a simple macro language and when evaluated produce code for an abstract machine. Part of an actual definition is looked at and found to be too obscure to be useful. The reasons for the obscurity are identified and suggestions are made for eliminating them. / Science, Faculty of / Computer Science, Department of / Graduate

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Considerable resources in U.S. legal studies are devoted to determining the precise meaning of contested terms specifically in statutory interpretation. Traditional judicial approaches have defined meaning using dictionaries. This reliance has led to Mouritsen’s (2010) observation that "the judicial conception of lexical meaning—i.e., what judges think about what words mean … is often [subjectively] outcome determinative." Beginning with Mouritsen’s (2010) article, a movement in U.S. legal scholarship offers corpus linguistics as a more objective method to resolving contested meaning (Lee and Mouritsen, 2018). However, I assert that weaknesses still exist in contemporary applications of corpus linguistics to legal interpretation. I first review methodological differences in two corpus-based projects that attempt to resolve the meaning of the contested term, "emoluments," a high-profile Supreme Court-bound contemporary issue related to the legitimacy of the Trump presidency (Phillips and White, 2018; Cunningham and Egbert, 2019). Unfortunately, the results of these two studies are in conflict. Based upon a critique of these projects, I advocate for a more objective method of interpreting the results of corpus analyses using multiple human coders following rater reliability research models often used in sociolinguistics and second language acquisition research. In order to test our assumptions, I apply this approach to utilizing corpus linguistics to define the meaning of "sex" in two highly charged cases pending in the U.S. Supreme Court within the context of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination "because of. . . sex" (42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). The first case, Harris Funeral Home v. EEOC, questions if "sex" encompasses "gender identity;" while the second, Altitude v. Zarda, asks if the meaning of "sex" includes "sexual orientation." I discuss results of this research model and its implications to further corpus linguistic applications to the law.

<p>This work provides a theory of singular reference based on the idea that the function of a referring expression is to get an audience to think of some particular item. Although this obvious fact has not escaped anyone's notice, many believe that the considerations associated with this communicatory function do not belong to "semantics" but to "pragmatics". Others regard such considerations as relating to "perlocutionary", as opposed to "illocutionary", effects. By contrast the framework presented, which can be described as "Gricean", puts forward the theory of communication as the primary arena of semantics. I take the view (derived from Wittgenstein) that representation is to be explained in terms of agency. </p><p> Starting from a simple condition for paradigm acts of reference, the theory is developed by considering three areas of contemporary concern: names, definite descriptions and intentional contexts. While the "cluster" theory is upheld as an insight into the problem of determining the conventional bearer of a name, it is conceded that names function semantically in a manner postulated by Mill. Donnellan's distinction between referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions is redrawn; unlike recent accounts of this distinction, the account proposed represents the distinction as a sharp one The account of intentional contexts introduces an approac which exploits the Gricean model for analyzing a speaker' strategy. This approach differs significantly from other published accounts of intentional contexts.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Maintaining any software is difficult. Whenever an evolutionary change is made to the base version of a program and the new version of the program is created, changes made to the base version of the software must be made to the new version. The answer is to build the software initially with the knowledge that it will change and that the base version will evolve. In other words, change-merging of software is a possible solution. All the work in this area has been done on program integration, change-merging of PSDL programs and software prototypes. The present work explores the possibility of combining the results of two independent updates of an abstract data type into a merged version that is both correct and safe. This report describes a developing theory for semantics-based change-merging of abstract data types.

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