<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>The paper shows that contextuals, words such as those discussed by Richard Vallée in his paper, “On local bars and imported beer”, include not only adjectives and nouns but also verbs, prepositions and adverbs. It shows, moreover, contextuals form just one subclass of words whose complements are optional, that is, words analogous to polyadic predicates of predicate logic. Just as different words, when their complements are omitted, give rise to reflexive (<italic>to wash</italic>), reciprocal (<italic>to meet</italic>) and indefinite (<italic>to eat</italic>) construals, so contextuals give rise to an indexical construal. The paper sets out how such optional complements, or polyadic predicates, as it were, can be handled completely with the syntax and semantics of English, without recourse to special pragmatic principles, lexical ambiguity or phonetically null elements. Though not discussed here, the approach nonetheless applies, it seems, to other languages, such as Chinese.</p>
</abstract>

The paper shows that contextuals, words such as those discussed by Richard Vallée in his paper, “On local bars and imported beer”, include not only adjectives and nouns but also verbs, prepositions and adverbs. It shows, moreover, contextuals form just one subclass of words whose complements are optional, that is, words analogous to polyadic predicates of predicate logic. Just as different words, when their complements are omitted, give rise to reflexive (to wash), reciprocal (to meet) and indefinite (to eat) construals, so contextuals give rise to an indexical construal. The paper sets out how such optional complements, or polyadic predicates, as it were, can be handled completely with the syntax and semantics of English, without recourse to special pragmatic principles, lexical ambiguity or phonetically null elements. Though not discussed here, the approach nonetheless applies, it seems, to other languages, such as Chinese.

Formalizing English Contextuals

Disputatio

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Formalizing English Contextuals"}

The paper shows that contextuals, words such as those discussed by Richard Vallée in his paper, “On local bars and imported beer”, include not only adjectives...

Formalizing English Contextuals

Publicado en línea: 15 feb 2023

Páginas: 205 - 238

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/disp-2022-0011

Palabras clave
context, contextual, implicit argument, polyadic predicates, pragmatics

© 2022 Brendan S. Gillon, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Formalizing English Contextuals

Publicado en línea: 15 feb 2023

Páginas: 205 - 238

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/disp-2022-0011

Palabras clavecontext, contextual, implicit argument, polyadic predicates, pragmatics

© 2022 Brendan S. Gillon, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Palabras clave
context, contextual, implicit argument, polyadic predicates, pragmatics