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Semantics and Pragmatics Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2009

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Articles 1 - 5 of 5

Full-Text Articles in Semantics and Pragmatics

Applying Computational Models Of Spatial Prepositions To Visually Situated Dialog, John D. Kelleher, Fintan Costello Jun 2009

Applying Computational Models Of Spatial Prepositions To Visually Situated Dialog, John D. Kelleher, Fintan Costello

Articles

This article describes the application of computational models of spatial prepositions to visually situated dialog systems. In these dialogs, spatial prepositions are important because people often use them to refer to entities in the visual context of a dialog. We first describe a generic architecture for a visually situated dialog system and highlight the interactions between the spatial cognition module, which provides the interface to the models of prepositional semantics, and the other components in the architecture. Following this, we present two new computational models of topological and projective spatial prepositions. The main novelty within these models is the fact …


The Language Of Consent In Police Encounters, Janice Nadler, J.D. Trout Jan 2009

The Language Of Consent In Police Encounters, Janice Nadler, J.D. Trout

Faculty Working Papers

In this chapter, we examine the nature of conversations in citizen-police encounters in which police seek to conduct a search based on the citizen's consent. We argue that when police officers ask a person if they can search, citizens often feel enormous pressure to say yes. But judges routinely ignore these pressures, choosing instead to spotlight the politeness and restraint of the officers' language and demeanor. Courts often analyze the language of police encounters as if the conversation has an obvious, context-free meaning. The pragmatic features of language influence behavior, but courts routinely ignore or deny this fact. Instead, current …


Introduction: Humor In Contemporary American Poetry, Denise Duhamel, Salvatore Attardo Jan 2009

Introduction: Humor In Contemporary American Poetry, Denise Duhamel, Salvatore Attardo

Faculty Publications

Introduction piece to a special issue of Humor: International Journal of Humor Research.


Second Occurrence Focus And The Acoustics Of Prominence, Jonathan Howell Jan 2009

Second Occurrence Focus And The Acoustics Of Prominence, Jonathan Howell

Department of Linguistics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Partee (1991) challenged the significance of the observation that certain adverbs (e.g., only) reliably associate with phonologically prominent words to truth‐conditional effect, noting second occurrence (i.e., repeated or given) focus (SOF) appears to lack a phonological realization. Rooth (1996), Bartels (2004), Beaver et al. (2004), Jaeger (2004), and Fry and Ishihara (2005) argued that, while not intonationally prominent, an SOF word can be marked by increased duration and/or increased rms intensity. An acoustic study of verb‐noun homophone pairs is reported. Three sophisticated speakers uttered five repetitions of the targets, embedded in discourses, in first occurrence (FOF), SOF, and unfocused (NF) …


Development Of Interactional Competence: Changes In The Use Of Ne In L2 Japanese During Study Abroad, Midori Ishida Jan 2009

Development Of Interactional Competence: Changes In The Use Of Ne In L2 Japanese During Study Abroad, Midori Ishida

Faculty Publications

This chapter investigates the development of the use of the Japanese particle ne by a second language (L2) learner of Japanese during a 9-month study abroad.