Conflicts in Interpretation

This book is in preparation. The chapters are draft versions. The full manuscript will be ready in 2007.

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Table of Contents:

• Chapter 1: Optimization of interpretation
• Chapter 2: Rhetorical structure
• Chapter 3: Escape from stress: Pronouns in Dutch
• Chapter 4: Children's late mastery of marked interpretations
• Chapter 5: Speaking versus understanding in language acquisition
• Chapter 6: Patterns of negation in natural language
• Chapter 7: Nominals with and without an article: Distribution, interpretation and variation
• Chapter 8: Paradigmatic preposition patterns
• Chapter 9: Implications for future research
• References
• Index

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This book applies novel methods of constraint interaction, derived from connectionist theories, to core semantic issues such as polysemy, definiteness and indefiniteness, negation, anaphora resolution and the rhetorical structure of the discourse. It explores the hypothesis that a natural language grammar is a set of potentially conflicting constraints on forms and meanings. The book aims to show that such a constraint-based grammar sheds new light on the relation between form and meaning, within a language as well as across languages, and within competent adult speakers as well as language learners. An important dimension of the book is the structured investigation of issues at the interface of semantics with syntax and pragmatics, such as the effects of distinguishing between speaker's perspective and hearer's perspective in comprehension and production, stable and instable patterns of form and meaning across languages, and the development of a coherent pattern of form and meaning in children.

The book will be of interest to any researcher or advanced student in cognitive science, general linguistics, typology, and psycholinguistics interested in the capacity of our human mind to map meaning onto form, and form onto meaning.

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