|
The Dynamics of Polysemy and Coercion| old_uid | 2933 |
|---|
| title | The Dynamics of Polysemy and Coercion |
|---|
| start_date | 2007/05/30 |
|---|
| schedule | 14h-16h |
|---|
| online | no |
|---|
| location_info | salle 131 |
|---|
| summary | Recently, there has emerged a new appreciation of the complexity at play in the interpretation of polysemy. Two classes of parameters
have been broadly identified as contributing to the interpretation of polysemous expressions: more complex lexical representations, and a
means of incorporating local context compositionally. In this talk, I formalize this distinction as that of inherent versus selectional
polysemy, and demonstrate that polysemy cannot be modeled adequately without enriching the compositional mechanisms available to the
language. In particular, lexically driven operations of coercion and type selection provide for contextualized interpretations of expressions, which would otherwise not exhibit polysemy. I contrast this with the view that it is not possible to maintain a distinction between semantic and pragmatic ambiguity. I will argue that a strong distinction between pragmatic and semantic modes of interpretation can be maintained, and is in fact desirable, if we wish to model the complexity of contributing factors in compositionality in language. |
|---|
| responsibles | Moltmann, Matushansky |
|---|
| |
|