Talk by Jan Jaspars and Megumi Kameyama
Preferences in Dynamic Semantics
In order to enrich dynamic semantic theories with a `pragmatic'
capacity, we combine dynamic and nonmonotonic (preferential) logics in
a modal logic setting. We extend a fragment of van Benthem and De
Rijke's dynamic modal logic with additional preferential operators in
the underlying static logic, and use a dynamic notion of nonmonotonic
reasoning (inspired by Gabbay's nonmonotonic extension of intuitionistic logic)
to define defeasible (pragmatic) entailments over a given
piece of discourse. The resulting logic gives a formal
model-theoretic characterization of the preferential aspect of
utterance interpretation in discourse. We illustrate the preferential
dynamics with pronominal anaphora in simple discourses, using the
dynamic structures of the DRT model theory.
Paul Dekker, November 2, 1995