Thematic Session
Non-Monotonicity and Natural Language

Twelfth Amsterdam Colloquium
December 18---21, 1999
University of Amsterdam

It has been felt for a long time that several areas of natural language semantics have a loosely nonmonotonic flavour. We may mention that approach to lexical semantics which views meaning as being governed by 'preference rules' which apply by default (Lakoff, Jackendoff), or various analyses of the progressive (e.g. Asher, Steedman). The purpose of the special session is twofold. On the one hand we would like to isolate new areas where a nonmonotonic view may be helpful. On the other hand, given the fact that nonmonotonic logic has been strongly criticised since its inception, we take this opportunity to invite opponents to the application of nonmonotonic logic proper to voice their objections.

Contributions

Tim Fernando
Non-monotonicity in constructing semantic representations
Peter Krause
Identification language games
Rohit Parikh and Horacio Arlo-Costa
Two place probabilities, full belief and belief revision
Henk Zeevat
Explaining presupposition triggers

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