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Matthew Purver and Jonathan Ginzburg: Clarifying Noun Phrase Semantics in HPSG
This paper examines reprise questions: questions which request clarification of
the meaning intended by a speaker when uttering a word or phrase. As such they
can act as semantic probes, providing information about what meaning can be
associated with word and phrase types. We present corpus evidence regarding the
meaning of nouns and noun phrases, and argue that this evidence runs contrary
to the usual treatments of semantics in HPSG, and to the traditional
generalised quantifier view of NPs as sets of sets. Instead we outline an
analysis of NPs as (possibly functional) sets of individuals.
Maintained by Stefan Müller
Created: October 15, 2003
Last modified: November 24, 2003
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