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Strawson proposed in the early seventies an attractive three-fold distinction regarding how context bears on the meaning of ‘what is said’ when a sentence is uttered. The proposed scheme is somewhat crude and, being aware of this aspect, Strawson himself raised various points to make it more adequate. In this paper, we review the scheme of Strawson, note his concerns, and add some of our own. However,...
Recent foundational work on the nature of defeasible inference has appealed to an epistemic context principle (ECP): βfollows defeasibly from α (αβ )if and only if follows classically from C(α), where C(α) is the given epistemic context for α. Since nothing requires that C(α) ⊆ C(α ^ γ), the induced notion of consequence is nonmonotonic. We will focus on a particular manner of articulating...
An implemented context-based reasoning system called ATT-Meta is sketched. The system can perform both reasoning about beliefs of agents and metaphor-based reasoning. In particular, it can perform metaphor-based reasoning about beliefs and reasoning acts. The metaphor-based reasoning and belief reasoning facilities are fully integrated into a general framework for uncertain reasoning. This framework...
Pragmatic reasoning is defined as the process of finding the intended meaning(s) of the given, and it is suggested that this amounts to the process of inferring the appropriate context(s) in which to interpret the given. This suggestion is illustrated by examples from natural language understanding and visual object recognition. A formal, model-theoretic, definition of pragmatic reasoning is then...
In this paper, we explore the integration of context into domain-independent machine translation based on a pseudo-semantic approach. We choose a theory of discourse structure (SDRT) to provide the model of context. The incompatibility between the knowledge poor translation model with the knowledge rich discourse theory leads to supplement the first with some basic lexical semantics, and to replace...
The paper emphasizes the inadequacy of formal semantics, the classical paradigm in semantics, in treating contextual dependence. Some phenomena of contextual dependence threaten one central assumption of the classical paradigm, namely the idea that linguistic expressions have a fixed meaning, and utterances have truth conditions well defined. It is possible to individuate three forms of contextual...
There are many different kinds of context information, with different demands on representation. In this paper we discuss the representation of the context information needed to support intelligent dialogue management in interactive speech systems. We argue that simple types of context information should be represented in a very simple form to allow efficient processing, while other types of context...
Following the ecological approach to visual perception, this paper presents an innovative framework for the design of multimodal systems. The proposal emphasises the role of the visual context on gestural communication. It is aimed at extending the concept of affordances to explain referring gesture variability. The validity of the approach is confirmed by results of a simulation experiment. A discussion...
This paper presents a definition of context for the interpretation of word-structure that is based on the formal relation of asymmetry. We provide evidence that morpho-conceptual complexity is optimally tractable in terms of local asymmetrical relations in formal context. We present the main features of a morpho-conceptual parser implementing our proposal. We show, on the basis of the comparison with...
When modelling complex systems one can not include all the causal factors, but one has to settle for partial models. This is alright if the factors left out are either so constant that they can be ignored or one is able to recognise the circumstances when they will be such that the partial model applies. The transference of knowledge from the point of application to the point of learning utilises...
Non-acceptances are discussed in speech act theory, logic & conversation and conversation analysis with special reference to how context is accommodated. The results are systematized in the framework of plus/minus-validity claims based on the contextualization of Habermas’s theory of communicative actions [18], defined as minusvalidity claims anchored to an interactive tripartite system...
This paper is concerned with providing a context based logic (language + semantics) for the representation of agents’s beliefs. While different approaches that make use of a single theory have been proposed in order to model agent’s beliefs, such as modal logics, these often suffer from problems, as lack of modularity, logical omniscence, and dissimilarity with implementations. A partial solution...
This paper is concerned with providing a logic, called Distributed First Order Logic (DFOL), for the formalization of distributed knowledge representation and reasoning systems. In such systems knowledge is contained in a set of heterogeneous subsystems. Each subsystem represents, using a possibly different language, partial knowledge about a subset of the whole domain, it is able to reason about...
Although computational sciences have made considerable progress, artificial systems have not yet managed to duplicate the efficiency of human perceptive systems. This superiority may come from the human capacity to integrate world knowledge within perceptive processes. This study assesses the importance of context in a task where a target is to be located within a natural image. The use of context...
Three accounts relating meaning and context are compared: a classical or static one as proposed by Stalnaker, a contextual or dynamic one as proposed in Dynamic Semantics, and a massively contextual one, defended here. On the last view, meaning and interpretation is a matter of a change of an epistemic context by means of an inductive inference, thus of pragmatics. As in dynamic semantics, meaning...
AI and psychological approaches to context are contrasted and the dynamic and automatic nature of the continuous context change in human cognition is emphasized. A dynamic theory of context is presented which defines context as the dynamic state of human mind. It describes the interaction between memory, perception, and reasoning in forming context as well as how they are influenced by context. A...
Integrating Mental Space notions and transitivity elements, this paper discusses the phenomena of profiling a speaker’s identity in Japanese with reference to shading a speaker’s identity in English. There are three kinds of empathy prominent predicates in Japanese: giving/receiving verbs, psychological adjectivals, and cognitive verbs. These predicates require syntactic constraints with respect to...
It is now a standard view that candidate referents are ranked according to their accessibility, based on either or both of the discourse structure and organisation of general knowledge. Various models of reference resolution based on such a view, including centering theory, have been ardently pursued and tested empirically, and the ones which are computationally workable have been given preferences...
In this paper, an application of automated theorem proving techniques to computational semantics is considered. In order to compute the presuppositions of a natural language discourse, several inference tasks arise. Instead of treating these inferences independently of each other, we show how integrating techniques from formal approaches to context into deduction can help to compute presuppositions...
The object-oriented paradigm views systems as being composed of objects that model real-world entities. Objects sharing the same properties and responsibilities are categorized under one class. However, object oriented languages, in general, lack means that allow objects to be grouped on extrinsic grounds, such as concerning some specific topic of interest, being relevant to a particular user group,...
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