1993 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Mental Spaces Approach to Copular Sentences and Knowledge Use
| Project/Area Number |
04831006
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
認知科学
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| Research Institution | The University of Tokyo |
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Principal Investigator |
SAKAHARA Shigeru The University of Tokyo, College of Arts and Sciences, Assistant-professor, 教養学部, 助教授 (40153902)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1992 – 1993
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| Keywords | Copular sentences / Mental Spaces / Identificational sentences / Predicational sentences / Eel-sentences / Tautology |
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| Research Abstract |
I studied copular sentences within the framework of Mental Spaces Theory. The treatment of copular sentences is particularily difficult within the present theories of semantics. It is generally accepted that copular sentences with two NPs 'A be B' mean equality or set theoretical membership. I showed that copular sentences have various uses such as : identificational copular sentences which assign to a nonreferential NP which functions as a variable its value (ex.'The author of the tale of Genji is Murasakishikibu.') ; predicational copular sentences, which ascribe an additional propertydenoted by the predicate nominal to the referent of the subject NP which is already identified (ex.'Murasakishikibu is the author of the tale of Genji.') ; identity statements, which mean that two objects identified independently in different knowledge domains turn out to be the same (ex.'Shakespeare is Bacon.') ; 'eel-sentences', which combines directly a parameter for identifying the value and the very value itself (ex.'I am the eel.') ; metalinguistical definitional sentences (ex.'The pyramids are the tombs of the kings of the Ancient Egypt.'). I studied the interrelation of such uses and part of the research will be published in a book on Mental Spaces to be published by the University of Chicago Press. I also extented my research to tautology and came to the conclusion that the semantics of copular sentences predicts that there should be four fundamental uses for tautology and other various uses should be explained as derivative uses from them.
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