Name: Daniela
Country and Region: Italy
Native Language: Italian
Student or Teacher: Student
Age or Grade: under graduate
Subject of Question: pragmatics/semantics
Question:
I would like to study the fields that try to solve some of the main semantic
and pragmatic problems through the integration of the two fields. I though I
could begin with understanding text
I've read something about optimality theory, but mainly related to computer
science.
I'd like to know if there is something strictly related to linguist, mainly
to the promblem of human understanding of texts
many thanks
Hi Daniela:
I�m responding to the question you submitted to Ask A Linguistic Tutor. I�m not sure if I read your
question correctly or not but I think your question is: How does optimality theory relate to the problem
of human understanding of texts? It sounds like you�d like a sort of reading list. I found some websites
where you can find very-up-to-date papers and articles on Optimality Theory as it relates to
semantics/pragmatics, and I also included just a few books where you might look.
- This first site is the Rutgers Optimality Archive (
http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/roa.html). It contains abstracts of papers dealing with
Optimality Theory, written in many different languages. An abstract search of "semantics" pulls
up a bunch of abstracts that I think might relate to your question. I included a couple of their
addresses, along with the paper title. I think that to access the actual papers you might have to contact
Rutgers, but as each author�s email address is given, you might just want to email the author and see if
they could email you a copy for their paper.
European mirror site:
http://pc0880.germanistik-kunst.uni-marburg.de/~roa/)
Examples:
- An announcement was sent to the LINGUIST list a few years ago. It was a call for papers about
Optimality Theory in relation to Interpretation. If you wanted to know what�s being done currently in this
area, you might email the organizer, whose name I�ve included here, and talk to her about more specific
questions you have. She might be able to give you emails of people who have written papers that would be
of interest to you.
-
http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/10/10-1322.html#2
Address where you could get papers:
Helen de Hoop
(email: helen.dehoop@let.uu.nl)
- This is a good, but a little advanced, handout about the applications of OT in interpretation.
-
http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/asg/blutner/utrecht-2.PDF
- Here are a couple books. They don�t specifically have to do with semantics but likely they will cover
your topic or maybe have some bibliographies that can lead you elsewhere.
- Archangeli, Diana, and D. Terence Langendoen (eds), Optimality theory : an overview,
Blackwell Publishers, 1997.
- Tesar, Bruce, and Paul Smolensky, Learnability in optimality theory.
MIT Press, 2000.
This is just a start, but I think you can get some good information from some of these resources.
Thanks for writing!
-Joy Rowe
For Ask
a Linguistics Tutor
02-14-01