Authors
Lucıa Gómez Álvarez, Brandon Bennett
Publication date
2018
Conference
WOMoCoE at 16th International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning
Description
It is widely accepted that most natural language terms do not have precise universally agreed definitions that fix their meanings. Instead, humans use terms in a variety of ways that adapt to different contexts and points of view. In this paper we present a framework based on Supervaluation Semantics for interpreting languages in the presence of semantic variability. This work builds on supervaluationist accounts, which explain linguistic indeterminacy in terms of a collection of possible precise interpretations of the terms of the language. We extend the basic supervaluation semantics by adding the notion of standpoint. A multi-modal logical language for describing standpoints is presented. The language includes a modal operator ⬜s for each standpoint s, such that ⬜s φ means that proposition φ is unequivocally true according to standpoint s — i.e. φ is true at all precisifications compatible with s. We show how it can be used to represent logical properties and connections between alternative ways of describing a domain and different accounts of the semantics of terms.
Total citations
202120222023123
Scholar articles
L Gómez Alvarez, B Bennett - Joint Proceedings of MedRACER and WOMoCoE 2018, 2018