Frequency vs. Iconicity in Explainin Grammatical Asymmetries – Haspelmath (200?) Iconicity is the claim that the structure of language reflects the structure of experience. Many phenomena accounted for by iconicity are in fact accounted for by the principle of economy. Iconicity of quantity where forms denoting greater quantity are longer is explained by the fact […]
(Non)maximality and Distributivity: A Decision Theory Approach – Malamud (2006) A solution for incorporating packaging and hearer goals into interpretations for distributive over definite plurals. Uses Decision Theory to provide a formal framework for hearer goals and shows that we choose a distributivity reading based on the these goals and how the interpretations help us […]
Selectional Constraints: an Information-theoretic Model and its Computational Realization – Resnik (1996) Resnik proposes an information-theoretic model of verb selection restriction. Uses WordNet to model noun conceptual classes and then shows how the Relative Entropy between the noun class and the noun class given the verb is a good measure of how specific a selectional […]