Reading without semantics

Analysis of the reading of a neurological patient (HTR) indicates that it is based on the operation of a relatively unimpaired phonological route. Quantitative investigations of type of error, reading speed and the effects of lexicality and spelling-to-sound regularity all support this conclusion. Spelling-to-sound regularity is shown to influence reading not only through regular words being better read than irregular, but also through mildly irregular words being better read than very irregular ones. A model is presented of the operation of the phonological route and of its progressive impairment in certain types of neurological disease.     

Morpho-orthographic segmentation without semantics

Masked priming studies have repeatedly provided evidence for a form-based morpho-orthographic segmentation mechanism that blindly decomposes any word with the mere appearance of morphological complexity (e.g., corn + er). This account has been called into question by Baayen et al. Psychological Review, 118, 438–482 (2011), who pointed out that the prime words previously tested in the morpho-orthographic condition vary in the extent to which the suffix conveys regular meaning. In the present study, we investigated whether evidence for morpho-orthographic segmentation can be obtained with a set of tightly controlled prime words that are entirely semantically opaque. Using a visual lexical decision task, we compared priming from truly suffixed primes (hunter-HUNT), completely opaque pseudo-suffixed primes (corner-CORN), and non-suffixed primes (cashew-CASH). The results show comparable magnitudes of priming for the truly suffixed and pseudo-suffixed primes, and no priming from non-suffixed primes, and therefore provide further important evidence in support of morpho-orthographic segmentation processes operating in the absence of any possible role for semantics.     

Transition semantics: the dynamics of dependence logic

We examine the relationship between dependence logic and game logics. A variant of dynamic game logic, called Transition Logic, is developed, and we show that its relationship with dependence logic is comparable to the one between first-order logic and dynamic game logic discussed by van Benthem. This suggests a new perspective on the interpretation of dependence logic formulas, in terms of assertions about reachability in games of imperfect information against Nature. We then capitalize on this intuition by developing expressively equivalent variants of dependence logic in which this interpretation is taken to the foreground.     

Semantic dementia without surface dyslexia in Spanish: unimpaired reading with impaired semantics

Surface dyslexia has been attributed to an overreliance on the sub-lexical route for reading. Typically, surface dyslexic patients commit regularisation errors when reading irregular words. Also, semantic dementia has often been associated with surface dyslexia, leading to some explanations of the reading impairment that stress the role of semantics in irregular word reading. Nevertheless, some patients have been reported with unimpaired ability to read irregular words, even though they show severe comprehension impairment. We present the case of M.B., the first Spanish-speaking semantic dementia patient to be reported who shows unimpaired reading of non-words, regular words, and - most strikingly - irregular loan words. M.B. has severely impaired comprehension of the same words he reads correctly (whether regular or irregular). We argue that M.B.'s pattern of performance shows that irregular words can be correctly read even with impaired semantic knowledge corresponding to those words.     

Modal semantics,modal dynamics and the problem of state preparation

It has been suggested that the Modal Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (QM) is "incomplete" if it lacks a dynamics for possessed values. I argue that this is only one of two possible attitudes one might adopt toward a Modal Interpretation without dynamics. According to the other attitude, such an interpretation is a complete interpretation of QM as standardly formulated, an interpretation whose innovation is to attempt to make sense of the quantum realm without the expedient of novel physics. Then I explain why this attitude, though available, is unattractive. Without dynamics, the Modal Interpretation vanquishes the measurement problem only, it seems, to succumb to the problem of state preparation. On this view, the Modal Interpretation needs dynamics not to be an interpretation at all, but to be an adequate one. I review reasons to suspect that the dynamics which would best suit the Modal Interpretation--a dynamics equivalent to a set of two time transition probabilities of the sort used to solve the preparation problem--is not a dynamics the interpretation can have. I close with a brief discussion of versions of the Modal Interpretation that may not succumb to the considerations presented here.     

Sighting-down and the Poggendorff illusion: a mystery within a mystery.

As reported before, sighting-down one of the diagonal lines on a typical Poggendorff pattern will reduce the illusion even if that situation is only pictorial. But here it is also argued that sighting-down itself requires further understanding.     

老庄玄学、小乘实有还是大乘真空--僧肇《物不迁论》辨析

僧肇<物不迁论>既非老庄玄学"主静论"的孑遗,亦非小乘"性住说"的翻版,相反,该论通篇贯彻了中观般若本旨,论证诸法自性本空、环去亦不来的"物不迁"真义,无愧于其"解空第一"、"玄宗之始"的历史评价.     

Success semantics: the sequel

The aim of this paper is to reinterpret success semantics, a theory of mental content, according to which the content of a belief is fixed by the success conditions of some actions based on this belief. After arguing that in its present form, success semantics is vulnerable to decisive objections, I examine the possibilities of salvaging the core of this proposal. More specifically, I propose that the content of some very simple, but very important, mental states, the immediate mental antecedents of action, can be explained in this manner.     

The American plan completed: Alternative classical-style semantics,without stars,for relevant and paraconsistent logics

American-plan semantics with 4 values 1, 0, { {1, 0}} {{}}, interpretable as True, False, Both and Neither, are furnished for a range of logics, including relevant affixing systems. The evaluation rules for extensional connectives take a classical form: in particular, those for negation assume the form 1 (A, a) iff 0 (A, a) and 0 (A, a) iff 1 (A, a), so eliminating the star function *, on which much criticism of relevant logic semantics has focussed. The cost of these classical features is a further relation (or operation), required in evaluating falsity assignments of implication formulae.Two styles of 4 valued relational semantics are developed; firstly a semantics using notions of double truth and double validity for basic relevant systemB and some extensions of it; and secondly, since the first semantics makes heavy weather of validating negation principles such as Contraposition, a reduced semantics using more complex implicational rules for relevant systemC and various of its extensions. To deal satisfactorily with elite systemsR,E andT, however, further complication is inevitable; and a relation of mateship (suggested by the Australian plan) is introduced to permit cross-over from 1 to 0 values and vice versa.     

Defaults in update semantics

The aim of this paper is twofold: (i) to introduce the framework of update semantics and to explain what kind of semantic phenomena may successfully be analysed in it: (ii) to give a detailed analysis of one such phenomenon: default reasoning.