Context plays a ubiquitous role in language processing. For the most part, work in language processing investigates the effects of context without investigating questions about what determines a context. For example, interpretation of any referential expression must take into account the notion of a referential domain. Here we investigate the influence of perceptual cues in establishing a refer...

This essay focuses on metadiscourse, a name for elements of texts that convey meanings other than  those  that  are  primarily  referential.    The  essay  provides  some  theoretical  background  to the  study  of  metadiscourse,  briefly  reviews  a  taxonomy  of  metadiscourse,  and  explores  four reasons why the study of metadiscourse is interesting and important: (a) Such study shows how ...

We observe that current language resource tools only provide limited help for ESL/EFL writers with insufficient language knowledge. In particular, there is no convenient way for ESL/EFL writers to look for answers to the frequent questions of correct and appropriate language use. We have developed a language information retrieval method to exploit corporal resources and provide effective refere...

Referential integrity is fundamental for data processing and data quality. The SQL standard proposes di↵erent semantics under which referential integrity can be enforced in practice. Under simple semantics, only total foreign key values must be matched by some referenced key values. Under partial semantics, total and partial foreign key values must be matched by some referenced key values. Supp...

The English cognate object (CO) construction like laugh a nervous laugh raises intriguing analytic and empirical questions. They include (a) what kind of verb licenses the CO, (b) what is the grammatical status of the CO (including its argumenthood), and (c) what are the semantic/pragmatic contributions of the construction? In answering these questions and to see real usages of the construction...

In this paper, we discuss the CP domain of embedded clauses in Spanish, specifically in the realm of que+embedded question constructions first discussed in Plann 1982. We argue for the existence of (at least) two distinct CP layers (following previous work by Lahiri (2002) Demonte & FernándezSoriano (2009), and Suñer (1991, 1993)). Following Suñer (1991, 1993), we argue that there are two seman...