We consider lower probabilities on finite possibility spaces as models for the uncertainty about the state. These generalizations of classical probabilities can have some interesting properties; for example: k-monotonicity, avoiding sure loss, coherence, permutation invariance. The sets formed by all the lower probabilities satisfying zero or more of these properties are convex. We show how the...

The emergence of pragmatics and functional linguistics in the second half of the 20 th century – confronting the prevailing Chomskyan formal model of generative grammar – has brought new instruments that allow us to understand with advantage language in use. But there remained several unfathomable problems that only recently, with the raising of cognitive linguistics, might have been explained....

Counterfactual thinking is ubiquitous in everyday life and an important aspect of cognition and emotion. Although counterfactual thought has been argued to differ from processing factual or hypothetical information, imaging data which elucidate these differences on a neural level are still scarce. We investigated the neural correlates of processing counterfactual sentences under visual and aura...

• ABSTRACT: This work takes a Cognitive Linguistics perspective on Brazilian Portuguese conditional constructions. Based on mental spaces theory (FAUCONNIER, 1994, 1997; FAUCONNIER; SWEETSER, 1996) and on mental spaces work on conditionals (SWEETSER, 1990; DANCYGIER, 1998, DANCYGIER; SWEETSER, 2005; GOMES, 2008), the research relied on recent contributions on subjectivity and intersubjectivity ...

We report three experiments to test the possibilities reasoners think about when they understand a conditional of the form 'A only if B' compared to 'if A then B'. The experiments examine conditionals in the indicative mood (e.g., A occurred only if B occurred) and counterfactuals in the subjunctive mood (A would have occurred only if B had occurred). The first experiment examines the conjuncti...

Suppositions can be introduced in either the indicative or subjunctive mood. There are also two types of judgments that may initiated by suppositions sort: qualitative (binary) and quantitative (numerical) ones. The former about whether a given proposition is acceptable latter how it is. We systematically explicate relationships between canonical representatives each four available theories. Fo...

We present an approach to the semantics of subjunctive conditionals based on the situation semantics notion of a constraint, in which the connection between antecedent A and consequent B of a conditional ‘if A were the case, B would be’ is an informational relation between types of situations. We also argue that the information contained in a hierarchy of planning schemas as commonly used in Ar...