[PLing] Vortrag Susan Rothstein

[Martin Prinzhorn]

Liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen,

Für nächsten Montag, den 6. März möchten wir Sie ganz herzlich zu einem Vortrag von Susan Rothstein einladen. Er findet um 17 Uhr im Seminarraum 2 im ersten Stock des Institutsgebäudes in der Sensengasse 3A statt. Das abstract finden Sie an dieser Nachricht angehängt.

Herzlich,

Daniel Büring & Martin Prinzhorn





Cardinality scales, measuring and approximation
Susan Rothstein
susan.rothstein at biu.ac.il <mailto:susan.rothstein at biu.ac.il>

In this talk I explore and develop the concept of cardinality scales, originally proposed in Rothstein (2016), which allow us to compare the cardinal properties of pluralities without actually counting the atomic parts of the pluralities. These cardinality scales allow us to express the truth conditions of sentences such as (i) without making direct reference to the cardinalities of the sums of furniture that Mary and John possess.

 Mary has more furniture than John.

Cardinality scales allow us to give a single semantic representation for (i), while allowing  it to be evaluated in terms of any contextually relevant parameter of comparison in contrast to (ii), which forces a comparison in terms of cardinality:

Mary has more pieces of furniture than John.

I suggest that cardinality scales are particularly useful in situations of approximation, where we are able to say whether plurality A or B is larger, without knowing what the exact cardinality of either A or B is, and I conclude by reviewing a number of different approximation techniques, comparing approximation using cardinality scales to imprecise and indirect counting.    
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