Ambiguity and idiosyncratic interpretation
Kees van Deemter · Journal of Semantics · 1998
This paper discusses logics whose premisses and/or conclusions can contain ambiguous material. Two different kinds of application are sketched for these logics. First, the paper discusses how logics with ambiguous expressions can shed light on the way in which human hearers or readers understand certain ‘paradoxical’ logical arguments, in which crucial use is made of ambiguous material. Second, the paper uses practical applications to show how a logic ambiguous expressions can be used to avoid interpretational deadlock in such systems. Here a key role is played by the Principle of diosyncratic Interpretation, which states that, in a given context of occurrence, different human interpreters may be unaware of each other’s interpretations of an utterance. This principle is shown to have important consequences for the choice between different possible logics. To illustrate how a logic of ambiguous formulas can be used in Natural Language Processing, the case of a Question-Answering system is discussed in some detail.