André Wlodarczyk

The notion of information has nowadays become crucial both in our daily life and in many branches of science and technology. In language studies, this notion was used as a technical term for the first time about at least fifty years ago. It is argued, however, that "Old" and "New", used traditionally for characterising information, refer in fact to...

The semantic situation is defined as a schema and its individuation, which contains three parts: relation(s), role(s) and anchor(s). The individuation of a relation is named frame that of role - participant and that of anchor - location in space/time. Importantly, agents/participants may play more than one role in a situation described by an uttera...

The concept of centre of attention (CA) is used in Distributed Grammar focusing on its relevance for the syntax of human languages. Based on psychological evidence, this notion captures what is common between subject, topic and theme in an integrated system of concepts rather than as a disparate collection of them. We define respectively subject as...

Although neither theoretical nor computational linguists did provide sufficiently careful insight into the problem of semantic roles, recently some progress is being achieved in robotics (study of the simulation of human interaction), and mostly in multi-agent systems. Taking advantage of this motivation and applying it to the study of languages, I...

1. Introductory remarks Modeling is one of the basic methods in empirical sciences. Generally speaking, it consists of the gradual construction of a cognitively useful – though simplified and idealized – image of described phenomena. As this image often takes the form of an abstract formal description – for example, a system of equations, or a set...

Compared to existing classical approaches to semiotics which are dyadic (signifier/signified, F. de Saussure) and triadic (symbol/concept/object, Ch. S. Peirce), this theory can be characterized as tetradic ([sign/semion]//[object/noema]) and is the result of either doubling the dyadic approach along the semiotic/ordinary dimension or splitting the...

The use of information technology in linguistic research gave rise in the 1950s to what is known as Natural Language Processing, but that framework was created without paying due attention to the need for logical reconstruction of linguistic concepts which were borrowed directly from barely (or even not at all) formalised structural linguistics. Th...

Natural language interface requires much more complex processing than is currently assumed. We present a general review of foundational notions of data, information and knowledge, aiming at tentatively sketching out a set of subcomponents of an integra-tive linguistic theory of man machine interaction, bearing in mind that our model will favor furt...

Linguists usually borrow the notion of predicate from Classical Logic in order to represent diverse kinds of relations: syntactic, semantic and sometimes even pragmatic. Yet, the definition of a predicate in formal logic departs from the language-based original one given by Plato in terms of the opposition between ‘name’ (onoma) and ‘predicable’ (r...

Linguists usually borrow the notion of predicate from Classical Logic in order to represent diverse kinds of relations: syntactic, semantic and sometimes even pragmatic. Yet, the definition of a predicate in formal logic departs from the language-based original one given by Plato in terms of the opposition between ‘name’ (onoma) and ‘predicable’ (r...

The idea of the three-tier information structure in the content of utterances is the result of research carried out in a transdisciplinary spirit, within sciences such as linguistics, psychology, logic and computer science. The theory of Meta- Informative Centering (MIC) of attention, which borrows the concept of attention centering from psychology...

The idea of the three-tier information structure in the content of utterances is the result of research carried out in a transdisciplinary spirit, within sciences such as linguistics, psychology, logic and computer science. The theory of Meta- Informative Centering (MIC) of attention, which borrows the concept of attention centering from psychology...

This paper is an attempt at presenting in a nutshell the long and complex history of the concepts of subject and predicate both in logic and linguistics in order to shed light on the pragmatic apprehension of these concepts proposed recently in the meta-informative centering (MIC) approach. Although this new linguistic theory revisits notions belon...

English abstract: Linguistics in the second half of the 20th century was characterized by the pursuit of descriptions of languages that were as strict as possible. As a matter of fact, at the end of the 19th century, F. de Saussure searched for such a definition of language by which linguistics could become an autonomous discipline. However, it wa...

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The meanings of wa and ga particles are related also to their position in the sentence and to intonation markers. Furthermore, we intend to present the theory we developed during the two following periods : in the 1970s (functional approach) and in the 1990s (logic-based generalisation of the functional theory sketched previously). First, analysing...

In different languages, the means of expressing a situation are shared variously between grammar and lexicon and must be represented by semantic configurations specific to a particular language (or family of languages). Situations are semantic ‘nests’ for several verbs which allow for the expression of a variety of aspects in the course of communic...

Although neither theoretical nor computational linguists did provide sufficiently careful insight into the problem of semantic roles, recently some progress is being achieved in robotics (study of the simulation of human interaction), and mostly in multi-agent systems. Taking advantage of this motivation and applying it to the study of languages, I...

L’hypothèse selon laquelle la structure iconographique des arts rupestres diffère profondément, en termes de fréquences des motifs animaliers et de leur distribution dans les sites, en fonction de l’organisation socio-économique et du type de croyances est examinée à l’aide de données africaines, australiennes et européennes issues de sociétés préh...

This article develops a novel method for assessing the cultural context of rock art, and applies it to the rock art of the Upper Palaeolithic of France and Spain. The article relies on a generative approach, assuming that artists have the potential to choose which motifs to select from the repertoire or vocabulary of their artistic system, but that...

Computer-aided Acquisition of Semantic Knowledge (CASK) is aimed at describing a number of semantic fields of a few European languages using data mining techniques elaborated within the framework of the new paradigm of computation known as Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD). CASK's motivation is to dig deeper in order to find building blocks wh...

The figurative component of European Palaeolithic cave art may be divided into fourteen main motifs. A data base consisting of 416 polythematic panels (from two to six different themes) was collected and analysed from a statistical and structural point of view. Factor Analysis and Ascending Hierarchical Classification led to a partition into five c...

By adopting a set of concepts stemming from linguistic science and artificial intelligence it is possible to formally represent a great deal of knowledge concerning rock art with the view to building an architecture which could simulate its comprehension. Knowledge acquired so far has enabled G. Sauvet and A. Wlodarczyk: 1) to formulate the hypothe...

The semantic validation of utterances as true or false is known in logic and linguistics. However, linguistic messages are validated not only on the semantic but also on the pragmatic level. In most linguistic studies, pragmatics is defined mostly as the interrelation between speakers and is considered as a mere supplement to semantics. In our appr...

Two possibilities arise: one regards language as a highly restricted and well defined system of regularities (thus, being able to predict linguistic facts with few or no failures); the other considers language to be vague, little determined and underspecified". Abstract The role of Politeness (quite correctly called 'Respect' by Haase 1994) is rela...

What is usually called by linguists "informative structure" concerns the way information itself is conveyed through linguistic messages. In fact, information should be seen as the semantic relational content of utterances (i.e.: situation frames, their participants and spatio-temporal anchors). In order to achieve the ordering of non-linear represe...

L'hypothèse émise par R. Layton selon laquelle la structure des arts rupestres diffère profondément, en termes de fréquence des motifs et de leur distribution entre les sites, en fonction de la religion et de l'organisation sociale des groupes humains est réexaminée dans ce travail collectif, à l'aide d'une documentation renouvelée et augmentée pro...

The theoretical framework of this approach is the structural theory of language, stemming from the European tradition and based upon the study of various languages. Despite the distinction usually made between functional and formal linguistics, the formalisation of structural (mostly functional) linguistic theories is feasible. In order to achieve...

Although the discovery procedure for research on unknown symbolic (=semiotic) systems is yet to be fou nd, we present a general method aimed to demonstrate the existence of common structural features in the paintings and engravings of most French and Spanish Palaeolithic caves. We believe that this method is not specific to the European Palaeolithi...

Topic and Focus constitute salient fragments of information and, together with the Subject, contribute - in speech communication - to activate several centers of interest whose values are not homogeneous (i.e. : are not based merely on the dichotomy of True and False). However, Topic and Focus depend on our knowledge of speech space and cognition s...

Topic and Focus constitute salient fragments of information and, together with the Subject, contribute-in speech communication-to activate several centers of interest whose values are not homogeneous (i.e. : are not based merely on the dichotomy of True and False). However, Topic and Focus depend on our knowledge of speech space and cognition space...

El presente trabajo aboga por un estudio del arte parietal como instrumento del conocimiento de lo geografía humana de las sociedades de cazadores y de la evolución de sus redes de alianza, durante el Paleolítico superior. Tomando como ejemplo el componente figurativo de este arte y un amplio corpus de 3981 figuras procedentes de 154 yacimientos fr...

L'univers de la Politesse est si mal connu en Occident qu'il n'existe aucun traité sur le sujet en linguistique française. Partant de l'exemple des honorifiques (déférents, appréciatifs et dépréciatifs) du japonais, le présent ouvrage tente de combler cette lacune en montrant ce qui distingue et ce qui réunit l'expression de la Politesse et celle...

La particule japonaise "no" possède plusieurs emplois (valeurs, fonctions) différents mais la grammaire japonaise traditionnelle n'en distingue que deux: elle est appelé particule casuelle (kaku-joshi) lorsqu'elle est employée en qualité de marquant du déterminant ou du pronominalisateur et particule formelle (juntai-joshi) lorsqu'elle est employée...

La composante figurative de l'art pariétal paléolithique peut être analysée en 14 motifs principaux. Un corpus constitué de 416 panneaux polythématiques (comportant de 2 à 6 thèmes différents) a été rassemblé et analysé d'un double point de vue statistique et structural. L'analyse statistique des données met en évidence une partition des motifs en...

Nous espérons que ces paroles nous ont bien guidé, car nous avons tenté de montrer que la forme de la poésie japonaise, bien qu'établie sous une influence étrangère, non seulement n'est pas une copie figée mais le facteur stimulant d'une activité créatrice d'un rare degré de raffinement.

Le présent travail constitue la ‘version approfondie d’une partie de la communication (intituleé LA LINGUISTIQUE ET SES APPLICA TIQNS AUX ETUDES JAPONAISES) au Colloque franco-japonais d'études japonaises (Paris, Collège de France, octobre 7979) ainsi que d ’un article intitule’ ” (主題から主語へ、そして、主語から主題へ「ハ」 と「ガ」) paru dans la revue “ 言語 “Langages”), N...

要約 :「は」と「が」助詞の対立は部分的には、フランス語の冠詞 (le, la / un, une) の対立に似ているけれども、日本語は冠詞をもつ言語ではない。 一般的な見解によると、日本語の形態素「は」と「が」助詞は、それぞれ主題と主 語を表わす。 ところで、「は」と「が」助詞の対立が二重になっている(ブーメランタイプ)という ことは、おおいにありうることである。その対立は躍動的な共時態の領域にしか現 われてこないので、この2つの構成素(【「は」から「が」へ】と【「が」から「 は」へ】〕は、主語ー述語構造が、本来的に述語的なその性格に加えてラングのな かで、同時に発話行為に属する指標をもちうるというパロルにおいて事実に結び付 けられることになる。 こうして、【「が」から「は」へ】の対立構成...