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Browsing Linguistics and Philosophy - Ph.D. / Sc.D. by Title

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Browsing Linguistics and Philosophy - Ph.D. / Sc.D. by Title

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  • Towards a theory of phonological alphabets 
    Calabrese, Andrea (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1988)
  • Towards a theory of subjective meaning 
    Stephenson, Tamina C (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007)
    This dissertation develops a form of relativism in which propositions are treated as sets of world-time-individual triples, in contrast to standard views that treat them as sets of worlds or world-time pairs. This builds ...
  • Truth in explanation 
    Nickel, Bernhard, Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2005)
    My thesis consists of three papers on truth and explanations in science. Broadly, the question I ask is semantic. Should the best account of certain bits of our scientific practice focus on the concept of truth? More ...
  • Tseltal clause structure 
    Shklovsky, Kirill (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012)
    This dissertation examines the syntax of clausal structure in Tseltal (Mayan) with a particular focus on agreement phenomena. The first domain of investigation is the External Possession Construction, in which the clausal ...
  • Two approaches to human rights 
    Holland, Sean Jamison (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009)
    Contemporary philosophy of human rights is dominated by two seemingly opposed approaches. This dissertation is concerned with the choice between them. The traditional approach to human rights is characterized by the belief ...
  • Underspecification in Yawelmani phonology and morphology 
    Archangeli, Diana Bennett (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1984)
  • Understanding language 
    Pettit, Dean R. (Dean Reid), 1967- (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003)
    My dissertation concerns the nature of linguistic understanding. A standard view about linguistic understanding is that it is a propositional knowledge state. The following is an instance of this view: given a speaker S ...
  • Universal grammar and syntactic development in children : toward a theory of syntactic development 
    Otsu, Yukio (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1981)
  • Vague objects 
    Ólafur Páll Jónsson (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001)
    Peter Unger's puzzle, the problem of the many, is an argument for the conclusion that we are grossly mistaken about what kinds of objects are in our immediate surroundings. But it is not clear what we should make of Unger's ...
  • Varieties of clausal complementation 
    Hartman, Jeremy (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012)
    This thesis argues that clausal arguments of mental-state predicates divide into two main types: those that express the content, or "subject matter" of the mental state, and those that express the cause of the mental state. ...
  • Verb raising and A/A-bar distinction : evidence from exceptional case marking 
    Baek, Judy Yoo-Kyung, 1969- (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1997)
  • The Vienna circle's debate about protocol sentences revisited : towards the reconstruction of Otto Neurath's epistemology 
    Uebel, Thomas Ernst (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1989)
  • Warlpiri : theoretical implications 
    Legate, Julie Anne, 1972- (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002)
    The issue of non-configurationality is fundamental in determining the possible range of variation in Universal Grammar. This dissertation investigates this issue in the context of Warlpiri, the prototypical non-configurational ...
  • A weighted-constraint model of F0 movements/ 
    Cho, Hyesun (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010)
    This dissertation develops a grammar of phonetic implementation of phonologically significant F0 (pitch) events, which is applicable across languages. Through production studies of various languages, we show that phonetic ...
  • What can be meant--evaluating a skeptical argument by Donald Davidson 
    Ruesga, G. Alberto (Glauco Alberto) (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1990)
  • What lies beneath? : a defense of categorical humility 
    Robichaud, Christopher J (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011)
    The three chapters of my dissertation develop and defend a new Humility thesis, Categorical Humility. Humility theses tell us there is some fundamental aspect of the world that we lack knowledge of. All such theses share ...
  • What moves where when in which languages? 
    Richards, Norvin W. (Norvin Waldemar), 1971- (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1997)
  • Why even ask? : on the pragmatics of questions and the semantics of answers 
    Guerzoni, Elena (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003)
    This work investigates the semantics-pragmatics and syntax-pragmatics interface of interrogatives, focusing on the effect of presupposition-triggering expressions like even and Negative Polarity Items (NPIs). In exploring ...
  • With reference to truth : studies in referential semantics 
    Cannon, Douglas Fillmore (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1982)
  • "You" and "I", "now" and "then", and some related thoughts 
    Santorio, Paolo, Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011)
    The overarching theme of this dissertation is the relationship between information and context-how context interacts with the contents of speech and thought. I pursue three issues within this broad theme. Chapter 1 concerns ...
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