Monotonicity properties of before and until. An experimental study
Year: 2015
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The thesis concerns monotonicity properties of two temporal operators, namely "before" and "until". Every natural language operator can be either monotone increasing, monotone decreasing or non-monotone. Usually, the first two mean that it preserves or reverses the direction of entailment. However monotonicity does not have to be defined in terms of entailment. In the paper three types of monotonicity are defined: with respect to temporal precedence, to the relation of being a sub-event, and to entailment. In this framework different definitions for before and until are proposed. These definitions allow to state exact empirical predictions. We test these predictions in an experimental study.
Author: Jan Winkowski
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1840589700