LLS Colloquium: "The informativeness/complexity trade-off in the domain of Boolean connectives"

Event details

On Wednesday 17th November 2021, Wataru Uegaki (University of Edinburgh) will be presenting his research on the informativeness/complexity trade-off in the domain of Boolean connectives at the Language and Linguistic Science Colloquium. 

The informativeness/complexity trade-off in the domain of Boolean connectives

I argue that the model of semantic universals and variation in terms of informativeness/complexity trade-off is applicable to the domain of Boolean connectives. In particular, I propose that the model explains the cross-linguistic absence of the connective NAND, once we incorporate the theoretical insights from Horn and Katzir and Singh. The lack of NAND follows if languages optimise the trade-off between (a) simplicity of the lexicon measured by the number of propositional logic symbols necessary to express the meaning of the connectives and (b) informativeness of the lexicon measured by how much it facilitates accurate transfer of information, given scalar implicature. The analysis demonstrates that the informativeness/complexity trade-off model provides a promising insight into the nature of constraints on lexicalisation in logical vocabularies, following recent studies by Steinert-Threlkeld and Denić et al.

The talk will take place at 4pm on Zoom, and there will be an opportunity to ask questions at the end - you can join using this link. 

Event poster: LLS Colloquium: The informativeness/complexity trade-off in the domain of Boolean connectives