The property of projection poses a challenge to formal semantic theories, due to its apparent non-compositional nature. Projected content is therefore typically analyzed as being different from and independent of asserted content. Recent evidence, however, suggests that these types of content in fact closely interact, thereby calling for a more integrated analysis that captures their similarities, while respecting their differences. Here, we propose such a unified, compositional semantic analysis of asserted and projected content. Our analysis captures the similarities and differences between presuppositions, anaphora, conventional implicatures and assertions on the basis of their information structure, that is, on basis of how their content is contributed to the unfolding discourse context. We formalize our analysis in an extension of the dynamic semantic framework of Discourse Representation Theory (DRT)—called Projective DRT (PDRT)—that employs projection variables to capture the information-structural aspects of semantic content; different constellations of such variables capture the differences between the different types of projected and asserted content within a single dimension of meaning. We formally derive the structural and compositional properties of PDRT, as well as its semantic interpretation. By instantiating PDRT as a mature semantic formalism, we argue that it paves way for a more focused investigation of the information-structural aspects of meaning.

中文翻译：

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信息结构的话语语义

投影的性质由于其明显的非组成性质而对形式语义理论构成了挑战。因此，通常将投影内容分析为与主张的内容不同并独立于所主张的内容。但是，最近的证据表明，这些类型的内容实际上紧密地相互作用，因此需要进行更全面的分析，以捕捉它们的相似性，同时尊重它们之间的差异。在这里，我们提出了这样一个统一的，组成性语义分析的断言和投影内容。我们的分析根据其信息结构，即根据其内容如何为展开的话语语境做出贡献，来捕获预设，照应，常规含义和主张之间的异同。我们在话语表示理论（DRT）的动态语义框架（称为投影DRT（PDRT））的扩展中将我们的分析形式化，该框架利用投影变量捕获语义内容的信息结构方面。此类变量的不同星座图在单一意义范围内捕获了不同类型的预计内容和主张内容之间的差异。我们正式得出PDRT的结构和组成特性，以及其语义解释。通过将PDRT实例化为成熟的语义形式主义，我们认为这为更深入地研究意义的信息结构方面铺平了道路。