DBpedia – Linked Data Fragments

Matches in DBpedia 2015-10 for { ?s ?p "In linguistic semantics, a downward entailing (DE) propositional operator is one that denotes a monotone decreasing function. A downward entailing operator reverses the relation of semantic strength among expressions. An expression like “run fast” is semantically stronger than the expression “run” since “run fast” is true of fewer things than the latter. Thus the proposition “John ran fast” entails the proposition “John ran”.Examples of DE contexts include “not”, “nobody”, “few people”, “at most two boys”. They reverse the entailment relation of sentences formed with the predicates “run fast” and “run”, for example. The proposition “Nobody ran” entails that “Nobody ran fast”. The proposition “At most two boys ran” entails that “At most two boys ran fast”.Conversely, an upward entailing operator is one that preserves the relation of semantic strength among a set of expressions (for example, “more”). A context that is neither downward nor upward entailing is non-monotone, such as “exactly”.Ladusaw (1980) proposed that downward entailment is the property that licenses polarity items. Indeed, “Nobody saw anything“ is downward entailing and admits the negative polarity item anything, while * “I saw anything” is ungrammatical (the upward entailing context does not license such a polarity item). This approach explains many but not all typical cases of polarity item sensitivity. Subsequent attempts to describe the behavior of polarity items rely on a broader notion of nonveridicality."@en }

• Downward_entailing abstract "In linguistic semantics, a downward entailing (DE) propositional operator is one that denotes a monotone decreasing function. A downward entailing operator reverses the relation of semantic strength among expressions. An expression like “run fast” is semantically stronger than the expression “run” since “run fast” is true of fewer things than the latter. Thus the proposition “John ran fast” entails the proposition “John ran”.Examples of DE contexts include “not”, “nobody”, “few people”, “at most two boys”. They reverse the entailment relation of sentences formed with the predicates “run fast” and “run”, for example. The proposition “Nobody ran” entails that “Nobody ran fast”. The proposition “At most two boys ran” entails that “At most two boys ran fast”.Conversely, an upward entailing operator is one that preserves the relation of semantic strength among a set of expressions (for example, “more”). A context that is neither downward nor upward entailing is non-monotone, such as “exactly”.Ladusaw (1980) proposed that downward entailment is the property that licenses polarity items. Indeed, “Nobody saw anything“ is downward entailing and admits the negative polarity item anything, while * “I saw anything” is ungrammatical (the upward entailing context does not license such a polarity item). This approach explains many but not all typical cases of polarity item sensitivity. Subsequent attempts to describe the behavior of polarity items rely on a broader notion of nonveridicality.".