DOCSLIB.ORG

A Lexical Theory of Quantification in Ambiguous Query Interpretation

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons IRCS Technical Reports Series Institute for Research in Cognitive Science May 1996 A Lexical Theory of Quantification in Ambiguous Query Interpretation Jong Cheol Park University of Pennsylvania Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/ircs_reports Park, Jong Cheol, "A Lexical Theory of Quantification in Ambiguous Query Interpretation" (1996). IRCS Technical Reports Series. 105. https://repository.upenn.edu/ircs_reports/105 University of Pennsylvania Institute for Research in Cognitive Science Technical Report No. IRCS-96-27. This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/ircs_reports/105 For more information, please contact [email protected]. A Lexical Theory of Quantification in Ambiguous Query Interpretation Abstract Although the connection between natural language syntax and semantics has received serious attention in both linguistics and computational linguistics for the last several decades, it does not appear that it has yet been entirely satisfactorily identified. The present dissertation focuses on quantifier scope ambiguity in an attempt to identify such a connection. We show that there are some readings that are incorrectly allowed by the theories and that other readings that are available are allowed for the wrong reason. First, we distinguish referential NP interpretations from quantificational NP interpretations. Most traditional theories of scope do not, and they are shown to significantly overgenerate readings and/or miss a crucial generalization regarding quantificationally va ailable readings. We present a hypothesis based on the notion of surface constituency to predict quantificationally va ailable readings. The hypothesis is tested on core English constructions, including transitive verbs, dative alternation (ditransitive) verbs, attitude verbs, complex NPs containing prepositional phrases, possessives, and subject or non-subject Wh-relatives also with pied-piping and various coordinate structures. We argue that the scopings allowed under the hypothesis are the ones that are available. We then present a competence theory of quantifier scope, couched in a combinatory categorial grammar framework. The theory defines the connection between syntax and semantics in a precise way, utilizing the dual quantifier eprr esentation. We show theoretical predictions on the core English constructions, and verify that the theoretical predictions are consistent with the predictions made by the hypothesis and that there are further reasonable theoretically predicted readings. Finally, we describe an implementation of the theory in Prolog. The implemented system takes English sentences as ambiguous queries (regarding scope), generates logical forms that are associated with them, and evaluates those logical forms with respect to a predefined database of facts. The system also works as a proof-checker of the theory. Comments University of Pennsylvania Institute for Research in Cognitive Science Technical Report No. IRCS-96-27. This thesis or dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/ircs_reports/105 , Institute for Research in Cognitive Science A Lexical Theory of Quantification in Ambiguous Query Interpretation (Ph.D. Dissertation) Jong Cheol Park University of Pennsylvania 3401 Walnut Street, Suite 400A Philadelphia, PA 19104-6228 May 1996 Site of the NSF Science and Technology Center for Research in Cognitive Science IRCS Report 96--27 A LEXICAL THEORY OF QUANTIFICATION IN AMBIGUOUS QUERY INTERPRETATION JONG CHEOL PARK A DISSERTATION in COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SCIENCE Presented to the Faculties of the UniversityofPennsylvania in Partial Fulllment of the Requirements for the Degree of Do ctor of Philosophy Mark Steedman Sup ervisor of Dissertation Peter Buneman Graduate Group Chairp erson c Copyright by Jong Cheol Park ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Iwould like to thank my thesis advisor Professor Mark Steedman for supp orting me throughout the PhD study and teaching me how to address a p otential research problem While I am now only b eginning to understand a subeld of computational linguistics I am deeply grateful to him for most of what I have come to understand in the eld I am also very grateful to Professor Aravind Joshi for kindly encouraging me to develop a edgling idea when I rst started my PhD researchatPenn While the sp ecic prop osal has changed considerably since then I am sure that the seed for my thesis was sown then I also thank Professors Bonnie Webb er Anthony Kro ch Ellen Prince Richard Oehrle Mitch Marcus and Martha Palmer for giving me the valuable opp ortunitytobe in such a diverse and co op erativeenvironment for the study of computational linguistics I must thank Professor Pauline Jacobson for intro ducing me to the basics of a linguisticall y sound approach and kindly helping me to sort things out I am grateful to Professor Janet Fo dor for joining my dissertation committee I only wish I were wiser to meet with them more often to learn more ab out the p ossibly numerous mistakes in what I havetosayI also thank Professor Insup Lee for his constant concern with my progress and his timely advice to b e brave and wrap up Also even though it was brief I was extremely lucky to haveachance to meet with a numb er of brilliantscholars esp ecially Professor Johan van Benthem Professor Mark Johnson Professor Laszlo Hunyadi Dr Fernando CN Pereira Professor Stuart Shieb er Professor Ed Stabler and Professor Anna Szab olcsi During the long years of developing the ideas for the thesis I was fortunate to receive feedback from many colleagues including Beryl Homan Jason Eisner Seth Kulick Nob o iii Komagata YoungSuk Lee Libby Levison Christine Nakatani Michael Niv Charlie Or tiz Scott Prevost Ano op Sarkar Matthew Stone Bangalore Srinivas Michael White Limso on Wong and Fei Xia Thanks are due to all of them I am also grateful to Professor YoungTaek Kim for stirring up myinterest in Natural Language Pro cessing and to Professor Yo okun Cho for kindly allowing me to work on NLP area under his sup ervision while I was working towards a masters degree at my Alma Mater Seoul National UniversityinKorea There are numerous p eople who help ed to brighten my long years of PhD study including Wenfei Fan Limso on Wong BondJay Ting PeiHwa Ho Jonathan Kaye Paul Diefenbach D R Mani Susan Deysher and Michael Felker I am very grateful to them Being a Korean away from home for suchalongtimeIhave b een esp ecially lucky to get to knowsomanywonderful Koreans including Professor KwangYon Won Professor Insup Lee Professor SungKo ok Han Professor JinTak Choi Dr YoungSi Kim Dr JinMin Kim Dr Mo on Yul Jung Dr JinYoung Choi Dr JeeIn Kim Dr Youngho Kim Dr So on Yong Seong Dr Yeong jo o Lee Dr SeungMin Park Dr Mo on Kun Lee Dr Hyongseok Ko Dr Eunyoung Koh Changb ong Lee Dr Hyogon Kim and Inhye Kang Dr Frances Lee and Chunghye Han I am immensely indebted to their hospitality and friendship Iamsolucky to meet mylovely wife Jinah who shared all the joys and sadness with me over the long and otherwise lonelyyears of PhD study I am so proud that b oth of us are at last making it to the PhD degree at the same time I also deeply thank my elder brother Jong Won and my elder sister Jong Mi for providing me such a strong umbrella of love and protection I am very grateful to mywonderful parentsinlawfor their strong faith in me Finally I am most thankful to my parents for everything that I have b ecome and will b e I b elievethatmyintellectual curiositytowards the way things work and my attraction towards understanding and appreciating things b eyond are due to my father and my mother I would like to dedicate this dissertation to them iv ABSTRACT A LEXICAL THEORY OF QUANTIFICATION IN AMBIGUOUS QUERY INTERPRETATION JONG CHEOL PARK MARK STEEDMAN Although the connection b etween natural language syntax and semantics has received serious attention in b oth linguistics and computational linguistics for the last several decades it do es not app ear that it has yet b een entirely satisfactorily identied The present dissertation fo cusses on quantier scop e ambiguity in an attempt to identify such a connection We show that there are some readings that are incorrectly allowed by the theories and that other readings that are available are allowed for the wrong reason First we distinguish referential NP interpretations from quanticational NP interpre tations Most traditional theories of scop e do not and they are shown to signicantly overgenerate readings andor miss a crucial generalization regarding quanticationally available readings We presentahyp othesis based on the notion of surface constituency to predict quanticationally available readings The hyp othesis is tested on core English constructions including transitiveverbs dative alternation ditransitive verbs attitude verbs complex NPs containing prep ositional phrases p ossessives and sub ject or non sub ject Whrelatives also with piedpiping and various co ordinate structures Weargue that the scopings allowed under the hyp othesis are the ones that are available We then present a comp etence theory of quantier scop e couched in a combinatory categorial grammar framework The theory denes the connection b etween syntax and v semantics in a precise way utilizing the dual quantier representation Weshow theoretical predictions on the core English constructions and verify that the theoretical predictions are consistent with the predictions made by the hyp othesis and that there are further
Recommended publications
  • Lexical and Syntactic Ambiguity As a Source of Humor: the Case of Newspaper Headlines

    Lexical and Syntactic Ambiguity As a Source of Humor: the Case of Newspaper Headlines

    Lexical and syntactic ambiguity as a source of humor: The case of newspaper headlines CHIARA BUCARIA Abstract The paper analyzes some forms of linguistic ambiguity in English in a specific register, i.e. newspaper headlines. In particular, the focus of the research is on examples of lexical and syntactic ambiguity that result in sources of voluntary or involuntary humor. The study is based on a corpus of 135 verbally ambiguous headlines found on web sites presenting humor- ous bits of information. The linguistic phenomena that contribute to create this kind of semantic confusion in headlines will be analyzed and divided into the three main categories of lexical, syntactic, and phonological ambi- guity, and examples from the corpus will be discussed for each category. The main results of the study were that, firstly, contrary to the findings of previous research on jokes, syntactically ambiguous headlines were found in good percentage in the corpus and that this might point to di¤erences in genre. Secondly, two new configurations for the processing of the disjunctor/connector order were found. In the first of these configurations the disjunctor appears before the connector, instead of being placed after or coinciding with the ambiguous element, while in the second one two ambig- uous elements are present, each of which functions both as a connector and a disjunctor. Keywords: Ambiguity; headlines; lexical; syntactic; disjunctor; connector. Introduction The present paper sets out to analyze some forms of linguistic ambiguity in English in a specific register, i.e. newspaper headlines. In particular, the Humor 17–3 (2004), 279–309 0933–1719/04/0017–0279 6 Walter de Gruyter 280 C.
  • Semantic Analysis on Sense of Ambiguity in the Headline Printed the Jakarta Post Published on March 13Th– April 13Th , 2015

    Semantic Analysis on Sense of Ambiguity in the Headline Printed the Jakarta Post Published on March 13Th– April 13Th , 2015

    SEMANTIC ANALYSIS ON SENSE OF AMBIGUITY IN THE HEADLINE PRINTED THE JAKARTA POST PUBLISHED ON MARCH 13TH– APRIL 13TH , 2015 Erisa Kurniati Batanghari University [email protected] ABSTRACT This research was aim to find out the ambiguity which found in the headline of The Jakarta Post based on semantic analysis first classify it which one the most ambiguous (word, phrase or sentence), then the last interpret the sense of ambiguity based on semantic analysis. The researcher collected 100 data of headlines then reduced it into 10 data purposively the most ambiguous. There are 6 data of ambiguity interpreted into two interpretations and 4 data of ambiguity interpreted into three interpretations. From 10 data, the data researcher found a lexical ambiguity in the headlines of The Jakarta Post published on March 13th – April 13th, 2015. Key words: Semantic Analysis, Sense of Ambiguity. A. Background of the Study Nowadays, there are many ways to communicate with other due to the developments of technology. There are many media, whether electronic or printed media to share information and to keep in touch with the other. People can get the information about the development of the world and everything happens in a day from electronic and printed media. Newspaper, especially daily newspaper, has a big contribution for the people to get information about local or international events everyday because the news and information are up to date and accurate. As a consequence, there are many daily newspapers published in Indonesia and one of the daily English Newspaper is The Jakarta Post. Generally, people communicate perfectly and completely.
  • The Meaning of Language

    The Meaning of Language

    01:615:201 Introduction to Linguistic Theory Adam Szczegielniak The Meaning of Language Copyright in part: Cengage learning The Meaning of Language • When you know a language you know: • When a word is meaningful or meaningless, when a word has two meanings, when two words have the same meaning, and what words refer to (in the real world or imagination) • When a sentence is meaningful or meaningless, when a sentence has two meanings, when two sentences have the same meaning, and whether a sentence is true or false (the truth conditions of the sentence) • Semantics is the study of the meaning of morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences – Lexical semantics: the meaning of words and the relationships among words – Phrasal or sentential semantics: the meaning of syntactic units larger than one word Truth • Compositional semantics: formulating semantic rules that build the meaning of a sentence based on the meaning of the words and how they combine – Also known as truth-conditional semantics because the speaker’ s knowledge of truth conditions is central Truth • If you know the meaning of a sentence, you can determine under what conditions it is true or false – You don’ t need to know whether or not a sentence is true or false to understand it, so knowing the meaning of a sentence means knowing under what circumstances it would be true or false • Most sentences are true or false depending on the situation – But some sentences are always true (tautologies) – And some are always false (contradictions) Entailment and Related Notions • Entailment: one sentence entails another if whenever the first sentence is true the second one must be true also Jack swims beautifully.
  • Notes on Generalized Quantifiers

    Notes on Generalized Quantifiers

    Notes on generalized quantifiers Ann Copestake ([email protected]), Computer Lab Copyright c Ann Copestake, 2001–2012 These notes are (minimally) adapted from lecture notes on compositional semantics used in a previous course. They are provided in order to supplement the notes from the Introduction to Natural Language Processing module on compositional semantics. 1 More on scope and quantifiers In the introductory module, we restricted ourselves to first order logic (or subsets of it). For instance, consider: (1) every big dog barks 8x[big0(x) ^ dog0(x) ) bark0(x)] This is first order because all predicates take variables denoting entities as arguments and because the quantifier (8) and connective (^) are part of standard FOL. As far as possible, computational linguists avoid the use of full higher-order logics. Theorem-proving with any- thing more than first order logic is problematic in general (though theorem-proving with FOL is only semi-decidable and that there are some ways in which higher-order constructs can be used that don’t make things any worse). Higher order sets in naive set theory also give rise to Russell’s paradox. Even without considering inference or denotation, higher-order logics cause computational problems: e.g., when deciding whether two higher order expressions are potentially equivalent (higher-order unification). However, we have to go beyond standard FOPC to represent some constructions. We need modal operators such as probably. I won’t go into the semantics of these in detail, but we can represent them as higher-order predicates. For instance: probably0(sleep0(k)) corresponds to kitty probably sleeps.
  • The Linguistic Description of Opaque Contexts Pdf, Epub, Ebook

    The Linguistic Description of Opaque Contexts Pdf, Epub, Ebook

    THE LINGUISTIC DESCRIPTION OF OPAQUE CONTEXTS PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Janet Dean Fodor | 384 pages | 26 Nov 2015 | Taylor & Francis Ltd | 9781138989535 | English | London, United Kingdom The Linguistic Description of Opaque Contexts PDF Book This also concerns noun phrases embedded under attitude verbs; consider:. A naturalobjectionto ourproposalis thatthe T-sentencewe give for 'Galileo said that the earthmoves' will not enable someone who grasps it alone to under- stand the sentence for which it gives truthconditions. Peter Trudgill offers examples of non-transparent and transparent compounds: "The English word dentist is not semantically transparent whereas the Norwegian word tannlege , literally 'tooth doctor,' is" A Glossary of Sociolinguistics , This cannot mean as if they had asserted them, so we take it that the idea is basically the same as the one we have in mind. See Lepore and Ludwig for a suggestion for an importantmodificationof Davidson's proposal in the context of a general truth-theoreticaltreatmentof tense and temporaladverbs. The above observation about translationhelps on another front. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. This way of drawing attentionto the appropriaterelation is does not commit us to the existence of propo- sitions; rather,it is a useful heuristicgiven the familiarityof puttingit this way. Perhaps the most popular solution to the problem of providing a compositional semantics for naturallanguages aims to exploit this fact by treat- ing that-clausesas referringto intensional entities-entities at least as as finely individuatedas the meanings of sentences.
  • Two-Dimensionalism: Semantics and Metasemantics

    Two-Dimensionalism: Semantics and Metasemantics

    Two-Dimensionalism: Semantics and Metasemantics YEUNG, \y,ang -C-hun ...:' . '",~ ... ~ .. A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy In Philosophy The Chinese University of Hong Kong January 2010 Abstract of thesis entitled: Two-Dimensionalism: Semantics and Metasemantics Submitted by YEUNG, Wang Chun for the degree of Master of Philosophy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in July 2009 This ,thesis investigates problems surrounding the lively debate about how Kripke's examples of necessary a posteriori truths and contingent a priori truths should be explained. Two-dimensionalism is a recent development that offers a non-reductive analysis of such truths. The semantic interpretation of two-dimensionalism, proposed by Jackson and Chalmers, has certain 'descriptive' elements, which can be articulated in terms of the following three claims: (a) names and natural kind terms are reference-fixed by some associated properties, (b) these properties are known a priori by every competent speaker, and (c) these properties reflect the cognitive significance of sentences containing such terms. In this thesis, I argue against two arguments directed at such 'descriptive' elements, namely, The Argument from Ignorance and Error ('AlE'), and The Argument from Variability ('AV'). I thereby suggest that reference-fixing properties belong to the semantics of names and natural kind terms, and not to their metasemantics. Chapter 1 is a survey of some central notions related to the debate between descriptivism and direct reference theory, e.g. sense, reference, and rigidity. Chapter 2 outlines the two-dimensional approach and introduces the va~ieties of interpretations 11 of the two-dimensional framework.
  • Leibniz and the Necessity of the Best Possible World

    Leibniz and the Necessity of the Best Possible World

    This is a preprint of an article whose final and definitive form will be published in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy; the Australasian Journal of Philosophy is available online at: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/. LEIBNIZ AND THE NECESSITY OF THE BEST POSSIBLE WORLD Martin Pickup Leibniz has long faced a challenge about the coherence of the distinction between necessary and contingent truths in his philosophy. In this paper, I propose and examine a new way to save genuine contingency within a Leibnizian framework. I conclude that it succeeds in formally solving the problem, but at unbearable cost. I present Leibniz’s challenge by considering God’s choice of the best possible world (Sect. 2). God necessarily exists and necessarily chooses to actualise the best possible world. The actual world therefore could not be different, for if it were different it would be a distinct and inferior world and hence would not be created. In Sect. 3 I defend Leibniz from this challenge. I argue that while it is necessary for God to choose to create the best possible world, it is not necessary for any world to be the best possible. This is because the criterion for judging perfection can itself be contingent. Different criteria will judge different worlds as the best. Thus it is necessary for God to create the best, but not necessary which is the best. Distinguishing between possible worlds in Leibniz’s sense and in the modern sense allows a fuller exposition of this position. There are worries that can arise with the claim that the criterion of perfection is contingent.
  • Against Logical Form

    Against Logical Form

    Against logical form Zolta´n Gendler Szabo´ Conceptions of logical form are stranded between extremes. On one side are those who think the logical form of a sentence has little to do with logic; on the other, those who think it has little to do with the sentence. Most of us would prefer a conception that strikes a balance: logical form that is an objective feature of a sentence and captures its logical character. I will argue that we cannot get what we want. What are these extreme conceptions? In linguistics, logical form is typically con- ceived of as a level of representation where ambiguities have been resolved. According to one highly developed view—Chomsky’s minimalism—logical form is one of the outputs of the derivation of a sentence. The derivation begins with a set of lexical items and after initial mergers it splits into two: on one branch phonological operations are applied without semantic effect; on the other are semantic operations without phono- logical realization. At the end of the first branch is phonological form, the input to the articulatory–perceptual system; and at the end of the second is logical form, the input to the conceptual–intentional system.1 Thus conceived, logical form encompasses all and only information required for interpretation. But semantic and logical information do not fully overlap. The connectives “and” and “but” are surely not synonyms, but the difference in meaning probably does not concern logic. On the other hand, it is of utmost logical importance whether “finitely many” or “equinumerous” are logical constants even though it is hard to see how this information could be essential for their interpretation.
  • Scope Ambiguity in Syntax and Semantics

    Scope Ambiguity in Syntax and Semantics

    Scope Ambiguity in Syntax and Semantics Ling324 Reading: Meaning and Grammar, pg. 142-157 Is Scope Ambiguity Semantically Real? (1) Everyone loves someone. a. Wide scope reading of universal quantifier: ∀x[person(x) →∃y[person(y) ∧ love(x,y)]] b. Wide scope reading of existential quantifier: ∃y[person(y) ∧∀x[person(x) → love(x,y)]] 1 Could one semantic representation handle both the readings? • ∃y∀x reading entails ∀x∃y reading. ∀x∃y describes a more general situation where everyone has someone who s/he loves, and ∃y∀x describes a more specific situation where everyone loves the same person. • Then, couldn’t we say that Everyone loves someone is associated with the semantic representation that describes the more general reading, and the more specific reading obtains under an appropriate context? That is, couldn’t we say that Everyone loves someone is not semantically ambiguous, and its only semantic representation is the following? ∀x[person(x) →∃y[person(y) ∧ love(x,y)]] • After all, this semantic representation reflects the syntax: In syntax, everyone c-commands someone. In semantics, everyone scopes over someone. 2 Arguments for Real Scope Ambiguity • The semantic representation with the scope of quantifiers reflecting the order in which quantifiers occur in a sentence does not always represent the most general reading. (2) a. There was a name tag near every plate. b. A guard is standing in front of every gate. c. A student guide took every visitor to two museums. • Could we stipulate that when interpreting a sentence, no matter which order the quantifiers occur, always assign wide scope to every and narrow scope to some, two, etc.? 3 Arguments for Real Scope Ambiguity (cont.) • But in a negative sentence, ¬∀x∃y reading entails ¬∃y∀x reading.
  • On the Logic of Two-Dimensional Semantics

    On the Logic of Two-Dimensional Semantics

    Matrices and Modalities: On the Logic of Two-Dimensional Semantics MSc Thesis (Afstudeerscriptie) written by Peter Fritz (born March 4, 1984 in Ludwigsburg, Germany) under the supervision of Dr Paul Dekker and Prof Dr Yde Venema, and submitted to the Board of Examiners in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MSc in Logic at the Universiteit van Amsterdam. Date of the public defense: Members of the Thesis Committee: June 29, 2011 Dr Paul Dekker Dr Emar Maier Dr Alessandra Palmigiano Prof Dr Frank Veltman Prof Dr Yde Venema Abstract Two-dimensional semantics is a theory in the philosophy of language that pro- vides an account of meaning which is sensitive to the distinction between ne- cessity and apriority. Usually, this theory is presented in an informal manner. In this thesis, I take first steps in formalizing it, and use the formalization to present some considerations in favor of two-dimensional semantics. To do so, I define a semantics for a propositional modal logic with operators for the modalities of necessity, actuality, and apriority that captures the relevant ideas of two-dimensional semantics. I use this to show that some criticisms of two- dimensional semantics that claim that the theory is incoherent are not justified. I also axiomatize the logic, and compare it to the most important proposals in the literature that define similar logics. To indicate that two-dimensional semantics is a plausible semantic theory, I give an argument that shows that all theorems of the logic can be philosophically justified independently of two-dimensional semantics. Acknowledgements I thank my supervisors Paul Dekker and Yde Venema for their help and encour- agement in preparing this thesis.
  • On Considering a Possible World As Actual

    On Considering a Possible World As Actual

    ON CONSIDERING A POSSIBLE WORLD AS ACTUAL Robert Stalnaker “Hell is paved with primary intensions” English proverb1 1. Introduction In Naming and Necessity2, Saul Kripke presented some striking examples that convinced many philosophers that there are truths that are both necessary and a posteriori, and also truths that are both contingent and a priori. The classic examples of the former are identity statements containing proper names (Hesperus = Phosphorus) and statements about the nature of natural kinds (Gold has atomic number 79). Realistic examples of the second kind of statement are harder to come by - perhaps there are none - but once one sees the idea it is easy to construct artificial examples. The most famous example is based on Gareth Evans’s descriptive name “Julius.”3 “Julius” is, by stipulation, a proper name of the person (whoever he might be) who invented the zip. So the statement “Julius invented the zip” can be known a priori to be true, but since the description is used to fix the reference rather than to give the meaning , of the name, the fact that Julius invented the zip is a contingent fact. Someone other than Julius (the person we in fact named) might have invented the zip, and if some else had invented it instead, it would not have been true that Julius invented the zip. The divergence of the two distinctions was surprising, but the examples are simple and relatively transparent. Kripke’s exposition pointed the way to an abstract description of the phenomena that made it clear, on one level at least, what is going on.
  • Quantification of Damages , in 3 ISSUES in COMPETITION LAW and POLICY 2331 (ABA Section of Antitrust Law 2008)

    Quantification of Damages , in 3 ISSUES in COMPETITION LAW and POLICY 2331 (ABA Section of Antitrust Law 2008)

    Theon van Dijk & Frank Verboven, Quantification of Damages , in 3 ISSUES IN COMPETITION LAW AND POLICY 2331 (ABA Section of Antitrust Law 2008) Chapter 93 _________________________ QUANTIFICATION OF DAMAGES Theon van Dijk and Frank Verboven * This chapter provides a general economic framework for quantifying damages or lost profits in price-fixing cases. We begin with a conceptual framework that explicitly distinguishes between the direct cost effect of a price overcharge and the subsequent indirect pass-on and output effects of the overcharge. We then discuss alternative methods to quantify these various components of damages, ranging from largely empirical approaches to more theory-based approaches. Finally, we discuss the law and economics of price-fixing damages in the United States and Europe, with the focus being the legal treatment of the various components of price-fixing damages, as well as the legal standing of the various groups harmed by collusion. 1. Introduction Economic damages can be caused by various types of competition law violations, such as price-fixing or market-dividing agreements, exclusionary practices, or predatory pricing by a dominant firm. Depending on the violation, there are different parties that may suffer damages, including customers (direct purchasers and possibly indirect purchasers located downstream in the distribution chain), suppliers, and competitors. Even though the parties damaged and the amount of the damage may be clear from an economic perspective, in the end it is the legal framework within a jurisdiction that determines which violations can lead to compensation, which parties have standing to sue for damages, and the burden and standard of proof that must be met by plaintiffs and defendants.