R.B. is a student of theoretical
physics, cognitive psychology, theoretical linguistics, and philosophy of mind.
He finished a Ph.D. in Theoretical High Energy Physics, Karl Marx
University of Leipzig, with a dissertation on Multiple Particle Spectra in
the Multi-Regge Model (1975).
Further, he finshed a habilitation thesis in Theoretical Linguistics at
the Humboldt University Berlin (1995).
R.B. has started his scientific
carrier at the East German Academy of science. Later, he taught linguistics at
the Humboldt University of Berlin and artificial intelligence at the University
of Amsterdam (where he also gave courses on the philosophy of mind, intensional
logic, and quantum cognition). Further, he gave courses at the University of
Krakow, the Stanford University (Nassli), the University of Bloomington
(Nassli), the University of Oslo, the Universities of Stockholm and Ljubljana
(ESSLLI), and at many places in Germany.
R.B. has several books and about
hundred publications. His research interests concern cognitive musicology, the semantics and
pragmatics of natural language, bidirectional optimality theory, lexical
pragmatics, symbolic-connectionist integration, and quantum cognition. Since his retirement in summer 2013 his work is concentrated
on quantum cognition, including applications in the cognitive science of music.
Quantum Cognition is a research field that applies ideas from quantum physics and quantum information science in order to develop radically new models of a variety of cognitive phenomena ranging from human memory, information retrieval, and human language to decision making, social interaction, personality psychology, and philosophy of mind. For details see http://www.quantum-cognition.de/
Selected papers
Quantum cognition and bounded rationality (with Peter beim Graben). Syntheses DOI 10.1007/s11229-015-0928-5. Published online 2015.
A quantum probability perspective of borderline vagueness (with Emmanuel Pothos and Peter Bruza). TopiCS 5 (4), 2013, 711-736.
Questions and Answers in an Orthoalgebraic Approach. Journal of Logic, Language, and Information 21 (3), 2012, 237-277. DOI 10.1007/s10849-012-9158-0
Two Qubits for C.G. Jung (with Elena Hochnadel). Cognitive Systems Research 11(3), 243-259, 2010.
Concepts and Bounded Rationality: An Application of Niestegge’s Approach to Conditional Quantum Probabilities. In Luigi Accardi, et al. (eds., Foundations of Probability and Physics-5. Vol. 1101. American Institute of Physics Conference Proceedings. New-York. pp. 302-10, 2008.
Using methods of Quantum Cognition, Quantum Musicology can be developed as a new field of cognitive musicology. It integrats insights from group theory (symmetries and invariances) with a novel conception of musical forces based on modern gauge theory. Applications concern the explanation static and dynamic attraction phenomena as well as the foundation of musical emotions.
Selected papers
The emotional meaning of pure music. Mind & Matter 22(2), 165–202 (2024). Available from https://www.mindmatter.de/resources/pdf/blutner.pdf
Gauge models of musical forces. Journal of Mathematics and Music. 2020 (with
Peter beim Graben)
Supplements you can find
here
Quantum approaches to music cognition. Journal of Mathematical Psychology 91, 38-50, 2019. [first author: Peter beim Graben].
Toward a Gauge Theory of Musical Forces. In J. A. de Barros, B. Coecke & E. Pothos (Eds.), Quantum Interaction. 10th International Conference (QI 2016), LNCS 10106 (pp. 99-111). Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer (2017). First author: Peter beim Graben
Modelling tonal attraction: tonal hierarchies, interval cycles, and quantum probabilities. In: Logic, Music and Quantum Information. Edited by M. L. Dalla Chiara, R. Giuntini, E. Negri and S. Smets. Spinger, forthcoming. DOI 10.1007/s00500-015-1801-7. Published online 2015
Lexical Pragmatics is a particular account of the division of labor between lexical semantics and pragmatics. It combines the idea of (radical) semantic under-specification in the lexicon with a theory of pragmatic strengthening based on conversational implicatures. In the core of this approach is a precise treatment of Atlas & Levinson's (1981) Q- and I-principles and the formalization of the balance between informativeness and efficiency in natural language processing (Horn's 1984 division of pragmatic labor).
Selected papers
Conversational
Implicature and lexical pragmatics. In: Proceedings of the AAAI Spring
Symposium on Conversational Implicature. Stanford 1996, pp. 1-9. [with Annette
Leßmöllmann and Rob van der Sandt]
Lexical pragmatics.
In: R. van der Sandt, R. Blutner, and M. Bierwisch (Eds.), From
Underspecification to Interpretation. IBM Working Papers 29 (ISSN 0946-7221),
Heidelberg 1997, pp. 55-89. Also published in Journal of Semantics 15,
115-162, 1998
Pragmatics and
the lexicon. In: Laurence R. Horn & Gregory Ward (Eds.) Handbook of
Pragmatics, Oxford, Blackwell, 2004 [pdf
version with all fonts inclusive, 1.5 MB]
Lexical semantics
and pragmatics. In: Linguistische Berichte, Sonderheft 10, 27-58 (2002):
Semantics. Ed. by Fritz Hamm and Thomas Ede Zimmermann. (ISSN 0935-9245).
Two case
studies in lexical pragmatics. In E. Németh & K. Bibok (eds.) Pragmatics
and the Flexibility of Word Meaning. Elsevier Science, Amsterdam, 2001 (ISBN:
0-08-043971-3). Pp. 11-28 [with T. Solstad].
Lexikalische Pragmatik. In F. Liedtke & A. Tuchen (Eds.), Metzler-Handbuch
Pragmatik). Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler Verlag 2019
BiOT (Bidirectional Optimality Theory)
The human language faculty is a bidirectional system, i.e. it can be used by
processes of approximately equal computational complexity to understand and to
generate utterances of a language. We assume the general framework of optimality
theory and treat the language faculty as a constraint-based system where the
very same constraints are uses both in comprehension and in generation. In the
simplest case comprehension and generation
can be modelled by unidirectional
optimization: finding an optimal interpretations for a given speech input in the
case of comprehension; producing an optimal expression for a given message in
case of generation. In the simplest case, the speaker and the listener roles are
strictly separated. However, there are linguistic observations which indicate
that the listener’s and the speaker’s perspectives are integrated to some
extent. Bidirectional
optimization is an explicit proposal for doing the
integration.
Selected papers
Some aspects of optimality in natural
language interpretation. In: Helen de Hoop & Henriette de Swart (eds.)
Papers on Optimality Theoretic Semantics. Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS,
December 1999, pp 1-21.
Also: Journal of Semantics 17, 189-216, 2000.
Optimality Theoretic Pragmatics and the Explicature/Implicature Distinction. In Noel Burton-Roberts (Ed.), Advances in Pragmatics. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave/MacMillan, pp. 67-89, 2007
Some Experimental Aspects of Optimality-Theoretic Pragmatics. In Enikő Németh & Károly Bibok (eds.): The Role of Data at the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface. De Gruyter, Berlin, 2010.
Bidirectional Grammar and Bidirectional Optimization (with A. Strigin). Bidirectional Grammar and Bidirectional Optimization. In Benz, Anton and Jason Mattausch (Eds.), Bidirectional Optimality Theory (pp. 221-248). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2011.
Neural Nets and Symbolic Reasoning
Ever since the discovery of neural networks, there has been a controversy between two modes of information processing. On the one hand, symbolic systems have proven indispensable for our understanding of higher intelligence, especially when cognitive domains like language and reasoning are examined. On the other hand, it is a matter of fact that intelligence resides in the brain, where computation appears to be organized by numerical and statistical principles and where a parallel distributed architecture is appropriate. The present claim is in line with researchers like Paul Smolensky and Peter Gärdenfors and suggests that this controversy can be resolved by a unified theory of cognition – one that integrates both aspects of cognition and assigns the proper roles to symbolic computation and numerical neural computation.
Selected papers
Nonmonotonic Inferences and Neural Networks. Synthese 141 (2), 2004
Nonmonotonic logic and neural networks. In: P. Decker, M. Stokhof, and Y. Venema (eds.), Proceedings of the 11th Amsterdam Colloquium. ILLC-Publications (ISBN 90-74795-90-0), Amsterdam 1997, pp. 85-90
Neural Networks, Penalty Logic and Optimality Theory (2005). Unpublished paper
Many variants of Cognitive Semantics assume the existence of (mental) prototypes. This has important consequences for (formal) theories of meaning and reasoning.
Selected papers
Prototypen und Kognitive Semantik, In: G. Harras (Hg.), Jahrbuch 1993 des IDS - 'Die Ordnung der Wörter', de Gruyter, 1994, pp. 227-270
'Normality' in update semantics. In: T. Galloway & M. Simons (Eds.), SALT 5 Proceedings 1995, Cornell Linguistic Publications, Cornell University, 1996, pp. 19- 36
Compositionality and Systematicity
A feasible model of natural language semantics should account for the
systematicity displayed by language understanding. The idea that
compositionality alone is sufficient to guarantee systematic reasoning within a
semantic system is rejected. An analysis of systematic inferences involving
adjective–noun combinations with intersective adjectives illustrates that more
than a compositional semantics is required for their
understanding.
Selected papers
Compositionality and systematicity. In G. Bouma, I. Krämer, and J. Zwarts, Cognitive Foundations of Interpretation. Amsterdam: KNAW publications, 2007 [with Jennifer Spenader]
On compositionality and bidirectional optimization. Journal of Cognitive Science 8/2 (2007) [with Helen de Hoop & Petra Hendriks]
When compositionality fails to predict systematicity. In S. D. Levy & R. Gayler (Eds.), Compositional Connectionism in Cognitive Science. Papers from the AAAI Fall Symposium (ISBN 1-57735-214-9). Arlington: The AAAI Press, 2004, pp. 6-11 [with Petra Hendriks, Helen de Hoop, and Oren Schwarz]
Two Computational Methods of Attributive Modification in Natural Language Semantics Compared. Bachelor Thesis University of Amsterdam by M.L. de Groot (supervised by Reinhard Blutner).
This is joint work with Gerhard Jäger. We have proposed an optimality-based account for the syntax/semantics map in the German examples with wieder (“again”) and either a definite or an indefinite object.
Selected papers
Against lexical decomposition in syntax. In Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Conference, IATL 7 (A.Z. Wyner, ed.), University of Haifa 2000, pp. 113-137 [with G. Jäger]
Competition and interpretation: The German adverbs of repetition [with G. Jäger]. Unpublished manuscript 1999. This version is exploiting ideas that are different from those of the published paper.
This research field has been mainly developed in the tradition of Frege and Montague. Traditionally, it is seen to conflict with the field of Cognitive Semantics. I have worked out several attempts to reconcile both positions (see also Neural Nets and Symbolic Reasoning).
Selected papers
Dynamic generalized quantifiers and existential sentences in natural language. Journal of Semantics 10, 33-64, 1993
Formal Pragmatics. To appear in Yan Huang (Ed.), [Oxford] Handbook of Pragmatics (2015). Online version available as Oxford Handbooks Online, Sept. 2013. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199697960.013.002
Questions and Answers in an Orthoalgebraic Approach. Journal of Logic, Language, and Information 21 (3), 2012, 237-277. DOI 10.1007/s10849-012-9158-0
Two Qubits for C.G. Jung (with Elena Hochnadel). Cognitive Systems Research 11(3), 243-259, 2010.