@InProceedings{Pinkal:1999,
      AUTHOR = {Pinkal, Manfred},
      TITLE = {On semantic underspecification},
      YEAR = {1999},
      BOOKTITLE = {Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Computational Semantics (IWCS 2), January 13-15},
      EDITOR = {Bunt, Harry and Muskens, Reinhard},
      ADDRESS = {Tilburg University, The Netherlands},
      ABSTRACT = {Underspecification has become fashionable in computational semantics. In this chapter, I will try to give an idea of what semantic underspecification is, what it has been good for, and what the perspective for future application are. I will start with the inspection of specific phenomena and techniques which are usually associated with the notion of underspecification (in Section 1 and 2, respectively). In Sect. 3, I will try to indicate the main motivations for using underspecification techniques. Then, I will point out one important use of the concept in some detail, i.e., direct reasoning with incomplete semantic information, discussing first the appropriate truth-conditional basis (Sect. 4), and second perspectives on efficient reasonig systems (Sect. 5). I will conclude with some remarks about the general status of the semantic underspecification concept, in Sect. 6..}
}