A Compositional Treatment of Polysemous Arguments in Categorial Grammar

We discuss an extension of the standard logical rules (functional application and abstraction) in Categorial Grammar (CG), in order to deal with some specific cases of polysemy. We borrow from Generative Lexicon theory which proposes the mechanism of {\em coercion}, next to a rich nominal lexical semantic structure called {\em qualia structure}. In a previous paper we introduced coercion into the framework of {\em sign-based} Categorial Grammar and investigated its impact on traditional Fregean compositionality. In this paper we will elaborate on this idea, mostly working towards the introduction of a new semantic dimension. Where in current versions of sign-based Categorial Grammar only two representations are derived: a prosodic one (form) and a logical one (modelling), here we introduce also a more detaled representation of the lexical semantics. This extra knowledge will serve to account for linguistic phenomena like {\em metonymy\/}.Comment: LaTeX file, 19 pages, uses pubsmacs, pubsbib, pubsarticle, leqn

Cross-categorial gradability in Logoori

The central empirical observation of this paper is that there are polysemous lexical items in a number of unrelated languages that have similar, not intuitively related, meanings. These meanings are 'to arrive'/'to reach,' 'to be enough,' and 'must.' The central theoretical claim of this paper is based on a case study of one such polysemous lexical item in Logoori (Bantu, JE 41; Kenya). We argue that these three meanings all arise from a single semantic denotation that is sensitive to a shared gradable component in the semantics of linguistic expressions referring to spatial paths, gradable predicates, measures of plural count nouns/mass nouns, and modals. The main theoretical issue addressed in this paper is the application of ordered, abstract scales in a model of grammar. This paper is an abridged version of Bowler & Gluckman, to appear

Morphology Within the Parallel Architecture Framework : the Centrality of the Lexicon Below the Word Level

The Parallel Architecture (PA) framework (Jackendoff 2002, 2007, Culicover & Jackendoff 2005) is one of the most complete constraint-based linguistic theories that encompasses phonology, syntax and semantics. However, it lacks a fully developed model of word formation. More recently, a theory called Relational Morphology (RM) (Jackendoff & Audring 2020) has been developed, that integrates into the PA. The current study shows how the Slot Structure model (Benavides 2003, 2009, 2010), which is compatible with the PA and is based on the dual-route model and percolation of features (Pinker 1999, 2006; Huang & Pinker 2010), can provide a better account of morphology than RM, and can also be incorporated into the PA, thus contributing to make this a more explanatory framework. Spanish data are used as the basis to demonstrate the implementation of the SSM. The current paper demonstrates two key problems for RM: inconsistent and confusing coindexation, and a proliferation of schemas, and shows that these issues do not arise in the Slot Structure model. Overall, the paper points out significant drawbacks in the RM framework, while at the same time showing how the PA's morphological component can be enriched with the Slot Structure model

Modifying (the grammar of) adjuncts : an introduction

One aspect of the progress being made is that the focus of attention has widened. Adverbials, though still the heart of the matter, now form part of a much larger set of constituent types subsumed under the general syntactic label of adjunct; while modifier has become the semantic counterpart on the same level of generality. So one of the readings of Modifying Adjuncts stands for the focus on this intersection. Moreover, recent years have seen a number of studies which attest an increasing interest in adjunct issues. There is an impressive number of monographs, e.g. Alexiadou (1997), Laenzlinger (1998), Cinque (1999), Pittner (1999), Ernst (2002), which, by presenting in-depth analyses of the syntax of adjuncts, have sharpened the debate on syntactic theorizing. Serious attempts to gain a broader view on adjuncts are witnessed by several collections, see Alexiadou and Svenonius (2000), Austin, Engelberg and Rauh (in progress); of particular importance are the contributions to vol. 12.1 of the Italian Journal of Linguistics (2000), a special issue on adverbs, the Introductions to which by Corver and Delfitto (2000) and Delfitto (2000) may be seen as the best state-of-the-art article on adverbs and adverbial modification currently on the market. To try and test a fresh view on adjuncts was the leitmotif of the Oslo Conference “Approaching the Grammar of Adjuncts” (Sept 22–25, 1999), which provided the initial forum for the papers contained in this volume and initiated a period of discussion and continuing interaction among the contributors, from which the versions published here have greatly profited. The aim of the Oslo conference, and hence the focus of the present volume, was to encourage syntacticians and semanticists to open their minds to a more integrative approach to adjuncts, thereby paying attention to, and attempting to account for, the various interfaces that the grammar of adjuncts crucially embodies. From this perspective, the present volume is to be conceived of as an interim balance of current trends in modifying the views on adjuncts. In introducing the papers, we will refrain from rephrasing the abstracts, but will instead offer a guided tour through the major problem areas they are tackling. Assessed by thematic convergence and mutual reference, the contributions form four groups, which led us to arrange them into subparts of the book. Our commenting on these is intended (i) to provide a first glance at the contents, (ii) to reveal some of the reasons why adjuncts indeed are, and certainly will remain, a challenging issue, and thereby (iii) to show some facets of what we consider novel and promising approaches

The role of syntactic dependencies in compositional distributional semantics

This article provides a preliminary semantic framework for Dependency Grammar in which lexical words are semantically defined as contextual distributions (sets of contexts) while syntactic dependencies are compositional operations on word distributions. More precisely, any syntactic dependency uses the contextual distribution of the dependent word to restrict the distribution of the head, and makes use of the contextual distribution of the head to restrict that of the dependent word. The interpretation of composite expressions and sentences, which are analyzed as a tree of binary dependencies, is performed by restricting the contexts of words dependency by dependency in a left-to-right incremental way. Consequently, the meaning of the whole composite expression or sentence is not a single representation, but a list of contextualized senses, namely the restricted distributions of its constituent (lexical) words. We report the results of two large-scale corpus-based experiments on two different natural language processing applications: paraphrasing and compositional translationThis work is funded by Project TELPARES, Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (FFI2014-51978-C2-1-R), and the program “Ayuda Fundación BBVA a Investigadores y Creadores Culturales 2016”S

Deverbal semantics and the Montagovian generative lexicon

We propose a lexical account of action nominals, in particular of deverbal nominalisations, whose meaning is related to the event expressed by their base verb. The literature about nominalisations often assumes that the semantics of the base verb completely defines the structure of action nominals. We argue that the information in the base verb is not sufficient to completely determine the semantics of action nominals. We exhibit some data from different languages, especially from Romance language, which show that nominalisations focus on some aspects of the verb semantics. The selected aspects, however, seem to be idiosyncratic and do not automatically result from the internal structure of the verb nor from its interaction with the morphological suffix. We therefore propose a partially lexicalist approach view of deverbal nouns. It is made precise and computable by using the Montagovian Generative Lexicon, a type theoretical framework introduced by Bassac, Mery and Retor\'e in this journal in 2010. This extension of Montague semantics with a richer type system easily incorporates lexical phenomena like the semantics of action nominals in particular deverbals, including their polysemy and (in)felicitous copredications.Comment: A revised version will appear in the Journal of Logic, Language and Informatio

Compositional Distributional Semantics with Compact Closed Categories and Frobenius Algebras

This thesis contributes to ongoing research related to the categorical compositional model for natural language of Coecke, Sadrzadeh and Clark in three ways: Firstly, I propose a concrete instantiation of the abstract framework based on Frobenius algebras (joint work with Sadrzadeh). The theory improves shortcomings of previous proposals, extends the coverage of the language, and is supported by experimental work that improves existing results. The proposed framework describes a new class of compositional models that find intuitive interpretations for a number of linguistic phenomena. Secondly, I propose and evaluate in practice a new compositional methodology which explicitly deals with the different levels of lexical ambiguity (joint work with Pulman). A concrete algorithm is presented, based on the separation of vector disambiguation from composition in an explicit prior step. Extensive experimental work shows that the proposed methodology indeed results in more accurate composite representations for the framework of Coecke et al. in particular and every other class of compositional models in general. As a last contribution, I formalize the explicit treatment of lexical ambiguity in the context of the categorical framework by resorting to categorical quantum mechanics (joint work with Coecke). In the proposed extension, the concept of a distributional vector is replaced with that of a density matrix, which compactly represents a probability distribution over the potential different meanings of the specific word. Composition takes the form of quantum measurements, leading to interesting analogies between quantum physics and linguistics.Comment: Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Oxfor

Introducing Continuations

This working paper introduces CONTINUATIONS (a concept borrowed from computer science) as a new technique for characterizing certain aspects of the semantics of a natural language. I should emphasize at the outset that this is just an introduction, and that more a rigorous and thorough treatment is under development (see Barker (ms)). In the meantime, this paper mentions certain formal results without proving them, and describes certain new empirical generalizations without exploring them. What it will do is provide an explicit account of a range of familiar phenomena relat­ed to quantification, including quantifier scope ambiguity, NP as a scope island, and generalized coordination. What makes the account noteworthy is that it provides a fully and strictly compositional analysis of quantification and generalized coordina­tion that does not rely on syntactic movement operations such as Quantifier Move­ment, auxiliary storage mechanisms such as Cooper Storage, or type ambiguity as in Hendriks' Flexible Types system

Montague Grammar Induction

We propose a computational model for inducing full-fledged combinatory categorial grammars from behavioral data. This model contrasts with prior computational models of selection in representing syntactic and semantic types as structured (rather than atomic) objects, enabling direct interpretation of the modeling results relative to standard formal frameworks. We investigate the grammar our model induces when fit to a lexicon-scale acceptability judgment dataset – Mega Acceptability – focusing in particular on the types our model assigns to clausal complements and the predicates that select them

A method of interpreting prenominal possessives:incorporating the generative lexicon and type-shifting

Abstract not availabl