1,353 research outputs found
A Formal Semantics for Editing and Generating Plurals
We present a formal semantics for an object-oriented formalism which allows for the representation of plural objects (such as 'Three N', Most of the N', 'Some N', . . .). the semantics is given in terms of a mapping to a variant of Discourse Representation Theory. It is motivated by its suitability for natural language generation and interactives editing of the representations
Formal foundations for semantic theories of nominalisation
This paper develops the formal foundations of semantic theories dealing with various kinds of nominalisations. It introduces a combination of an event-calculus with a type-free theory which allows a compositional description to be given of such phenomena like Vendler's distinction between perfect and imperfect nominals, iteration of gerunds and Cresswell's notorious non-urrival of'the train examples. Moreover, the approach argued for in this paper allows a semantic explanation to be given for a wide range of grammatical observations such as the behaviour of certain tpes of nominals with respect to their verbal contexts or the distribution of negation in nominals
Linguistics and some aspects of its underlying dynamics
In recent years, central components of a new approach to linguistics, the
Minimalist Program (MP) have come closer to physics. Features of the Minimalist
Program, such as the unconstrained nature of recursive Merge, the operation of
the Labeling Algorithm that only operates at the interface of Narrow Syntax
with the Conceptual-Intentional and the Sensory-Motor interfaces, the
difference between pronounced and un-pronounced copies of elements in a
sentence and the build-up of the Fibonacci sequence in the syntactic derivation
of sentence structures, are directly accessible to representation in terms of
algebraic formalism. Although in our scheme linguistic structures are classical
ones, we find that an interesting and productive isomorphism can be established
between the MP structure, algebraic structures and many-body field theory
opening new avenues of inquiry on the dynamics underlying some central aspects
of linguistics.Comment: 17 page
A Corpus-based Toy Model for DisCoCat
The categorical compositional distributional (DisCoCat) model of meaning
rigorously connects distributional semantics and pregroup grammars, and has
found a variety of applications in computational linguistics. From a more
abstract standpoint, the DisCoCat paradigm predicates the construction of a
mapping from syntax to categorical semantics. In this work we present a
concrete construction of one such mapping, from a toy model of syntax for
corpora annotated with constituent structure trees, to categorical semantics
taking place in a category of free R-semimodules over an involutive commutative
semiring R.Comment: In Proceedings SLPCS 2016, arXiv:1608.0101
Dependent Types for Pragmatics
This paper proposes the use of dependent types for pragmatic phenomena such
as pronoun binding and presupposition resolution as a type-theoretic
alternative to formalisms such as Discourse Representation Theory and Dynamic
Semantics.Comment: This version updates the paper for publication in LEU
Ultrametric Distance in Syntax
Phrase structure trees have a hierarchical structure. In many subjects, most notably in Taxonomy such tree structures have been studied using ultrametrics. Here syntactical hierarchical phrase trees are subject to a similar analysis, which is much simpler as the branching structure is more readily discernible and switched. The occurrence of hierarchical structure elsewhere in linguistics is mentioned. The phrase tree can be represented by a matrix and the elements of the matrix can be represented by triangles. The height at which branching occurs is not prescribed in previous syntactic models, but it is by using the ultrametric matrix. In other words the ultrametric approach gives a complete description of phrase trees, unlike previous approaches. The ambiguity of which branching height to choose, is resolved by postulating that branching occurs at the lowest height available. An ultrametric produces a measure of the complexity of sentences: presumably the complexity of sentences increases as a language is acquired so that this can be tested. All ultrametric triangles are equilateral or isoceles, here it is shown that \={X} structure implies that there are no equilateral triangles. Restricting attention to simple syntax a minimum ultrametric distance between lexical categories is calculated. This ultrametric distance is shown to be different than the matrix obtained from features. It is shown that the definition of {\sc c-command} can be replaced by an equivalent ultrametric definition. The new definition invokes a minimum distance between nodes and this is more aesthetically satisfying than previous varieties of definitions. From the new definition of {\sc c-command} follows a new definition of {\sc government}
The Parallel Meaning Bank: Towards a Multilingual Corpus of Translations Annotated with Compositional Meaning Representations
The Parallel Meaning Bank is a corpus of translations annotated with shared,
formal meaning representations comprising over 11 million words divided over
four languages (English, German, Italian, and Dutch). Our approach is based on
cross-lingual projection: automatically produced (and manually corrected)
semantic annotations for English sentences are mapped onto their word-aligned
translations, assuming that the translations are meaning-preserving. The
semantic annotation consists of five main steps: (i) segmentation of the text
in sentences and lexical items; (ii) syntactic parsing with Combinatory
Categorial Grammar; (iii) universal semantic tagging; (iv) symbolization; and
(v) compositional semantic analysis based on Discourse Representation Theory.
These steps are performed using statistical models trained in a semi-supervised
manner. The employed annotation models are all language-neutral. Our first
results are promising.Comment: To appear at EACL 201
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