Transitive meanings for intransitive verbs

In their chapter, Bourmayan and Recanati discuss the intransitive use of 'eat' and cognate verbs which take (on such uses) an indefinite implicit argument. Sometimes, Recanati pointed out in early work, the implicit argument of intransitive 'eat' seems definite ; there are also seemingly anaphoric and bound uses. How to account for them ? Recanati's early account invoked free enrichment, but Marti's negation test provides counter-examples to that account. Bourmayan and Recanati offer a new, situation-theoretic account, show that it can handle the negation data, and discuss the implications of the account for the Recanati-Stanley debate over for the semantics/pragmatics interface

Categorial Grammar

The paper is a review article comparing a number of approaches to natural language syntax and semantics that have been developed using categorial frameworks. It distinguishes two related but distinct varieties of categorial theory, one related to Natural Deduction systems and the axiomatic calculi of Lambek, and another which involves more specialized combinatory operations

Implicit indefinite objects at the syntax-semantics-pragmatics interface: a probabilistic model of acceptability judgments

Optionally transitive verbs, whose Patient participant is semantically obligatory but syntactically optional (e.g., to eat, to drink, to write), deviate from the transitive prototype defined by Hopper and Thompson (1980). Following Fillmore (1986), unexpressed objects may be either indefinite (referring to prototypical Patients of a verb, whose actual entity is unknown or irrelevant) or definite (with a referent available in the immediate intra- or extra-linguistic context). This thesis centered on indefinite null objects, which the literature argues to be a gradient, non-categorical phenomenon possible with virtually any transitive verb (in different degrees depending on the verb semantics), favored or hindered by several semantic, aspectual, pragmatic, and discourse factors. In particular, the probabilistic model of the grammaticality of indefinite null objects hereby discussed takes into account a continuous factor (semantic selectivity, as a proxy to object recoverability) and four binary factors (telicity, perfectivity, iterativity, and manner specification). This work was inspired by Medina (2007), who modeled the effect of three predictors (semantic selectivity, telicity, and perfectivity) on the grammaticality of indefinite null objects (as gauged via Likert-scale acceptability judgments elicited from native speakers of English) within the framework of Stochastic Optimality Theory. In her variant of the framework, the constraints get floating rankings based on the input verb’s semantic selectivity, which she modeled via the Selectional Preference Strength measure by Resnik (1993, 1996). I expanded Medina’s model by modeling implicit indefinite objects in two languages (English and Italian), by using three different measures of semantic selectivity (Resnik’s SPS; Behavioral PISA, inspired by Medina’s Object Similarity measure; and Computational PISA, a novel similarity-based measure by Cappelli and Lenci (2020) based on distributional semantics), and by adding iterativity and manner specification as new predictors in the model. Both the English and the Italian five-predictor models based on Behavioral PISA explain almost half of the variance in the data, improving on the Medina-like three-predictor models based on Resnik’s SPS. Moreover, they have a comparable range of predicted object-dropping probabilities (30-100% in English, 30-90% in Italian), and the predictors perform consistently with theoretical literature on object drop. Indeed, in both models, atelic imperfective iterative manner-specified inputs are the most likely to drop their object (between 80% and 90%), while telic perfective non-iterative manner-unspecified inputs are the least likely (between 30% and 40%). The constraint re-ranking probabilities are always directly proportional to semantic selectivity, with the exception of Telic End in Italian. Both models show a main effect of telicity, but the second most relevant factor in the model is perfectivity in English and manner specification in Italian

Variable types for meaning assembly: a logical syntax for generic noun phrases introduced by most

This paper proposes a way to compute the meanings associated with sentences with generic noun phrases corresponding to the generalized quantifier most. We call these generics specimens and they resemble stereotypes or prototypes in lexical semantics. The meanings are viewed as logical formulae that can thereafter be interpreted in your favourite models. To do so, we depart significantly from the dominant Fregean view with a single untyped universe. Indeed, our proposal adopts type theory with some hints from Hilbert \epsilon-calculus (Hilbert, 1922; Avigad and Zach, 2008) and from medieval philosophy, see e.g. de Libera (1993, 1996). Our type theoretic analysis bears some resemblance with ongoing work in lexical semantics (Asher 2011; Bassac et al. 2010; Moot, Pr\'evot and Retor\'e 2011). Our model also applies to classical examples involving a class, or a generic element of this class, which is not uttered but provided by the context. An outcome of this study is that, in the minimalism-contextualism debate, see Conrad (2011), if one adopts a type theoretical view, terms encode the purely semantic meaning component while their typing is pragmatically determined

Hybrid Type-Logical Grammars, First-Order Linear Logic and the Descriptive Inadequacy of Lambda Grammars

In this article we show that hybrid type-logical grammars are a fragment of first-order linear logic. This embedding result has several important consequences: it not only provides a simple new proof theory for the calculus, thereby clarifying the proof-theoretic foundations of hybrid type-logical grammars, but, since the translation is simple and direct, it also provides several new parsing strategies for hybrid type-logical grammars. Second, NP-completeness of hybrid type-logical grammars follows immediately. The main embedding result also sheds new light on problems with lambda grammars/abstract categorial grammars and shows lambda grammars/abstract categorial grammars suffer from problems of over-generation and from problems at the syntax-semantics interface unlike any other categorial grammar

Exploiting Deep Semantics and Compositionality of Natural Language for Human-Robot-Interaction

We develop a natural language interface for human robot interaction that implements reasoning about deep semantics in natural language. To realize the required deep analysis, we employ methods from cognitive linguistics, namely the modular and compositional framework of Embodied Construction Grammar (ECG) [Feldman, 2009]. Using ECG, robots are able to solve fine-grained reference resolution problems and other issues related to deep semantics and compositionality of natural language. This also includes verbal interaction with humans to clarify commands and queries that are too ambiguous to be executed safely. We implement our NLU framework as a ROS package and present proof-of-concept scenarios with different robots, as well as a survey on the state of the art

A Proof-Theoretic Approach to Scope Ambiguity in Compositional Vector Space Models

We investigate the extent to which compositional vector space models can be used to account for scope ambiguity in quantified sentences (of the form "Every man loves some woman"). Such sentences containing two quantifiers introduce two readings, a direct scope reading and an inverse scope reading. This ambiguity has been treated in a vector space model using bialgebras by (Hedges and Sadrzadeh, 2016) and (Sadrzadeh, 2016), though without an explanation of the mechanism by which the ambiguity arises. We combine a polarised focussed sequent calculus for the non-associative Lambek calculus NL, as described in (Moortgat and Moot, 2011), with the vector based approach to quantifier scope ambiguity. In particular, we establish a procedure for obtaining a vector space model for quantifier scope ambiguity in a derivational way.Comment: This is a preprint of a paper to appear in: Journal of Language Modelling, 201