Towards Practical Graph-Based Verification for an Object-Oriented Concurrency Model

To harness the power of multi-core and distributed platforms, and to make the development of concurrent software more accessible to software engineers, different object-oriented concurrency models such as SCOOP have been proposed. Despite the practical importance of analysing SCOOP programs, there are currently no general verification approaches that operate directly on program code without additional annotations. One reason for this is the multitude of partially conflicting semantic formalisations for SCOOP (either in theory or by-implementation). Here, we propose a simple graph transformation system (GTS) based run-time semantics for SCOOP that grasps the most common features of all known semantics of the language. This run-time model is implemented in the state-of-the-art GTS tool GROOVE, which allows us to simulate, analyse, and verify a subset of SCOOP programs with respect to deadlocks and other behavioural properties. Besides proposing the first approach to verify SCOOP programs by automatic translation to GTS, we also highlight our experiences of applying GTS (and especially GROOVE) for specifying semantics in the form of a run-time model, which should be transferable to GTS models for other concurrent languages and libraries.Comment: In Proceedings GaM 2015, arXiv:1504.0244

The Task of the Translator: Cultural Translation or Cultural Transformation?

This paper critiques the concept of cultural translation as theorized and used in postcolonial studies. Taking contemporary Pakistani anglophone fiction as an example, the paper considers the use of the concept of cultural translation in postcolonial theory as a strategy for legitimizing and valorizing a specific kind of sensibility and literature, the ‘migrant’ and/or cosmopolitan sensibility and literature, produced almost exclusively in/for metropolitan locations and in European languages by postcolonial migrant writers. This literature, the paper argues, overturns and subverts the concept and practice of linguistic and textual translation proper as theorized in the discipline of translation studies in which the source culture of the translated text exercises a certain priority over the target or receiving culture and the key concern is about what transformations the target language and the receiving culture undergo in the practice and process of translation. In postcolonial literature, the paper contends, it is the source culture and text that are transformed to suit the expectations and literary taste of the readers in the target language and culture. In this sense then, postcolonial cultural translation actually signifies a transformation of the native culture of the postcolonial writer, a transformation that is manifested in the specific migrant and cosmopolitan sensibility represented in his or her work. To construct the theoretical framework for this discussion, the paper establishes two positions on the concept of cultural translation, one from Homi Bhabha and Robert Young, the other from Gayatri Spivak and Edward Said. In light of the contrasting views of these theorists and critics, the paper discusses the work of four Pakistani anglophone writers, two from the first generation, namely Ahmed Ali and Bapsi Sidhwa, and two from the second generation, namely Musharraf Ali Farooqi and Mohsin Hamid. The paper sees their work in relation to the concept of cultural translation and highlights their distinct position with regard to this concept

Early bilingualism as a source of morphonological rules for the adaptation of loanwords: Spanish loanwords in Basque

Obra colectiva editada por Andrea Calabrese y W. Leo Wetzels. Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science. Series IV, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory ; 307[EN] The present socio-cultural situation in the Basque speaking area of Spain offers a privileged field for the study of Spanish loanwords in Basque, due to the more expanded use of Basque, together with a better knowledge of Spanish among Basque speakers. Within the theoretical framework of Natural Phonology, this paper explores some phonological and lato sensu morphological mechanisms that take part in the integration of Spanish loanwords into Basque. First it deals with the mutual influence between Spanish and Basque when both are first languages for the speaker. Early bilingualism only causes the loss of Basque processes that are suppressed in Spanish, but those processes need not be completely lost. There is clear evidence that continued collective bilingualism and need of translation motivate the transformation of denaturalised phonological substitutions into morphological devices for the adaptation of loanwords

Translating and Evolving: Towards a Model of Language Change in DisCoCat

The categorical compositional distributional (DisCoCat) model of meaning developed by Coecke et al. (2010) has been successful in modeling various aspects of meaning. However, it fails to model the fact that language can change. We give an approach to DisCoCat that allows us to represent language models and translations between them, enabling us to describe translations from one language to another, or changes within the same language. We unify the product space representation given in (Coecke et al., 2010) and the functorial description in (Kartsaklis et al., 2013), in a way that allows us to view a language as a catalogue of meanings. We formalize the notion of a lexicon in DisCoCat, and define a dictionary of meanings between two lexicons. All this is done within the framework of monoidal categories. We give examples of how to apply our methods, and give a concrete suggestion for compositional translation in corpora.Comment: In Proceedings CAPNS 2018, arXiv:1811.0270

Deciding regular grammar logics with converse through first-order logic

We provide a simple translation of the satisfiability problem for regular grammar logics with converse into GF2, which is the intersection of the guarded fragment and the 2-variable fragment of first-order logic. This translation is theoretically interesting because it translates modal logics with certain frame conditions into first-order logic, without explicitly expressing the frame conditions. A consequence of the translation is that the general satisfiability problem for regular grammar logics with converse is in EXPTIME. This extends a previous result of the first author for grammar logics without converse. Using the same method, we show how some other modal logics can be naturally translated into GF2, including nominal tense logics and intuitionistic logic. In our view, the results in this paper show that the natural first-order fragment corresponding to regular grammar logics is simply GF2 without extra machinery such as fixed point-operators.Comment: 34 page

Tree transducers, L systems, and two-way machines

A relationship between parallel rewriting systems and two-way machines is investigated. Restrictions on the “copying power” of these devices endow them with rich structuring and give insight into the issues of determinism, parallelism, and copying. Among the parallel rewriting systems considered are the top-down tree transducer; the generalized syntax-directed translation scheme and the ETOL system, and among the two-way machines are the tree-walking automaton, the two-way finite-state transducer, and (generalizations of) the one-way checking stack automaton. The. relationship of these devices to macro grammars is also considered. An effort is made .to provide a systematic survey of a number of existing results