18 research outputs found

    Plurals: individuals and sets in a richly typed semantics

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    We developed a type-theoretical framework for natural lan- guage semantics that, in addition to the usual Montagovian treatment of compositional semantics, includes a treatment of some phenomena of lex- ical semantic: coercions, meaning, transfers, (in)felicitous co-predication. In this setting we see how the various readings of plurals (collective, dis- tributive, coverings,...) can be modelled

    The Montagovian Generative Lexicon ΛT yn: a Type Theoretical Framework for Natural Language Semantics

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    International audienceWe present a framework, named the Montagovian generative lexicon, for computing the semantics of natural language sentences, expressed in many-sorted higher order logic. Word meaning is described by several lambda terms of second order lambda calculus (Girard’s system F): the principal lambda term encodes the argument structure, while the other lambda terms implement meaning transfers. The base types include a type for propositions and many types for sorts of a many-sorted logic for expressing restriction of selection. This framework is able to integrate a proper treatment of lexical phenomena into a Montagovian compositional semantics, like the (im)possible arguments of a predicate, and the adaptation of a word meaning to some contexts. Among these adaptations of a word meaning to contexts, ontological inclusions are handled by coercive subtyping, an extension of system F introduced in the present paper. The benefits of this framework for lexical semantics and pragmatics are illustrated on meaning transfers and coercions, on possible and impossible copredication over different senses, on deverbal ambiguities, and on “fictive motion”. Next we show that the compositional treatment of determiners, quantifiers, plurals, and other semantic phenomena is richer in our framework. We then conclude with the linguistic, logical and computational perspectives opened by the Montagovian generative lexicon

    Scalable, Efficient and Precise Natural Language Processing in the Semantic Web

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    The Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging phenomenon in the public space. Users with accessibility needs could especially benefit from these “smart” devices if they were able to interact with them through speech. This thesis presents a Compositional Semantics and framework for developing extensible and expressive Natural Language Query Interfaces to the Semantic Web, addressing privacy and auditability needs in the process. This could be particularly useful in healthcare or legal applications, where confidentiality of information is a key concer

    Formal Semantics: Origins, Issues, Early Impact

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    Formal semantics and pragmatics as they have developed since the late 1960\u27s have been shaped by fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration among linguists, philosophers, and logicians, among others, and in turn have had noticeable effects on developments in syntax, philosophy of language, computational linguistics, and cognitive science.In this paper I describe the environment in which formal semantics was born and took root, highlighting the differences in ways of thinking about natural language semantics in linguistics and in philosophy and logic. With Montague as a central but not solo player in the story, I reflect on crucial developments in the 1960\u27s and 70\u27s in linguistics and philosophy, and the growth of formal semantics and formal pragmatics from there. I discuss innovations, key players, and leading ideas that shaped the development of formal semantics and its relation to syntax, to pragmatics, and to the philosophy of language in its early years, and some central aspects of its early impact on those fields

    Plongement de la sémantique intentionnelle en sémantique inquisitrice

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    International audienceInquisitive semantics [Ciardelli, Groenedijk and Roelofsen, 2018] is a model of natural language semantics which uniformly represents interrogative and declarative sentences. Clauses are represented by a nonempty downward-closed set of sets of possible worlds, the maximal elements of which are called alternatives. Questions have several alternatives corresponding to their possible answers. In this thesis, we investigate an embedding of (declarative) intentional semantics into inquisitive semantics. We provide a conservative extension [de Groote, 2015] mapping every lexical meaning to an inquisitive meaning.La sémantique inquisitrice [Ciardelli, Groenedijk et Roelofsen, 2018] est un modèle de la sémantique de la langue qui représente uniformément les phrases interrogatives et déclaratives. Les propositions sont représentées par un ensemble d'ensembles de mondes possibles, non vide et clos par le bas, dont les éléments maximaux sont appelés alternatives. Les questions ont plusieurs alternatives, lesquelles correspondent à leurs réponses possibles. Dans ce mémoire, on examine le plongement de la sémantique intentionnelle dans la sémantique inquisitrice. On conçoit une extension conservatrice [de Groote, 2015] qui à toute représentation sémantique lexicale associe un sens inquisiteur. On prouve que cette transformation conserve la conséquence logique (et donc l'équivalence logique) et la composition

    CLiFF Notes: Research In Natural Language Processing at the University of Pennsylvania

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    CLIFF is the Computational Linguists\u27 Feedback Forum. We are a group of students and faculty who gather once a week to hear a presentation and discuss work currently in progress. The \u27feedback\u27 in the group\u27s name is important: we are interested in sharing ideas, in discussing ongoing research, and in bringing together work done by the students and faculty in Computer Science and other departments. However, there are only so many presentations which we can have in a year. We felt that it would be beneficial to have a report which would have, in one place, short descriptions of the work in Natural Language Processing at the University of Pennsylvania. This report then, is a collection of abstracts from both faculty and graduate students, in Computer Science, Psychology and Linguistics. We want to stress the close ties between these groups, as one of the things that we pride ourselves on here at Penn is the communication among different departments and the inter-departmental work. Rather than try to summarize the varied work currently underway at Penn, we suggest reading the abstracts to see how the students and faculty themselves describe their work. The report illustrates the diversity of interests among the researchers here, as well as explaining the areas of common interest. In addition, since it was our intent to put together a document that would be useful both inside and outside of the university, we hope that this report will explain to everyone some of what we are about

    CLiFF Notes: Research In Natural Language Processing at the University of Pennsylvania

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    The Computational Linguistics Feedback Forum (CLIFF) is a group of students and faculty who gather once a week to discuss the members\u27 current research. As the word feedback suggests, the group\u27s purpose is the sharing of ideas. The group also promotes interdisciplinary contacts between researchers who share an interest in Cognitive Science. There is no single theme describing the research in Natural Language Processing at Penn. There is work done in CCG, Tree adjoining grammars, intonation, statistical methods, plan inference, instruction understanding, incremental interpretation, language acquisition, syntactic parsing, causal reasoning, free word order languages, ... and many other areas. With this in mind, rather than trying to summarize the varied work currently underway here at Penn, we suggest reading the following abstracts to see how the students and faculty themselves describe their work. Their abstracts illustrate the diversity of interests among the researchers, explain the areas of common interest, and describe some very interesting work in Cognitive Science. This report is a collection of abstracts from both faculty and graduate students in Computer Science, Psychology and Linguistics. We pride ourselves on the close working relations between these groups, as we believe that the communication among the different departments and the ongoing inter-departmental research not only improves the quality of our work, but makes much of that work possible

    The very model of a modern linguist — in honor of Helge Dyvik

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    Proceedings of the Fifth Meeting on Mathematics of Language : MOL5

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