17,856 research outputs found
Grounding Dynamic Spatial Relations for Embodied (Robot) Interaction
This paper presents a computational model of the processing of dynamic
spatial relations occurring in an embodied robotic interaction setup. A
complete system is introduced that allows autonomous robots to produce and
interpret dynamic spatial phrases (in English) given an environment of moving
objects. The model unites two separate research strands: computational
cognitive semantics and on commonsense spatial representation and reasoning.
The model for the first time demonstrates an integration of these different
strands.Comment: in: Pham, D.-N. and Park, S.-B., editors, PRICAI 2014: Trends in
Artificial Intelligence, volume 8862 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science,
pages 958-971. Springe
Secondary predication in Russian
The paper makes two contributions to semantic typology of secondary predicates. It provides an explanation of the fact that Russian has no resultative secondary predicates, relating this explanation to the interpretation of secondary predicates in English. And it relates depictive secondary predicates in Russian, which usually occur in the instrumental case, to other uses of the instrumental case in Russian, establishing here, too, a difference to English concerning the scope of the secondary predication phenomenon
Textual Economy through Close Coupling of Syntax and Semantics
We focus on the production of efficient descriptions of objects, actions and
events. We define a type of efficiency, textual economy, that exploits the
hearer's recognition of inferential links to material elsewhere within a
sentence. Textual economy leads to efficient descriptions because the material
that supports such inferences has been included to satisfy independent
communicative goals, and is therefore overloaded in Pollack's sense. We argue
that achieving textual economy imposes strong requirements on the
representation and reasoning used in generating sentences. The representation
must support the generator's simultaneous consideration of syntax and
semantics. Reasoning must enable the generator to assess quickly and reliably
at any stage how the hearer will interpret the current sentence, with its
(incomplete) syntax and semantics. We show that these representational and
reasoning requirements are met in the SPUD system for sentence planning and
realization.Comment: 10 pages, uses QobiTree.te
Intonation and discourse : biased questions
This paper surveys a range of constructions in which prosody affects discourse function and discourse structure.We discuss English tag questions, negative polar questions, and what we call âfocusâ questions. We postulate that these question types are complex speech acts and outline an analysis in Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (SDRT) to account for the interactions between prosody and discourse
Grounding the Lexical Semantics of Verbs in Visual Perception using Force Dynamics and Event Logic
This paper presents an implemented system for recognizing the occurrence of
events described by simple spatial-motion verbs in short image sequences. The
semantics of these verbs is specified with event-logic expressions that
describe changes in the state of force-dynamic relations between the
participants of the event. An efficient finite representation is introduced for
the infinite sets of intervals that occur when describing liquid and
semi-liquid events. Additionally, an efficient procedure using this
representation is presented for inferring occurrences of compound events,
described with event-logic expressions, from occurrences of primitive events.
Using force dynamics and event logic to specify the lexical semantics of events
allows the system to be more robust than prior systems based on motion profile
The Grail theorem prover: Type theory for syntax and semantics
As the name suggests, type-logical grammars are a grammar formalism based on
logic and type theory. From the prespective of grammar design, type-logical
grammars develop the syntactic and semantic aspects of linguistic phenomena
hand-in-hand, letting the desired semantics of an expression inform the
syntactic type and vice versa. Prototypical examples of the successful
application of type-logical grammars to the syntax-semantics interface include
coordination, quantifier scope and extraction.This chapter describes the Grail
theorem prover, a series of tools for designing and testing grammars in various
modern type-logical grammars which functions as a tool . All tools described in
this chapter are freely available
Language, logic and ontology: uncovering the structure of commonsense knowledge
The purpose of this paper is twofold: (i) we argue that the structure of commonsense knowledge must be discovered, rather than invented; and (ii) we argue that natural
language, which is the best known theory of our (shared) commonsense knowledge, should itself be used as a guide to discovering the structure of commonsense knowledge. In addition to suggesting a systematic method to the discovery of the structure of commonsense knowledge, the method we propose seems to also provide an explanation for a number of phenomena in natural language, such as metaphor, intensionality, and the semantics of nominal compounds. Admittedly, our ultimate goal is quite ambitious, and it is no less than the systematic âdiscoveryâ of a well-typed
ontology of commonsense knowledge, and the subsequent formulation of the longawaited goal of a meaning algebra
Measure instrumental in russian
We will argue that some seemingly adverbial free DPs in the instrumental in Russian which are traditionally termed measure instrumental are best understood as secondary predicates. We present the relevant syntactic assumptions and propose a semantics of this use of DPs in the instrumental. This proposal hears on the distinction between adjunct modification and secondary predication
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