16 research outputs found
Towards a Type-Theoretical Account of Lexical Semantics
International audienceAfter a quick overview of the field of study known as “Lexical Semantics”, where we advocate the need of accessing additional information besides syntax and Montague- style semantics at the lexical level in order to complete the full analysis of an utterance, we summarize the current formulations of a well-known theory of that field. We then propose and justify our own model of the Generative Lexicon Theory, based upon a variation of classical compositional semantics, and outline its formalization. Additionally, we discuss the theoretical place of informational, knowledge-related data supposed to exist within the lexicon as well as within discourse and other linguistic constructs
Plurals: individuals and sets in a richly typed semantics
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
Semantic Types, Lexical Sorts and Classifiers
We propose a cognitively and linguistically motivated set of sorts for
lexical semantics in a compositional setting: the classifiers in languages that
do have such pronouns. These sorts are needed to include lexical considerations
in a semantical analyser such as Boxer or Grail. Indeed, all proposed lexical
extensions of usual Montague semantics to model restriction of selection,
felicitous and infelicitous copredication require a rich and refined type
system whose base types are the lexical sorts, the basis of the many-sorted
logic in which semantical representations of sentences are stated. However,
none of those approaches define precisely the actual base types or sorts to be
used in the lexicon. In this article, we shall discuss some of the options
commonly adopted by researchers in formal lexical semantics, and defend the
view that classifiers in the languages which have such pronouns are an
appealing solution, both linguistically and cognitively motivated
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
Deverbal semantics and the Montagovian generative lexicon
We propose a lexical account of action nominals, in particular of deverbal
nominalisations, whose meaning is related to the event expressed by their base
verb. The literature about nominalisations often assumes that the semantics of
the base verb completely defines the structure of action nominals. We argue
that the information in the base verb is not sufficient to completely determine
the semantics of action nominals. We exhibit some data from different
languages, especially from Romance language, which show that nominalisations
focus on some aspects of the verb semantics. The selected aspects, however,
seem to be idiosyncratic and do not automatically result from the internal
structure of the verb nor from its interaction with the morphological suffix.
We therefore propose a partially lexicalist approach view of deverbal nouns. It
is made precise and computable by using the Montagovian Generative Lexicon, a
type theoretical framework introduced by Bassac, Mery and Retor\'e in this
journal in 2010. This extension of Montague semantics with a richer type system
easily incorporates lexical phenomena like the semantics of action nominals in
particular deverbals, including their polysemy and (in)felicitous
copredications.Comment: A revised version will appear in the Journal of Logic, Language and
Informatio
Individuation Criteria, Dot-types and Copredication:A View from Modern Type Theories
International audienceIn this paper we revisit the issue of copredica-tion from the perspective of modern type theories. Specifically, we look at: a) the counting properties of dot-types, and b) the case of a complex dot-type that has remained unsolved in the literature, i.e. that of newspaper. As regards a), we show that the account proposed in (Luo, 2010) for dot-types makes the correct predictions as regards counting. In order to verify this, we implement the account in the Coq proof-assistant and check that the desired inferences follow. Then, we look at the case of b), the case of a dot-type which is both resource and context sensitive. We propose a further resource sensitive version of the dot-type, in effect a linear dot-type. This along with local coercions can account for the behaviour attested
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
On the system F as a glue language for natural-language compositional-semantics
In order to model in compositional framework some phenomena of lexical
pragmatics and in particular the ones studied by Nicholas Asher several
contributions developed in our team did use the system F of Jean-Yves Girard to
construct logical formulae expressing the meaning of sentences --- while other
authors prefer to use Per Martin-L\"of's type theory In this note we explain
the motivations supporting our preference for system F.Comment: (24/08/2011
Un calcul de termes typés pour la pragmatique lexicale: chemins et voyageurs fictifs dans un corpus de récits de voyages
International audienceThis work is part of the automated analysis of travel stories corpus. To do so, we refine Mon- tague semantics, to model the adaptation of word meaning to the context in which they appear. Here we study construction like 'the path goes down for half an hour' in which the path introduces a virtual traveller following it, extending ideas of the last author with Bassac, Mery. The introduction of a traveller relies on type raising sa- tisfies the following requirements : the quantification binding the traveller has the widest scope, and properties of the path do not apply to the traveller, be it virtual. This semantical analysis (actually its translation in λ-DRT) is already implemented for a part of the Grail lexicon.Ce travail s'inscrit dans l'analyse automatique d'un corpus de récits de voyage. À cette fin,nous raffinons la sémantique de Montague pour rendre compte des phénomènes d'adaptation du sens des mots au contexte dans lequel ils apparaissent. Ici, nous modélisons les constructions de type 'le chemin descend pendant une demi-heure' où ledit chemin introduit un voyageur fictif qui le parcourt, en étendant des idées que le dernier auteur a développé avec Bassac et Mery. Cette introduction du voyageur utilise la montée de type afin que le quantificateur introduisant le voyageur porte sur toute la phrase et que les propriétés du chemin ne deviennent pas des propriétés du voyageur, fût-il fictif. Cette analyse sémantique (ou plutôt sa traduction en lambda-DRT) est d'ores et déjà implantée pour une partie du lexique de Grail