Deriving formal semantic representations from dependency structures

International audienceWe outline the essentials of a formal semantic theory for dependency grammars. This theory, which derives from Montague’s semantics, is fully compositional, allows for a treatment of quantification, and is robust in the sense that it supports the interpretation of partial dependency structures

Ty2 revisited

International audienceWe provide a translation of Hybrid Logic into Gallin's Ty2

Modularity and compositionality: The case of temporal modifiers

This paper concerns the possibility of building Montague grammars in a modular and incremental way. As an illustration, we investigate the following question. Given an atemporal Montague grammar, on the one hand, and a temporal ontology, on the other hand, is it possible to combine them into a new grammar such that it would: (i) conservatively extend the original grammar, and (ii) allow temporal modifiers to be accommodated

On the expressive power of Abstract Categorial Grammars: Representing context-free formalisms

http://www.springerlink.com/content/1572-9583/We show how to encode context-free string grammars, linear context-free tree grammars, and linear context-free rewriting systems as Abstract Categorial Grammars. These three encodings share the same constructs, the only difference being the interpretation of the composition of the production rules. It is interpreted as a first-order operation in the case of context-free string grammars, as a second-order operation in the case of linear context-free tree grammars, and as a third-order operation in the case of linear context-free rewriting systems. This suggest the possibility of defining an Abstract Categorial Hierarchy

Embedding Intensional Semantics into Inquisitive Semantics

International audienceCiardelli, Roelofsen, and Theiler (2017) have shown how a Montague-like semantic frame- work based on inquisitive logic allows for a uniform compositional treatment of both declarative and interrogative constructs. In this setting, a natural question is the one of the relation between the intensional and the inquisitive interpretation of a declarative sen- tence. We tackle this problem by defining an embedding of intensional semantics into in- quisitive semantics, in the spirit of de Groote’s and Kanazawa’s (2013) intensionalization procedure. We show that the resulting inquisiti- vation procedure preserves intensional validity and entailment

Type-theoretic extensions of Abstract Categorial Grammars

Abstract Categorial Grammars (ACG), in their original definition, are based on the linear λ-calculus. This choice derives from the traditional categorial grammars, which are based on resource sensitive logics. From a language-theoretic standpoint, this linearity constraint does not result in a weak expressive power of the formalism. For instance, the string languages generated by the second-order ACGs (whose parsing is known to be polynomial) corresponds to the class of mildly context sensitive lan- guages. From a more practical point of view, however, it would be interesting to increase the intentional expressive power of the formalism by providing high level constructs. For instance, one would like to provide the ACGs with feature structures, as it is the case in most current grammatical formalisms. In previous paper, a possible way of extending the ACGs is suggested. It consists of enriching the type system of the formalism with new type constructors. The present paper elaborates on this proposal

On dialogue modeling: a dynamic epistemic inquisitive approach

International audienceThis paper introduces a formal model of dialogue based on insightsand ideas developed by Jonathan Ginzburg in [11]. This model, which is logicbased, takes advantage of inquisitive semantics [4], which allows to model bothdeclarative and interrogative sentences in a uniform way. It appeals to ideas de-rived from classical epistemic logic in order to model the knowledge states of thedialogue participants, and includes a context-updating mechanisms based on thetype-theoretic dynamic logic developed in [15

CDK4 T172 phosphorylation is central in a CDK7-dependent bidirectional CDK4/CDK2 interplay mediated by p21 phosphorylation at the restriction point

Cell cycle progression, including genome duplication, is orchestrated by cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs). CDK activation depends on phosphorylation of their T-loop by a CDK-activating kinase (CAK). In animals, the only known CAK for CDK2 and CDK1 is cyclin H-CDK7, which is constitutively active. Therefore, the critical activation step is dephosphorylation of inhibitory sites by Cdc25 phosphatases rather than unrestricted T-loop phosphorylation. Homologous CDK4 and CDK6 bound to cyclins D are master integrators of mitogenic/oncogenic signaling cascades by initiating the inactivation of the central oncosuppressor pRb and cell cycle commitment at the restriction point. Unlike the situation in CDK1 and CDK2 cyclin complexes, and in contrast to the weak but constitutive T177 phosphorylation of CDK6, we have identified the T-loop phosphorylation at T172 as the highly regulated step determining CDK4 activity. Whether both CDK4 and CDK6 phosphorylations are catalyzed by CDK7 remains unclear. To answer this question, we took a chemical-genetics approach by using analogue-sensitive CDK7(as/as) mutant HCT116 cells, in which CDK7 can be specifically inhibited by bulky adenine analogs. Intriguingly, CDK7 inhibition prevented activating phosphorylations of CDK4/6, but for CDK4 this was at least partly dependent on its binding to p21(cip1). In response to CDK7 inhibition, p21-binding to CDK4 increased concomitantly with disappearance of the most abundant phosphorylation of p21, which we localized at S130 and found to be catalyzed by both CDK4 and CDK2. The S130A mutation of p21 prevented the activating CDK4 phosphorylation, and inhibition of CDK4/6 and CDK2 impaired phosphorylations of both p21 and p21-bound CDK4. Therefore, specific CDK7 inhibition revealed the following: a crucial but partly indirect CDK7 involvement in phosphorylation/activation of CDK4 and CDK6; existence of CDK4-activating kinase(s) other than CDK7; and novel CDK7-dependent positive feedbacks mediated by p21 phosphorylation by CDK4 and CDK2 to sustain CDK4 activation, pRb inactivation, and restriction point passage

On the Syntax-Semantics Interface: From Convergent Grammar to Abstract Categorial Grammar

International audienceCooper's storage technique for scoping in situ operators has been employed in theoretical and computational grammars of natural language (NL) for over thirty years, but has been widely viewed as ad hoc and unprincipled. Recent work by Pollard within the framework of convergent grammar (CVG) took a step in the direction of clarifying the logical status of Cooper storage by encoding its rules within an explicit but nonstandard natural deduction (ND) format. Here we provide further clarification by showing how to encode a CVG with storage within a logical grammar framework---abstract categorial grammar (ACG)---that utilizes no logical resources beyond those of standard linear deduction