Nonindexical Context-Dependence and the Interpretation as Abduction Approach Inclusive nonindexical context-dependence occurs when the preferred interpretation of an utterance implies its lexically-derived meaning. It is argued that the corresponding processes of free or lexically mandated enrichment can be modeled as abductive inference. A form of abduction is implemented in Simple Type Theory on the basis of a notion of plausibility, which is in turn regarded a preference relation over possible worlds. Since a preordering of doxastic alternatives taken for itself only (...) amounts to a relatively vacuous ad hoc model, it needs to be combined with a rational way of learning from new evidence. Lexicographic upgrade is implemented as an example of how an agent might revise his plausibility ordering in light of new evidence. Various examples are given how this apparatus may be used to model the contextual resolution of context-dependent or semantically incomplete utterances. The described form of abduction is limited and merely serves as a proof of concept, but the idea in general has good potential as one among many ways to build a bridge between semantics and pragmatics since inclusive context-dependence is ubiquitous. (shrink)

We consider the task of theorem proving in Lambek calculi and their generalisation to ‘multimodal residuation calculi’. These form an integral part of categorial logic, a logic of signs stemming from categorial grammar, of the basis of which language processing is essentially theorem proving. The demand of this application is not just for efficient processing of some or other specific calculus, but for methods that will be generally applicable to categorial logics.It is proposed that multimodal cases be treated by dealing (...) with the highest common factor of all the connectives as linear validity. The prosodic aspects are encoded in labels, in effect the term-structure of quantified linear logic. The correctness condition on proof nets can be implemented by SLD resolution in linear logic with unification on labels/terms limited to one way matching. A suitable unification strategy is obtained for calculi of discontinuity by normalisation of the ground goal term followed by recursive descent and redex pattern matching on the head term. (shrink)

The paper develops Lambda Grammars, a form of categorial grammar that, unlike other categorial formalisms, is non-directional. Linguistic signs are represented as sequences of lambda terms and are combined with the help of linear combinators.

This paper introduces λ-grammar, a form of categorial grammar that has much in common with LFG. Like other forms of categorial grammar, λ-grammars are multi-dimensional and their components are combined in a strictly parallel fashion. Grammatical representations are combined with the help of linear combinators, closed pure λ-terms in which each abstractor binds exactly one variable. Mathematically this is equivalent to employing linear logic, in use in LFG for semantic composition, but the method seems more practicable.

This paper uses a partially ordered set of syntactic categories to accommodate optionality and licensing in natural language syntax. A complex but well-studied data set pertaining to the syntax of quantifier scope and negative polarity licensing in Hungarian is used to illustrate the proposal. The presentation is geared towards both linguists and logicians. The paper highlights that the main ideas can be implemented in different grammar formalisms, and discusses in detail an implementation where the partial ordering on categories is given (...) by the derivability relation of a calculus with residuated and Galois-connected unary operators. (shrink)

The ‘syntax’ and ‘combinatorics’ of my title are what Curry (1961) referred to as phenogrammatics and tectogrammatics respectively. Tectogrammatics is concerned with the abstract combinatorial structure of the grammar and directly informs semantics, while phenogrammatics deals with concrete operations on syntactic data structures such as trees or strings. In a series of previous papers (Muskens, 2001a; Muskens, 2001b; Muskens, 2003) I have argued for an architecture of the grammar in which finite sequences of lambda terms are the basic data structures, (...) pairs of terms syntax, semantics for example. These sequences then combine with the help of simple generalizations of the usual abstraction and application operations. This theory, which I call Lambda Grammars and which is closely related to the independently formulated theory of Abstract Categorial Grammars (de Groote, 2001; de Groote, 2002), in fact is an implementation of Curry’s ideas: the level of tectogrammar is encoded by the sequences of lambda-terms and their ways of combination, while the syntactic terms in those sequences constitute the phenogrammatical level. In de Groote’s formulation of the theory, tectogrammar is the level of abstract terms, while phenogrammar is the level of object terms. (shrink)

We show in this paper that some expressions indicating source of evidence are part of propositional content and are best analyzed as special kind of epistemic modal. Our evidence comes from the Japanese evidential system. We consider six evidentials in Japanese, showing that they can be embedded in conditionals and under modals and that their properties with respect to modal subordination are similar to those of ordinary modals. We show that these facts are difficult for existing theories of evidentials, which (...) assign evidentials necessarily widest scope, to explain. We then provide an analysis using a logical system designed to account for evidential reasoning; this logic is the first developed system of probabilistic dynamic predicate logic. This analysis is shown to account for the data we provide that is problematic for other theories. (shrink)

Glue has evolved significantly during the past decade. Although the recent move to type-theoretic notation was a step in the right direction, basing the current Glue system on System F (second-order λ-calculus) was an unfortunate choice. An extension to two sorts and ad hoc restrictions were necessary to avoid inappropriate composition of meanings. As a result, the current system is unnecessarily complicated. A first-order Glue system is hereby proposed as its replacement. This new system is not only simpler and more (...) elegant, as it captures the exact requirements for Glue-style compositionality without ad hoc improvisations, but it also turns out to be more powerful than the current two-sorted (pseudo-) second-order system. First-order Glue supports all existing Glue analyses as well as more elegant alternatives. It also supports new, more demanding analyses. (shrink)

The paper proposes a semantics for contextual (i.e., Temporal and Locative) Prepositional Phrases (CPPs) like during every meeting, in the garden, when Harry met Sally and where I’m calling from. The semantics is embodied in a multi-modal extension of Combinatory Categoral Grammar (CCG). The grammar allows the strictly monotonic compositional derivation of multiple correct interpretations for “stacked” or multiple CPPs, including interpretations whose scope relations are not what would be expected on standard assumptions about surfacesyntactic command and monotonic derivation. A (...) type-hierarchy of functional modalities plays a crucial role in the specification of the fragment. (shrink)

A two-stage procedure is described which induces type-logical grammar lexicons from sentences annotated with skeletal terms of the simply typed lambda calculus. First, a generalized formulae-as-types correspondence is exploited to obtain all the type-logical proofs of the sample sentences from their lambda terms. The resulting lexicons are then optimally unified. The first stage constitutes the semantic bootstrapping (Pinker, Language Learnability and Language Development, Harvard University Press, 1984), while the unification procedure of Buszkowski and Penn represents a first attempt at structure-dependent (...) distributional learning of the syntactic and semantic categories. This effort extends earlier induction procedures (Buszkowski and Penn, 1990, Studia Logica 49, 431–454; Kanazawa, 1998, CSLI Publications and the European Association for Logic, Language and Information) for classical categorial grammar to at first the non-associative Lambek calculus, and then to a large class of type logics enriched by modal operators and structural rules. (shrink)

Categorial grammar is well-known for its elegant analysis of coordination enabled by the flexible notion of constituency it entertains. However, to date, no systematic study exists that examines whether this analysis has any obvious empirical advantage over alternative analyses of nonconstituent coordination available in phrase structure-based theories of syntax. This paper attempts precisely such a comparison. We compare the direct constituent coordination analysis of non-canonical coordinations in categorial grammar with an ellipsis-based analysis of the same phenomena in the recent HPSG (...) literature. We provide a set of empirical evidence, consisting of cases in which non-canonical coordinations interact with scopal operators of various sorts, which systematically falsifies the predictions of the latter, ‘linearization-based’ ellipsis approach to coordination. We propose an alternative analysis in a variant of categorial grammar called Hybrid Type-Logical Categorial Grammar. The proposed framework builds on both the Lambek-inspired variants of categorial grammar and a more recent line of work modelling word order via a lambda calculus for the prosodic component. The flexible syntax–semantics interface of this framework straightforwardly captures the interactions between non-canonical coordinations and scopal expressions, demonstrating the broader empirical payoff of the direct constituent coordination analysis of non-canonical coordinations pioneered by Steedman :523–568, 1985; Linguist Philos 13:207–263, 1990) and Dowty hitherto not explicitly recognized in the literature. (shrink)

A central tenet of cognitivism is that knowing how is to be explained in terms of tacitly knowing that a theory is true. By critically examining canonical anti-behaviorist arguments and contemporary appeals to tacit knowledge, I have devised a more explicit characterization in which tacitly known theories must act as justifiers for claims that the tacit knower is capable of explicitly endorsing. In this manner the new account is specifically tied to verbal behavior. In addition, if the analysis is correct (...) then it follows that the scope and nature of cognitivist appeals to tacit knowledge are largely mistaken. (shrink)

In this paper we compare grammatical inference in the context of simple and of mixed Lambek systems. Simple Lambek systems are obtained by taking the logic of residuation for a family of multiplicative connectives /,,\, together with a package of structural postulates characterizing the resource management properties of the connective.Different choices for Associativity and Commutativity yield the familiar logics NL, L, NLP, LP. Semantically, a simple Lambek system is a unimodal logic: the connectives get a Kripke style interpretation in terms (...) of a single ternary accessibility relation modeling the notion of linguistic composition for each individual system.The simple systems earch have their virtues in linguistic analysis. But none of them in isolation provides a basis for a full theory of grammar. In the second part of the paper, we consider two types of mixed Lambek systems. (shrink)

We discuss the logic of pregroups, introduced by Lambek [34], and its connections with other type logics and formal grammars. The paper contains some new ideas and results: the cut-elimination theorem and a normalization theorem for an extended system of this logic, its P-TIME decidability, its interpretation in L1, and a general construction of (preordered) bilinear algebras and pregroups whose universe is an arbitrary monoid.

If all dependent expressions were adjacent some variety of immediate constituent analysis would suffice for grammar, but syntactic and semantic mismatches are characteristic of natural language; indeed this is a, or the, central problem in grammar. Logical categorial grammar reduces grammar to logic: an expression is well-formed if and only if an associated sequent is a theorem of a categorial logic. The paradigmatic categorial logic is the Lambek calculus, but being a logic of concatenation the Lambek calculus can only capture (...) discontinuous dependencies when they are peripheral. In this paper we present the displacement calculus, which is a logic of intercalation as well as concatenation and which subsumes the Lambek calculus. On the empirical side, we apply the new calculus to discontinuous idioms, quantification, VP ellipsis, medial extraction, pied-piping, appositive relativisation, parentheticals, gapping, comparative subdeletion, cross-serial dependencies, reflexivization, anaphora, dative alternation, and particle shift. On the technical side, we prove that the calculus enjoys Cut-elimination. (shrink)

Abstract -/- Quantifier domain restriction (QDR) and two versions of nominal restriction (NR) are implemented as restrictions that depend on a previously introduced interpreter and interpretation time in a two-dimensional semantic framework on the basis of simple type theory and categorial grammar. Against Stanley (2002) it is argued that a suitable version of QDR can deal with superlatives like tallest. However, it is shown that NR is needed to account for utterances when the speaker intends to convey different restrictions for (...) multiple uses of the same quantifying determiner. We argue that NR generally fares better with such examples but also observe that examples like Every sailor waves at every sailor might be pragmatically anomalous. An account of contextual domain restriction is proposed that (i) excludes these anomalous readings (but it is shown how they could be included), (ii) makes it possible to express different contextual domain restrictions as long-range dependencies on an interpreter and an interpretation time, and (iii) additionally models restrictions based on locative constructions as general mereological constraints introduced by shifting the index. (shrink)

This paper gives a simple method for providing categorial brands of feature-based unification grammars with a model-theoretic semantics. The key idea is to apply the paradigm of fibred semantics (or layered logics, see Gabbay (1990)) in order to combine the two components of a feature-based grammar logic. We demonstrate the method for the augmentation of Lambek categorial grammar with Kasper/Rounds-style feature logic. These are combined by replacing (or annotating) atomic formulas of the first logic, i.e. the basic syntactic types, by (...) formulas of the second. Modelling such a combined logic is less trivial than one might expect. The direct application of the fibred semantics method where a combined atomic formula like np (num: sg & pers: 3rd) denotes those strings which have the indicated property and the categorial operators denote the usual left- and right-residuals of these string sets, does not match the intuitive, unification-based proof theory. Unification implements a global bookkeeping with respect to a proof whereas the direct fibring method restricts its view to the atoms of the grammar logic. The solution is to interpret the (embedded) feature terms as global feature constraints while maintaining the same kind of fibred structures. For this adjusted semantics, the anticipated proof system is sound and complete. (shrink)

This paper presents a variable-free analysis of relational nouns in Glue Semantics, within a Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) architecture. Relational nouns and resumptive pronouns are bound using the usual binding mechanisms of LFG. Special attention is paid to the bound readings of relational nouns, how these interact with genitives and obliques, and their behaviour with respect to scope, crossover and reconstruction. I consider a puzzle that arises regarding relational nouns and resumptive pronouns, given that relational nouns can have bound readings (...) and resumptive pronouns are just a specific instance of bound pronouns. The puzzle is why is it impossible for bound implicit arguments of relational nouns to be resumptive? The puzzle is highlighted by a well-known variety of variable-free semantics, where pronouns and relational noun phrases are identical both in category and (base) type. I show that the puzzle also arises for an established variable-based theory. I present an analysis of resumptive pronouns that crucially treats resumptives in terms of the resource logic linear logic that underlies Glue Semantics: a resumptive pronoun is a perfectly ordinary pronoun that constitutes a surplus resource; this surplus resource requires the presence of a resumptive-licensing resource consumer, a manager resource. Manager resources properly distinguish between resumptive pronouns and bound relational nouns based on differences between them at the level of semantic structure. The resumptive puzzle is thus solved. The paper closes by considering the solution in light of the hypothesis of direct compositionality. It is argued that a directly compositional version of the theory is possible, although perhaps not desirable. The implications for direct compositionality are considered. (shrink)

The relationship between Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG) functional structures (f-structures) for sentences and their semanticinterpretations can be formalized in linear logic in a way thatcorrectly explains the observed interactions between quantifier scopeambiguity, bound anaphora and intensionality.Our linear-logic formalization of the compositional properties ofquantifying expressions in natural language obviates the need forspecial mechanisms, such as Cooper storage, in representing thescoping possibilities of quantifying expressions. Instead, thesemantic contribution of a quantifier is recorded as a linear-logicformula whose use in a proof will establish the (...) scope of thequantifier. Different proofs can lead to different scopes. In eachcomplete proof, the properties of linear logic ensure thatquantifiers are properly scoped. (shrink)

Using the programming-language concept of continuations, we propose a new, multimodal analysis of quantification in Type Logical Grammar. Our approach provides a geometric view of in-situ quantification in terms of graphs, and motivates the limited use of empty antecedents in derivations. Just as continuations are the tool of choice for reasoning about evaluation order and side effects in programming languages, our system provides a principled, type-logical way to model evaluation order and side effects in natural language. We illustrate with an (...) improved account of quantificational binding, weak crossover, wh-questions, superiority, and polarity licensing. (shrink)

This paper investigates whether the fundamental linguistic insights and intuitions of Lexical Functional Grammar, which is usually presented as a constraint-based linguistic theory, can be reformulated in a resource sensitive framework using a substructural modal logic. In the approach investigated here, LFG's f-descriptions are replaced with expressions from a multi-modal propositional logic. In effect, the feature structure unification basis of LFG's f-structures is replaced with a very different resource based mechanism. It turns out that some linguistic analyses that required non-monotonic (...) devices in LFG analysis of Icelandic) can be straightforwardly expressed in the framework presented here. Moreover, a Curry– Howard correspondence between proofs in this logic and -terms provides a semantic interpretation as a by-product of the process of showing syntactic well-formedness. (shrink)

Involutive Nonassociative Lambek Calculus is a nonassociative version of Noncommutative Multiplicative Linear Logic, but the multiplicative constants are not admitted. InNL adds two linear negations to Nonassociative Lambek Calculus ; it is a strongly conservative extension of NL Logical aspects of computational linguistics. LNCS, vol 10054. Springer, Berlin, pp 68–84, 2016). Here we also add unary modalities satisfying the residuation law and De Morgan laws. For the resulting logic InNLm, we define and study phase spaces. We use them to prove (...) the cut elimination theorem for a one-sided sequent system for InNLm, introduced here. Phase spaces are also employed in studying auxiliary systems InNLm, assuming the k-cyclic law for negation. The latter behave similarly as Classical Nonassociative Lambek Calculus, studied in de Groote and Lamarche :355–388, 2002) and Buszkowski. We reduce the provability in InNLm to that in InNLm. This yields the equivalence of type grammars based on InNLm with -free) context-free grammars and the PTIME complexity of InNLm. (shrink)

This is a good book. Its main message is that a particular approach to natural language called type-logical grammar can, in-principle, be equipped with a learning theory. In this review, I first identify what type-logical grammar is, then outline what the learning theory is. Then I try to articulate why this message is important for the logical, linguistic and information-theoretic parts of cognitive science. Overall, I think the book’s main message is significant enough to warrant patience with its scientific limitations.

We show in this paper that some expressions indicating source of evidence are part of propositional content and are best analyzed as special kind of epistemic modal. Our evidence comes from the Japanese evidential system. We consider six evidentials in Japanese, showing that they can be embedded in conditionals and under modals and that their properties with respect to modal subordination are similar to those of ordinary modals. We show that these facts are difficult for existing theories of evidentials, which (...) assign evidentials necessarily widest scope, to explain. We then provide an analysis using a logical system designed to account for evidential reasoning; this logic is the first developed system of probabilistic dynamic predicate logic. This analysis is shown to account for the data we provide that is problematic for other theories. (shrink)

This paper establishes a connection between structure sensitive categorial inference and classical modal logic. The embedding theorems for non-associative Lambek Calculus and the whole class of its weak Sahlqvist extensions demonstrate that various resource sensitive regimes can be modelled within the framework of unimodal temporal logic. On the semantic side, this requires decomposition of the ternary accessibility relation to provide its correlation with standard binary Kripke frames and models.

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. (shrink)

Many variants of categorial grammar assume an underlying logic which is associative and linear. In relation to left extraction, the former property is challenged by island domains, which involve nonassociativity, and the latter property is challenged by parasitic gaps, which involve nonlinearity. We present a version of type logical grammar including ‘structural inhibition’ for nonassociativity and ‘structural facilitation’ for nonlinearity and we give an account of relativisation including islands and parasitic gaps and their interaction.

Když jsem v roce 1992 začínal na filosofické fakultě UK přednášet teorii sémantiky, cítil jsem intenzivní potřebu poskytnout studentům nějaký učební text. O překotném vývoji tohoto interdisciplinárního oboru, který odstartovalo v sedmdesátých letech úspěšné “zkřížení logiky s lingvistikou” Richardem Montaguem a dalšími a který se nezpomalil dodnes, totiž v češtině neexistovaly prakticky žádné zprávy (s čestnou výjimkou přístupu tzv. transparentní intenzionální logiky, který byl dílem českého emigranta Pavla Tichého a o kterém u nás psal Pavel Materna). Přehledové publikace, jaké jsou (...) potřeba pro někoho, kdo se chce v dané problematice zorientovat, se ovšem v té době i po světě teprve začínaly objevovat: v roce 1990 vyšla kniha An Introduction to Semantics Gennara Chierchii a Sally McConell-Ginnetové a v roce 1991 vydala skupina holandských logiků pod kolektivním pseudonymem L.T.F. Gamut dvousvazkovou knihu Language and Meaning. Za této situace jsem se pokusil co nejrychleji sepsat učební text, který by moji studenti i jiní zájemci o sémantiku mohli použít; a protože o jeho vydání paradoxně projevila větší zájem filosofická fakulta Masarykovy univerzity v Brně (kde jsem já osobně nikdy neučil; ale zájem o sémantiku tam neúnavně podněcoval a vydání mého textu tam zprostředkoval kolega Materna) než filosofická fakulta mojí domovské Karlovy univerzity, vyšel tento text v Brně, a to pod názvem Úvod do teoretické sémantiky. (shrink)

\ is a 7000 line Prolog parser/theorem-prover for logical categorial grammar. In such logical categorial grammar syntax is universal and grammar is reduced to logic: an expression is grammatical if and only if an associated logical statement is a theorem of a fixed calculus. Since the syntactic component is invariant, being the logic of the calculus, logical categorial grammar is purely lexicalist and a particular language model is defined by just a lexical dictionary. The foundational logic of continuity was established (...) by Lambek while a corresponding extension including also logic of discontinuity was established by Morrill and Valentín :167–192, 2010). \ implements a logic including as primitive connectives the continuous and discontinuous connectives of the displacement calculus, additives, 1st order quantifiers, normal modalities, bracket modalities, and universal and existential subexponentials. In this paper we review the rules of inference for these primitive connectives and their linguistic applications, and we survey the principles of Andreoli’s focusing, and of a generalisation of van Benthem’s count-invariance, on the basis of which \ is implemented. (shrink)

This paper describes a prototype implementation of a Labelled Deduction System for natural language interpretation, where interpretation is taken to be the process of understanding a natural language utterance. The implementation models the process of understanding wh-gap dependencies in questions and relative clauses for a fragment of English. The paper is divided in three main sections. In Section 1, we introduce the basic architecture of the system. Section 2 outlines a prototype implementation of wh-binding and indicates its potential for explanation (...) of linguistic phenomena, and in Section 3 we briefly set the model within a large theoretical perspective, comparing it to other type-logical approaches to natural language analysis. (shrink)

Glue semantics is a theory of the syntax–semantics interface according to which the syntactic structure of a sentence produces premises in a fragment of linear logic, and the semantic interpretation of the sentence correspond to the proof derivable from those premises. This paper describes how Glue can be connected to a Minimalist syntactic theory and compares the result with the more mainstream approach to the syntax–semantics interface in Minimalism, according to which the input to semantic interpretation is a syntactic structure (...) derived by covert movement operations. I argue that the Glue approach has advantages that make it worth exploring. (shrink)

This paper studies the relation between some extensions of the non-associative Lambek Calculus NL and their interpretation in tree models (free groupoids). We give various examples of sequents that are valid in tree models, but not derivable in NL. We argue why tree models may not be axiomatizable if we add finitely many derivation rules to NL, and proceed to consider labeled calculi instead.We define two labeled categorial calculi, and prove soundness and completeness for interpretations that are almost the intended (...) one, namely for tree models where some branches of some trees may be resp. all branches of all trees must be infinitely extending. Extrapolating from the experiences in our quite simple systems, we briefly discuss some problems involved with the introduction of labels in categorial grammar, and argue that many of the basic questions are not yet understood. (shrink)

Some twenty years ago, semanticists of natural language came to be overwhelmed by the problem of semantic analysis of belief sentences (and sentences reporting other kinds of propositional attitudes): the trouble was that sentences of the shapes X believes that A and X believes that B appeared to be able to have different truth values even in cases when A and B shared the same intension, i.e. were, from the viewpoint of intensional semantics, synonymous 1 . Thus, taking intensional semantics (...) for granted, belief sentences appeared to violate the principle of intersubstitutivity of synonyms. The verdict of the gurus of intensional semantics was that hence intensional semantics is inadequate, or at least insufficient for the purposes of analysis of propositional attitudes; and that we need a kind of a ‘hyperintensional semantics’. (shrink)

This paper shows how proof nets can be used to formalize the notion of incomplete dependency used in psycholinguistic theories of the unacceptability of center embedded constructions. Such theories of human language processing can usually be restated in terms of geometrical constraints on proof nets. The paper ends with a discussion of the relationship between these constraints and incremental semantic interpretation.

“Everyone knows that language is variable.” This is the bald sentence with which Sapir (1921:147) begins his chapter on language as an historical product. He goes on to emphasize how two speakers’ usage is bound to differ “in choice of words, in sentence structure, in the relative frequency with which particular forms or combinations of words are used”. I should add that much sociolinguistic and historical linguistic research has shown that the same speaker’s usage is also variable (Labov 1966, Kroch (...) 2001:722). However, the tradition of most syntacticians has been to ignore this thing that everyone knows. (shrink)