Natural language understanding and Montague grammar1, 2

This paper reevaluates some of the contributions of Montague grammar in view of the increasing importance of computational considerations in linguistic theory and the demand for linguistic theories that can provide support in the design of natural language systems. It also considers Montague grammar in relation to work on lexical semantics and semantic nets. In this perspective the techniques of Montague grammar for systematically linking syntactic form and a model-theoretic semantics emerge as the most significant feature of the theory, while a number of the specific semantic assumptions recede in importance. Yet, with different ways of thinking about the structure mapping between levels of linguistic form and interpretations (e.g., constraint systems), we can also implement this connection using different techniques from what Montague had at his disposal.     

基于桥连接的词典学习方法的语义解析

现阶段的语义解析方法大部分都基于组合语义,这类方法的核心就是词典。词典是词汇的集合,词汇定义了自然语言句子中词语到知识库本体中谓词的映射。语义解析一直面临着词典中词汇覆盖度不够的问题。针对此问题,该文在现有工作的基础上,提出了基于桥连接的词典学习方法,该方法能够在训练中自动引入新的词汇并加以学习,为了进一步提高新学习到的词汇的准确度,该文设计了新的词语—二元谓词的特征模板,并使用基于投票机制的核心词典获取方法。该文在两个公开数据集(WebQuestions和Free917)上进行了对比实验,实验结果表明,该文方法能够学习到新的词汇,提高词汇的覆盖度,进而提升语义解析系统的性能,特别是召回率。     

Secondary predication and the lexical representation of verbs

In this paper it is assumed that syntactic structure is projected from the lexicon. The lexical representation, which encodes the linguistically relevant aspects of the meanings of words, thus determines and constrains the syntax. Therefore, if semantic analysis of syntactic structures is to be possible, it is necessary to determine the content and structure of lexical semantic representations. The paper argues for a certain form of lexical representation by presenting the problem of a particular non-standard structure, the verb phrase of the form V-NP-Adj corresponding to various constructions of secondary predication in English. It is demonstrated that the solution to the semantic analysis of this structure lies in the meaning of the structure's predicators, in particular the lexical semantic representation of the verb. Verbs are classified according to the configuration of the lexical semantic representations, whether basic or derived. It is these specific configurations that restrict the possibilities of secondary predication. Given the class of a verb, its relation to the secondary predicate is predictable; and the correct interpretation of the V-NP-Adj string is therefore possible.This work is based on papers presented to the 1988 meetings of the Canadian Linguistic Association and the Brandeis Workshop on Theoretical and Computational Issues in Lexical Semantics. I am grateful to the audiences at these two meetings for comments, and to Anna-Maria di Sciullo, Diane Massam, Yves Roberge and James Pustejovsky for helpful discussion. I also thank SSHRC for funding the research of which this work forms part.     

Deverbal Semantics and the Montagovian Generative Lexicon \Lambda \!\mathsf {Ty}_n

We propose a lexical account of event nouns, in particular of deverbal nominalisations, whose meaning is related to the event expressed by their base verb. The literature on 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 Retoré 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.     

On expressing metonymic relations in multiple languages

Recently, the scientific interest in addressing metonymy phenomena from a computational perspective has increased significantly. Considerable effort is invested in this, but issues addressing metonymy in the context of natural language generation have been widely ignored so far, and also comparable multilingual analyses are rather sparse. Motivated by these shortcomings, we investigate methods for representing knowledge required to express metonymic relations in several ways and in multiple languages, and we present techniques for generating these alternative verbalizations. In particular, we demonstrate how mapping schemata that enable lexical expressions on the basis of conceptual specifications to be built are derived from the Qualia Structure of Pustejovsky's Generative Lexicon. Moreover, our enterprise has led to the exposition of interesting cross-language differences, notably the use of prefixed verbs and compound nouns in German, as opposed to widely equivalent expressions entailing implicit metonymic relations, as frequently found in English. A main achievement of our approach lies in bringing computational lexical semantics and natural language generation closer together, so that the linguistic foundations of lexical choice in natural language generation are strengthened.     

汉语框架语义知识库概述

介绍了汉语框架语义知识库(Chinese FrameNet,简称CFN)的语义描述体系。CFN是一个以Fillmore的框架语义学为理论基础、以伯克利FrameNet为参照、以汉语语料事实为依据的供计算机使用的汉语词汇语义知识库,它包括框架库、句子库和词汇库三部分。经过三年的努力,目前已取得了阶段性成果。CFN构建工程量大,难度很高,目前课题组只能在有限目标下开展工作,但是,已经探索了一条可行的技术路径,为实现语义Web中的语义知识共享以及智能化、个性化的Web服务提供了基础资源。     

A Note on Intensionalization

Building on Ben-Avi and Winter’s (2007) work, this paper provides a general “intensionalization” procedure that turns an extensional semantics for a language into an intensionalized one that is capable of accommodating “truly intensional” lexical items without changing the compositional semantic rules. We prove some formal properties of this procedure and clarify its relation to the procedure implicit in Montague’s (1973) PTQ.     

Facial expression recognition of a speaker using front-view face judgment, vowel judgment, and thermal image processing

For facial expression recognition, we selected three images: (i) just before speaking, (ii) speaking the first vowel, and (iii) speaking the last vowel in an utterance. In this study, as a pre-processing module, we added a judgment function to distinguish a front-view face for facial expression recognition. A frame of the front-view face in a dynamic image is selected by estimating the face direction. The judgment function measures four feature parameters using thermal image processing, and selects the thermal images that have all the values of the feature parameters within limited ranges which were decided on the basis of training thermal images of front-view faces. As an initial investigation, we adopted the utterance of the Japanese name “Taro,” which is semantically neutral. The mean judgment accuracy of the front-view face was 99.5% for six subjects who changed their face direction freely. Using the proposed method, the facial expressions of six subjects were distinguishable with 84.0% accuracy when they exhibited one of the intentional facial expressions of “angry,” “happy,” “neutral,” “sad,” and “surprised.” We expect the proposed method to be applicable for recognizing facial expressions in daily conversation.     

Winskel is (almost) Right: Towards a Mechanized Semantics Textbook

We present a formalization of the first 100 pages of Winskel's textbook The Formal Semantics of Programming Languages in the theorem prover Isabelle/HOL: 2 operational, 2 denotational, 2 axiomatic semantics, a verification condition generator, and the necessary soundness, completeness and equivalence proofs, all for a simple imperative programming language. Received March 1997 / Accepted in revised form June 1998     

Compositional and holistic quantum computational semantics

In quantum computational logic meanings of sentences are identified with quantum information quantities: systems of qubits or, more generally, mixtures of systems of qubits. We consider two kinds of quantum computational semantics: (1) a compositional semantics, where the meaning of a compound sentence is determined by the meanings of its parts; (2) a holistic semantics, which makes essential use of the characteristic “holistic” features of the quantum-theoretic formalism. We prove that the compositional and the holistic semantics characterize the same logic.     

Yes,She Was!

Ford’s “Helen Keller Was Never in a Chinese Room” claims that my argument in “How Helen Keller Used Syntactic Semantics to Escape from a Chinese Room” fails because Searle and I use the terms ‘syntax’ and ‘semantics’ differently, hence are at cross purposes. Ford has misunderstood me; this reply clarifies my theory.     

构词法在智能英汉机译系统词典库中的应用

词典库是机译系统的基础,它直接影响着整个系统的翻译质量.因此,大型机译系统中词典库的组织方式和辅助获取越来越受重视.本文概述了英语构词规律,并根据此规律以及智能英汉系统(IMTF/C)词典库的组织特点,给出了构词法在词典库中的两个应用,即由构词法辅助获取词典信息和根据构词法改进词典库的组织.最后,分析了一个试验结果.     

About the Collatz conjecture

This paper refers to the Collatz conjecture. The origin and the formalization of the Collatz problem are presented in the first section, named “Introduction”. In the second section, entitled “Properties of the Collatz function”, we treat mainly the bijectivity of the Collatz function. Using the obtained results, we construct a (set of) binary tree(s) which “simulate(s)”– in a way that will be specified – the computations of the values of the Collatz function. In the third section, we give an “efficient” algorithm for computing the number of iterations (recursive calls) of the Collatz function. A comparison between our algorithm and the standard one is also presented, the first being at least 2.25 “faster” (3.00 in medium). Finally, we describe a class of natural numbers for which the conjecture is true. Received 28 April 1997 / 10 June 1997     

A Standard Model—Theoretic Approach to Operational Semmantics of Recursiv Programs

In this paper we try to introduce a new approach to operational semantics of recursive programs by using ideas in the“priority method”which is a fundamental tool in Recursion Theory.In lieu of modelling partial functions by introducing undefined values in a traditional approach,we shall define a priority derivation tree for every term,and by respecting thr rule“attacking the subtem of the highest priority first”we define transition relations,computation sequences etc.directly based on a standard interpretation whic includes no undefined value in its domain,Finally,we prove that our new approach generates the same opeational semantics as the traditional one.It is also pointed out that we can use our strategy oto refute a claim of Loeckx and Sieber that the opperational semantics of recursive programs cannot be built based on predicate logic.     

用蒙太格文法解决汉语语义悖论

蒙太格文法是处理语法、语义和语用的典型方法,尤其在语义学方面独树一帜。通过对一个汉语语义悖论的安全分析,来表明Montague文法对于汉语语义悖论的解决,乃至对于整个汉语语义学的研究都具有非常重要的价值。     

Semantic Vector Models and Functional Models for Pregroup Grammars

We show that vector space semantics and functional semantics in two-sorted first order logic are equivalent for pregroup grammars. We present an algorithm that translates functional expressions to vector expressions and vice-versa. The semantics is compositional, variable free and invariant under change of order or multiplicity. It includes the semantic vector models of Information Retrieval Systems and has an interior logic admitting a comprehension schema. A sentence is true in the interior logic if and only if the ‘usual’ first order formula translating the sentence holds. The examples include negation, universal quantifiers and relative pronouns.     

Simplifying Proofs in Fitch-Style Natural Deduction Systems

We present an algorithm for simplifying Fitch-style natural-deduction proofs in classical first-order logic. We formalize Fitch-style natural deduction as a denotational proof language,, with a rigorous syntax and semantics. Based on that formalization, we define an array of simplifying transformations and show them to be terminating and to respect the formal semantics of the language. We also show that the transformations never increase the size or complexity of a deduction – in the worst case, they produce deductions of the same size and complexity as the original. We present several examples of proofs containing various types of superfluous “detours,” and explain how our procedure eliminates them, resulting in smaller and cleaner deductions. All of the transformations are fully implemented in SML-NJ, and the complete code listing is available on the Web.     

A Partial Account of Presupposition Projection

In this paper it is shown how a partial semantics for presuppositions can be given which is empirically more satisfactory than its predecessors, and how this semantics can be integrated with a technically sound, compositional grammar in the Montagovian fashion. Additionally, it is argued that the classical objection to partial accounts of presupposition projection, namely that they lack “flexibility,” is based on a misconception. Partial logics can give rise to flexible predictions without postulating any ad hoc ambiguities. Finally, it is shown how the partial foundation can be combined with a dynamic system of common-ground maintenance to account for accommodation. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Compositional semantics and behavioral equivalences for P Systems

The aim of the paper is to give a compositional semantics in the style of the Structural Operational Semantics (SOS) and to study behavioral equivalence notions for P Systems. Firstly, we consider P Systems with maximal parallelism and without priorities. We define a process algebra, called P Algebra, whose terms model membranes, we equip the algebra with a Labeled Transition System (LTS) obtained through SOS transition rules, and we study how some equivalence notions defined over the LTS model apply in our case. Then, we consider P Systems with priorities and extend the introduced framework to deal with them. We prove that our compositional semantics reflects correctly maximal parallelism and priorities.