Continuations and Natural Language


Book Description

The continuation of an expression is a portion of its surrounding context. This book proposes and defends the continuation hypothesis: that the meaning of a natural language expression can depend on its own continuation (it can denote a function on its surrounding context).




Algebraic Structures in Natural Language


Book Description

Algebraic Structures in Natural Language addresses a central problem in cognitive science concerning the learning procedures through which humans acquire and represent natural language. Until recently algebraic systems have dominated the study of natural language in formal and computational linguistics, AI, and the psychology of language, with linguistic knowledge seen as encoded in formal grammars, model theories, proof theories and other rule-driven devices. Recent work on deep learning has produced an increasingly powerful set of general learning mechanisms which do not apply rule-based algebraic models of representation. The success of deep learning in NLP has led some researchers to question the role of algebraic models in the study of human language acquisition and linguistic representation. Psychologists and cognitive scientists have also been exploring explanations of language evolution and language acquisition that rely on probabilistic methods, social interaction and information theory, rather than on formal models of grammar induction. This book addresses the learning procedures through which humans acquire natural language, and the way in which they represent its properties. It brings together leading researchers from computational linguistics, psychology, behavioral science and mathematical linguistics to consider the significance of non-algebraic methods for the study of natural language. The text represents a wide spectrum of views, from the claim that algebraic systems are largely irrelevant to the contrary position that non-algebraic learning methods are engineering devices for efficiently identifying the patterns that underlying grammars and semantic models generate for natural language input. There are interesting and important perspectives that fall at intermediate points between these opposing approaches, and they may combine elements of both. It will appeal to researchers and advanced students in each of these fields, as well as to anyone who wants to learn more about the relationship between computational models and natural language.




The Linguistics Enterprise


Book Description

The linguistics enterprise : from knowledge of language to knowledge in linguistics / Martin Everaert ... [et al.] -- Scope ambiguities through the mirror / Raffaella Bernardi -- Phonetic and phonological approaches to early word recognition : empirical findings, methodological issues, and theoretical implications / Paola Escudero & Titia Benders -- Restructuring head and argument in West-Germanic / Arnold E. Evers -- Scope assignment in child language : on the role of the question under discussion / Andrea Gualmini & Sharon Unsworth -- The learnability of A-bar chains / Jacqueline van Kampen -- Looking at anaphora : the psychological reality of the primitives of binding model / Arnout W. Koornneef -- Incremental discourse processing : how coherence relations influence the resolution of pronouns / Willem M. Mak & Ted J.M. Sanders -- Theoretical validity and psychological reality of the grammatical code / Ad Neeleman & Hans van de Koot -- Monitoring for speech errors has different functions in inner and overt speech / Sieb Nooteboom -- What's in a quantifier? / Rick Nouwen -- Minimal versus not so minimal pronouns : feature transmission, feature deletion, and the role of economy in the language system / Eric Reuland -- Against partitioned readings of reciprocals / Sivan Sabato & Yoad Winter -- The representation and processing of fixed and compositional expressions / Joost Schilperoord & Rein Cozijn -- Clitic doubling in Spanish : agreement of the third kind / Jan Schroten -- Metalinguistic processing and acquisition within the MOGUL framework / Michael Sharwood Smith -- Catching heffalumps : onset fricatives in child speech / Wim Zonneveld




Formal Approaches to Semantics and Pragmatics


Book Description

This volume presents an exploration of a wide variety of new formal methods from computer science, biology and economics that have been applied to problems in semantics and pragmatics in recent years. Many of the contributions included focus on data from East Asian languages, particularly Japanese and Korean. The collection reflects on a range of new empirical issues that have arisen, including issues related to preference, evidentiality and attention. Separated into several sections, the book presents discussions on: information structure, speech acts and decisions, philosophical themes in semantics and new formal approaches to semantic and pragmatic theory. Its overarching theme is the relation between different kinds of content, from a variety of perspectives. The discussions presented are both theoretically innovative and empirically motivated.




New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence


Book Description

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of 4 workshops held at the JSAI International Symposia on Artificial Intelligence 2010, in Tokyo, Japan, in November 2009. The 24 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 61 submissions. The papers are organized in the workshop sections Logic and Engineering of Natural Language Semantics (LENLS), Juris-Informatics (JURISIN), Knowledge Collaboration in Software Development (KCSD), and Learning with Logics and Logics for Learning (LLLL).




From fieldwork to linguistic theory


Book Description

Dan Everett is a renowned linguist with an unparalleled breadth of contributions, ranging from fieldwork to linguistic theory, including phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, historical linguistics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of linguistics. Born on the U.S. Mexican border, Daniel Everett faced much adversity growing up and was sent as a missionary to convert the Pirahã in the Amazonian jungle, a group of people who speak a language that no outsider had been able to become proficient in. Although no Pirahã person was successfully converted, Everett successfully learned and studied Pirahã, as well as multiple other languages in the Americas. Ever steadfast in pursuing data-driven language science, Everett debunked generativist claims about syntactic recursion, for which he was repeatedly attacked. In addition to conducting fieldwork with many understudied languages and revolutionizing linguistics, Everett has published multiple works for the general public: "Don’t sleep, there are snakes, Language: The cultural tool, and how language began". This book is a collection of 15 articles that are related to Everett’s work over the years, released after a tribute event for Dan Everett that was held at MIT on June 8th 2023.




Logical Aspects of Computational Linguistics


Book Description

Edited in collaboration with FoLLI, the Association of Logic, Language and Information, this book inaugurates the new FoLLI LNAI subline. It constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Logical Aspects of Computational Linguistics, LACL 2005, held in Bordeaux, France in April 2005. The 25 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from over 40 submissions. The papers address a wide range of logical and formal methods in computational linguistics with studies of particular grammar formalisms and their computational properties, language engineering, and traditional topics about the syntax/semantics interface.




Handbook of Logic and Language


Book Description

The logical study of language is becoming more interdisciplinary, playing a role in fields such as computer science, artificial intelligence, cognitive science and game theory. This new edition, written by the leading experts in the field, presents an overview of the latest developments at the interface of logic and linguistics as well as a historical perspective. It is divided into three parts covering Frameworks, General Topics and Descriptive Themes. - Completely revised and updated - includes over 25% new material - Discusses the interface between logic and language - Many of the authors are creators or active developers of the theories




The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory


Book Description

The second edition of The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory presents a comprehensive introduction to cutting-edge research in contemporary theoretical and computational semantics. Features completely new content from the first edition of The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory Features contributions by leading semanticists, who introduce core areas of contemporary semantic research, while discussing current research Suitable for graduate students for courses in semantic theory and for advanced researchers as an introduction to current theoretical work




Computation of Language


Book Description

The study of linguistics has been forever changed by the advent of the computer. Not only does the machine permit the processing of enormous quantities of text thereby securing a better empirical foundation for conclusions-but also, since it is a modelling device, the machine allows the implementation of theories of grammar and other kinds of language processing. Models can have very unexpected properties both good and bad-and it is only through extensive tests that the value of a model can be properly assessed. The computer revolution has been going on for many years, and its importance for linguistics was recognized early on, but the more recent spread of personal workstations has made it a reality that can no longer be ignored by anyone in the subject. The present essay, in particular, could never have been written without the aid of the computer. I know personally from conversations and consultations with the author over many months how the book has changed. If he did not have at his command a powerful typesetting program, he would not have been able to see how his writing looked and exactly how it had to be revised and amplified. Even more significant for the evolution of the linguistic theory is the easy testing of examples made possible by the implementation of the parser and the computer-held lexicon. Indeed, the rule set and lexicon grew substantially after the successes of the early implementations created the desire to incorporate more linguistic phenomena.