Towards a computational Formalization of natural language semantics

Towards a computational Formalization of natural language semantics PDF Author: Robert M. Schwarcz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 33

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Book Description
The formalization of natural language semantics is a problem central of a number of major academic and practical concerns. A semantic theory requires a formalized representation of messages, arrangements of morphological units, and the processes of encoding and decoding that relate them. Formal logic has provided a paradigm for semantics based on the notions of model, extension, and intension; with certain changes and additions, this paradigm indicates what is needed for a theory of natural language semantics. Possible computational avenues of approach to developing a semantic theory include machine translation, data management and information retrieval, language and picture processing, psychological modeling, natural language CAI, and natural-language programming. Several linguists have developed semantic descriptions based on transformational grammar; the earliest of these regarded semantic interpretation as being derived from syntactic deep structure, while the more recent have regarded deep structure itself as being semantically meaningful. Computational approaches to date have treated semantics as a problem of translating natural language into predicate-calculus formulas, relational structures, or statements in a formal procedural language; the most significant of these approaches are those of Thompson, Simmons et al., Woods, and Kellogg. Considered individually, none of these approaches has produced an adequate semantic theory for natural language, but all contribute something towards the formulation of an adequate approach. (Author).

Towards a computational Formalization of natural language semantics

Towards a computational Formalization of natural language semantics PDF Author: Robert M. Schwarcz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 33

Get Book Here

Book Description
The formalization of natural language semantics is a problem central of a number of major academic and practical concerns. A semantic theory requires a formalized representation of messages, arrangements of morphological units, and the processes of encoding and decoding that relate them. Formal logic has provided a paradigm for semantics based on the notions of model, extension, and intension; with certain changes and additions, this paradigm indicates what is needed for a theory of natural language semantics. Possible computational avenues of approach to developing a semantic theory include machine translation, data management and information retrieval, language and picture processing, psychological modeling, natural language CAI, and natural-language programming. Several linguists have developed semantic descriptions based on transformational grammar; the earliest of these regarded semantic interpretation as being derived from syntactic deep structure, while the more recent have regarded deep structure itself as being semantically meaningful. Computational approaches to date have treated semantics as a problem of translating natural language into predicate-calculus formulas, relational structures, or statements in a formal procedural language; the most significant of these approaches are those of Thompson, Simmons et al., Woods, and Kellogg. Considered individually, none of these approaches has produced an adequate semantic theory for natural language, but all contribute something towards the formulation of an adequate approach. (Author).

Computational Semantics with Functional Programming

Computational Semantics with Functional Programming PDF Author: Jan van Eijck
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139490907
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
Computational semantics is the art and science of computing meaning in natural language. The meaning of a sentence is derived from the meanings of the individual words in it, and this process can be made so precise that it can be implemented on a computer. Designed for students of linguistics, computer science, logic and philosophy, this comprehensive text shows how to compute meaning using the functional programming language Haskell. It deals with both denotational meaning (where meaning comes from knowing the conditions of truth in situations), and operational meaning (where meaning is an instruction for performing cognitive action). Including a discussion of recent developments in logic, it will be invaluable to linguistics students wanting to apply logic to their studies, logic students wishing to learn how their subject can be applied to linguistics, and functional programmers interested in natural language processing as a new application area.

Computational Semantics

Computational Semantics PDF Author: Eugene Charniak
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Artificial intelligence
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Linguistics. Artificial intelligence. Related fields. Computation.

Natural Language Semantics

Natural Language Semantics PDF Author: Brendan S. Gillon
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262350777
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 731

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Book Description
An introduction to natural language semantics that offers an overview of the empirical domain and an explanation of the mathematical concepts that underpin the discipline. This textbook offers a comprehensive introduction to the fundamentals of those approaches to natural language semantics that use the insights of logic. Many other texts on the subject focus on presenting a particular theory of natural language semantics. This text instead offers an overview of the empirical domain (drawn largely from standard descriptive grammars of English) as well as the mathematical tools that are applied to it. Readers are shown where the concepts of logic apply, where they fail to apply, and where they might apply, if suitably adjusted. The presentation of logic is completely self-contained, with concepts of logic used in the book presented in all the necessary detail. This includes propositional logic, first order predicate logic, generalized quantifier theory, and the Lambek and Lambda calculi. The chapters on logic are paired with chapters on English grammar. For example, the chapter on propositional logic is paired with a chapter on the grammar of coordination and subordination of English clauses; the chapter on predicate logic is paired with a chapter on the grammar of simple, independent English clauses; and so on. The book includes more than five hundred exercises, not only for the mathematical concepts introduced, but also for their application to the analysis of natural language. The latter exercises include some aimed at helping the reader to understand how to formulate and test hypotheses.

Formalizing Natural Languages

Formalizing Natural Languages PDF Author: Max Silberztein
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119264138
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
This book is at the very heart of linguistics. It provides the theoretical and methodological framework needed to create a successful linguistic project. Potential applications of descriptive linguistics include spell-checkers, intelligent search engines, information extractors and annotators, automatic summary producers, automatic translators, and more. These applications have considerable economic potential, and it is therefore important for linguists to make use of these technologies and to be able to contribute to them. The author provides linguists with tools to help them formalize natural languages and aid in the building of software able to automatically process texts written in natural language (Natural Language Processing, or NLP). Computers are a vital tool for this, as characterizing a phenomenon using mathematical rules leads to its formalization. NooJ – a linguistic development environment software developed by the author – is described and practically applied to examples of NLP.

Computational Cognitive Modeling and Linguistic Theory

Computational Cognitive Modeling and Linguistic Theory PDF Author: Adrian Brasoveanu
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303031846X
Category : Language and languages
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
This open access book introduces a general framework that allows natural language researchers to enhance existing competence theories with fully specified performance and processing components. Gradually developing increasingly complex and cognitively realistic competence-performance models, it provides running code for these models and shows how to fit them to real-time experimental data. This computational cognitive modeling approach opens up exciting new directions for research in formal semantics, and linguistics more generally, and offers new ways of (re)connecting semantics and the broader field of cognitive science. The approach of this book is novel in more ways than one. Assuming the mental architecture and procedural modalities of Anderson's ACT-R framework, it presents fine-grained computational models of human language processing tasks which make detailed quantitative predictions that can be checked against the results of self-paced reading and other psycho-linguistic experiments. All models are presented as computer programs that readers can run on their own computer and on inputs of their choice, thereby learning to design, program and run their own models. But even for readers who won't do all that, the book will show how such detailed, quantitatively predicting modeling of linguistic processes is possible. A methodological breakthrough and a must for anyone concerned about the future of linguistics! (Hans Kamp) This book constitutes a major step forward in linguistics and psycholinguistics. It constitutes a unique synthesis of several different research traditions: computational models of psycholinguistic processes, and formal models of semantics and discourse processing. The work also introduces a sophisticated python-based software environment for modeling linguistic processes. This book has the potential to revolutionize not only formal models of linguistics, but also models of language processing more generally. (Shravan Vasishth) .

Computation of Language

Computation of Language PDF Author: Roland Hausser
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642745644
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 428

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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.

Issues in Mathematical Linguistics

Issues in Mathematical Linguistics PDF Author: Carlos Martín Vide
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027215561
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
This brief collection of refereed papers approaches several technical as well as methodological aspects of the mathematical formalization of natural language, particularly in syntax and in semantics. Such kind of investigation is a prerequisite for the computational processing of language and is narrowly related to current developments in other disciplines, namely theoretical computer science and mathematical logic. The volume offers a coherent picture of recent research on the mathematics of language, and may be of interest to a wide audience, from linguists to mathematicians. Detailed indexes of authors and topics provide an easy access to the contents.

Logical Aspects of Computational Linguistics

Logical Aspects of Computational Linguistics PDF Author: Nicholas Asher
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3662437422
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
Edited in collaboration with FoLLI, the Association of Logic, Language and Information, this book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Logical Aspects of Computational Linguistics (LACL 2014) held in Toulouse, France, in June 2014. On the broadly syntactic side, there are papers on the logical and computational foundations of context free grammars, pregroup grammars, on the Lambek calculus and on formalizations of aspects of minimalism. There is also a paper on Abstract Categorical Grammar, as well as papers on issues at the syntax/semantics interface. On the semantic side, the volume's papers address monotonicity reasoning and the semantics of adverbs in type theory, proof theoretical semantics and predicate and argument invariance.

Foundations of Computational Linguistics

Foundations of Computational Linguistics PDF Author: Roland Hausser
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3662039206
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 541

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Book Description
The central task of future-oriented computational linguistics is the development of cognitive machines which humans can freely speak to in their natural language. This will involve the development of a functional theory of language, an objective method of verification, and a wide range of practical applications. Natural communication requires not only verbal processing, but also non-verbal perception and action. Therefore, the content of this book is organized as a theory of language for the construction of talking robots with a focus on the mechanics of natural language communication in both the listener and the speaker.