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European Workshop on Logics in Artificial Intelligence

JELIA 1990: Logics in AI pp 78–96Cite as

Semantic interpretation as higher-order deduction

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 478))

Abstract

Traditional accounts of the semantic interpretation of quantified phrases and its interaction with reference and ellipsis have relied on formal manipulations of logical forms (quantifier raising) or complicated denotations for phrases (Cooper storage). These complications are one of the motivations for the development of categorial semantic theories. However, these theories appear to face their own difficulties in accounting for the full range of scoping possibilities in natural language, and have been losing some of their original elegance. Experiments suggest that the insights of the traditional theories may be revived in a semantically more respectable form by taking advantage of the abstraction mechanisms of higher-order hereditary Harrop formulae, as implemented in λProlog, to represent scoping and extraction dependencies without the need for formal conditions on logical forms or elaborate denotations for phrases. The technique used is an adaptation of a method of Felty and Miller for dispensing with side conditions in sequent-calculus rules. Finally, it will be seen that this approach is after all a close relative of categorial semantics.

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  1. AT&T Bell Laboratories, 600 Mountain Avenue, 07974, Murray Hill, NJ, USA

    Fernando C. N. Pereira

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© 1991 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Pereira, F.C.N. (1991). Semantic interpretation as higher-order deduction. In: van Eijck, J. (eds) Logics in AI. JELIA 1990. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 478. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0018435

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0018435

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-53686-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-46982-7

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