Computational Linguistics & Phonetics Computational Linguistics & Phonetics Fachrichtung 4.7 Universität des Saarlandes
Advances in Logical Grammar

Advances in Logical Grammar

3 CP Compact Course at the Saarland University Department of Computational Linguistics
Summer Semester 2012

Lecturer:Erasmus Mundus Visiting Professor Carl Pollard [homepage]
Schedule: Mon, Wed, Fri 11:45 - 14:15 (C7.4, Room 3.23 (Aquarium))
Begins: Wed, June 6 (FIRST MEETING: ROOM U15, C72)
Ends:Mon, June 25

Precise coordinates will be announced in due course.

This three-week course surveys recent developments in the logic-based frameworks of linear grammar (LG) and agnostic semantics (AS).

LG, a framework for linguistic theory and language description, belongs to the family of 'curryesque' categorial frameworks. As with other members of this family, which also includes ACG and lambda grammar, LG distinguishes between tectogrammar (abstract syntax) and phenogrammar (concrete syntax), and syntactic analyses of linguistic expressions are proofs in linear logic.

AS is a new form of possible worlds semantics (PWS), expressed within the simple theory of types. It is so-called because it avoids the ontological commitments of the two main strands of the PWS tradition: the montagovian thesis that propositions are sets of possible worlds, and the tractarian thesis of Wittgenstein and C.I. Lewis that possible worlds are maximal consistent sets of propositions. This strategy leads to a semantic theory of striking simplicity which provides all the advantages of Montague semantics while avoiding its notorious foundational problems.

In the course, we apply LG in concert with AS to provide novel analyses of a wide range of syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, and prosodic pheneomena from a variety of typologically diverse languages, including Chinese, English, Kiche, Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, and Tagalog. Throughout, the emphasis is on constructing detailed, formally explicit grammar fragments.

Tentative Syllabus

  • Technical preliminaries: natural deduction of linear logic and intuitionistic logic; typed lambda calculus and simple theory of types.
  • Introduction to LG.
  • Introduction to AS.
  • Parasitic scope: same, different, superlatives, and phrasal comparatives.
  • Integrating intonation, syntax, and information-structural meaning.
  • Modelling context: discourse referents; dynamic semantics; indefinites; discourse anaphora.
  • Semifree word order and second-position clitics.
  • Dynamics of questions and answers.