Cover not available
Part of
The Semantics of Dynamic Space in French: Descriptive, experimental and formal studies on motion expression
Edited by Michel Aurnague and Dejan Stosic
[Human Cognitive Processing 66] 2019
► pp. 324–352

A computational account of virtual travelers in the Montagovian generative lexicon

| LIFO, Université d’Orléans, France
| LIRMM, Université de Montpellier, CNRS, Montpellier, France
| LIRMM, Université de Montpellier, CNRS, Montpellier, France
This chapter deals with the automated formal analysis of a specfic interpretation of fictive motion named the “virtual traveler”, involved for instance in the French equivalents of a sentence like The path descends for two hours where it is possible that no-one actually descends. Our analysis in computational semantics yields the intended logical formula in the framework of the Discourse Representation Theory. It relies on a framework, the Montagovian Generative Lexicon that integrates lexical semantics into compositional semantics.
Keywords: computational semantics, Discourse Representation Theory, lexical semantics, Montague semantics, type theory
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Lexical information and compositional semantics
  • 3.Standard compositional semantics
    • 3.1The Lambek calculus
    • 3.2A semantic lexicon
    • 3.3Semantic analysis
    • 3.4Overall architecture
  • 4.The Montagovian generative lexicon
    • 4.1Principles of the lexicon
      • 4.1.1Main or standard terms
      • 4.1.2Optional morphisms of the terms
    • 4.2Girard’s system F of type polymorphism
    • 4.3Co-predication
      • 4.3.1Polymorphic conjunction
      • 4.3.2Rigid vs. flexible use of optional morphisms
    • 4.4Standard behaviour
    • 4.5Qualia exploitation
    • 4.6Facets: Correct co-predication
    • 4.7Applications
  • 5.Fictive motion: Data, question and outline
    • 5.1A case study and a field for semantic experiments
    • 5.2A particular phenomenon: “fictive motion”
    • 5.3Types and functions
    • 5.4Semantics with λ-DRT
    • 5.5Lexical coercions and fictive motion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 29 July 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.66.09lef
References
Asher, N., & Sablayrolles, P.
(1995) A typology and discourse semantics for motion verbs and spatial PPs in French. Journal of Semantics, 12(2), 163–209. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aurnague, M., & Vieu, L.
(2013) Retour aux arguments: Pour un traitement “relationnel” des prépositions spatiales. Faits de Langues, 42, 17–38.Google Scholar
Barwise, J., & Cooper, R.
(1981) Generalized quantifiers and natural language. Linguistics and Philosophy, 4(2), 159–219. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bassac, C., Mery, B., & Retoré, C.
(2010) Towards a type-theoretical account of lexical semantics. Journal of Logic, Language and Information, 19(2), 229–245. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blomberg, J., & Zlatev, J.
(2014) Actual and non-actual motion: Why experientialist semantics needs phenomenology (and vice versa). Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 13(3), 395–418. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Church, A.
(1940) A formulation of the simple theory of types. Journal of Symbolic Logic, 5(2), 56–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dalrymple, M., Lamping, J., Pereira, F. C. N., & Saraswat, V. A.
(1995) Linear logic for meaning assembly. In S. Manandhar, G. Pereira Lopes, & W. Nutt (Eds.), Proceedings of Computational Logic for Natural Language Processing (pp. 75–93). Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Emms, M.
(1993) Some applications of categorial polymorphism. In M. Moortgat (Ed.), Polymorphic Treatments, vol. R1.3.A of Dyana-2 Deliverable (pp. 1–52). ESPRIT BRA 6852.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R.
(1983) Semantics and cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kamp, H., & Reyle, U.
(1993) From discourse to logic. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Lambek, J.
(1958) The mathematics of sentence structure. American Mathematical Monthly, 65, 154–170. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Langacker, R. W.
(1986) Abstract motion. In Proceedings of the 12th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (pp. 455–471). Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Linguistics Society.Google Scholar
(1999) Virtual reality. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences, 29, 77–103.Google Scholar
Mery, B., Moot, R., & Retoré, C.
(2013) Plurals: individuals and sets in a richly typed semantics. In S. Yatabe (Ed.), Proceedings of the Tenth International Workshop of Logic and Engineering of Natural Language Semantics (LENLS10) (pp. 143–156). Hiyoshi, Kanagawa: Keio University.Google Scholar
(2015) Computing the semantics of plurals and massive entities using many-sorted types. In T. Murata, K. Mineshima, & D. Bekki (Eds.), New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence (pp. 144–159). Berlin & Heidelberg: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montague, R.
(1974) The proper treatment of quantification in ordinary English. In R. H. Thomason (Ed.), Formal philosophy. Selected papers of Richard Montague (pp. 247–270). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Moortgat, M.
(1997) Categorial type logics. In J. van Benthem, & A. ter Meulen (Eds.), Handbook of logic and language (pp. 93–177). Amsterdam & Cambridge: Elsevier/MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moot, R.
(2012) Wide-coverage semantics for spatio-temporal reasoning. Traitement Automatique des Langues, 53(2), 115–142.Google Scholar
(2015) A type-logical treebank for French. Journal of Language Modelling, 3(1), 229–264. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2017) The Grail theorem prover: Type theory for syntax and semantics. In S. Chatzikyriakidis, & Z. Luo (Eds.), Modern perspectives in type theoretical semantics (pp. 247–277). Berlin & Heidelberg: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moot, R., Prévot, L., & Retoré, C.
(2011a) Discursive analysis of itineraries in a historical regional corpus of travels: Syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in a unified type theoretical framework. In Proceedings of Constraints in Discourse. Agay-Roches Rouges.Google Scholar
(2011b) Un calcul de termes typés pour la pragmatique lexicale: Chemins et voyageurs fictifs dans un corpus de récits de voyages. In M. Lafourcade & V. Prince (Eds.), Actes de la 18e Conférence sur le Traitement Automatique des Langues Naturelles, TALN 2011 (pp. 161–166). Montpellier.Google Scholar
Moot, R., & Retoré, C.
(2011) Second order lambda calculus for meaning assembly: on the logical syntax of plurals. In Proceedings of Computing Natural Reasoning (COCONAT). Tilburg.Google Scholar
(2012) The logic of categorial grammars: A deductive account of natural language syntax and semantics. Berlin & Heidelberg: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Muskens, R.
(1994) Categorial grammar and discourse representation theory. In Proceedings of COLING 1994 (pp. 508–514). Kyoto.Google Scholar
Nam, S.
(1995) The Semantics of locative prepositional phrases in English. PhD dissertation. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA.Google Scholar
Pustejovsky, J.
(1995) The generative lexicon. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Real, L., & Retoré, C.
(2014) Deverbal semantics and the Montagovian Generative Lexicon λTy n . Journal of Logic, Language and Information, 23(3), 347–366. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Retoré, C.
(2014) The Montagovian Generative Lexicon ΛTyn : A type theoretical framework for natural language semantics. In R. Matthes, & A. Schubert (Eds.), Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Types for Proofs and Programs (TYPES 2013) (pp. 202–229). Dagstuhl, Germany: Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik.Google Scholar
Talmy, L.
(1983) How language structures space. In H. L. Pick, & L. P. Acredolo (Eds.), Spatial orientation: Theory, research, and application (pp. 225–282). New York: Plenum Publishing Corporation. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1996) Fictive motion in language and “ception”. In P. Bloom, M. A. Peterson, L. Nadel, & M. F. Garrett (Eds.), Language and space (pp. 211–276). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Tversky, B.
(1996) Spatial perspective in descriptions. In P. Bloom, M. A. Peterson, L. Nadel, & M. F. Garrett (Eds.), Language and space (pp. 463–491). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
van Eijck, J., & Kamp, H.
(1997) Representing discourse in context. In J. van Benthem, & A. ter Meulen (Eds.), Handbook of logic and language (pp. 179–237). Amsterdam & Cambridge: Elsevier/MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Mery, Bruno, Richard Moot & Christian Retoré
2019. Solving the Individuation and Counting Puzzle with $$\lambda $$ -DRT and MGL. In New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence [Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 11717], ► pp. 298 ff. DOI logo
Murphy, Elliot
2021. Predicate order and coherence in copredication. Inquiry ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 19 november 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.