Logic, Representation and

Inference
Introduction to Semantics

What is semantics for?

Role of FOL
Montague Approach

February 2009 Introduction to Semantics 1

 Semantics
Semantics is the study of the meaning
of NL expressions
Expressions include sentences,
phrases, and sentences.
What is the goal of such study?
Provide a workable definition of meaning.
Explain semantic relations between
expressions.

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 Examples of Semantic Relations
Synonymy
John killed Mary
John caused Mary to die
Entailment
John fed his cat
John has a cat
Consistency
John is very sick
John is not feeling well
John is very healthy

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 Different Kinds of Meaning
X means Y
Meaning as definition:
a bachelor means an unmarried man
Meaning as intention:
What did John mean by waving?
Meaning as reference:
"Eiffel Tower " means

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 Workable Definition of Meaning

Restrict the scope of semantics.

Ignore irony, metaphor etc.
Stick to the literal interpretations of
expressions rather than metaphorical
ones. (My car drinks petrol).
Assume that meaning is understood in
terms of something concrete.

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 Concrete Semantics
Procedural semantics: the meaning of a
phrase or sentence is a procedure:
Pick up a big red block
(Winograd 1972)
ObjectOriented Semantics: meaning is
an instance of a class.
Truth-Conditional Semantics

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 Truth Conditional Semantics
Key Claim: the meaning of a sentence is
identical to the conditions under which it is
true.
Know the meaning of "ianni ate fish for tea"
= know exactly how to apply it to the real
world and decide whether it is true or false.
On this view, one task of semantic theory is to
provide a system for identifying the truth
conditions of sentences.
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 TCS and Semantic Relations
TCS provides a precise account of semantic
relations between sentences.
Examples:
S1 is synonymous with S2.
S1 entails S2
S1 is consistent with S2.
S1 is inconsistent with S2.
Just like logic!
Which logic?

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 NL Semantics: Two Basic Issues
How can we automate the process of
associating semantic representations
with expressions of natural language?
How can we use semantic
representations of NL expressions to
automate the process of drawing
inferences?
We will focus mainly on first issue.

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 Associating Semantic
Representations Automatically

Design a semantic representation

language.
Figure out how to compute the
semantic representation of sentences
Link this computation to the grammar
and lexicon.

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 Semantic Representation
Language
Logical form (LF) is the name used by
logicians (Russell, Carnap etc) to talk
about the representation of context-
independent meaning.
Semantic representation language has
to encode the LF.
One concrete representation for logical
form is first order logic (FOL)

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 Why is FOL a good thing?
Has a precise, model-theoretic semantics.
If we can translate a NL sentence S into a
sentence of FOL, then we have a precise
grasp on at least part of the meaning of S.
Important inference problems have been
studied for FOL. Computational solutions
exist for some of them.
Hence the strategy of translating into FOL
also gives us a handle on inference.

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 Anatomy of FOL
Symbols of different types
constant symbols: a,b,c
variable symbols: x, y, z
function symbols: f,g,h
predicate symbols: p,q,r
connectives: &, v,
quantifiers: ,
punctuation: ), (, ,

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 Anatomy of FOL
Symbols of different types
constant symbols: csa3180, nlp, mike, alan, rachel, csai
variable symbols: x, y, z
function symbols: lecturerOf, subjectOf
predicate symbols: studies, likes
connectives: &, v,
quantifiers: ,
punctuation: ), (, ,

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 Anatomy of FOL
With these symbols we can make expressions of
different types
Expressions for referring to things
constant: alan, nlp
variable: x
term: subject(csa3180)
Expressions for stating facts
atomic formula: study(alan,csa3180)
complex formula:
study(alan,csa3180) & teach(mike, csa3180)
quantified expression:
xy teaches(lecturer(x),x) & studies(y,subject(x))
xy likes(x,subjectOf(y)) studies(x,y)

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 Logical Form of Phrases
word POS Logic Representation
csai proper noun individual csai
constant
student common noun 1 place student(x)
predicate
easy adjective 1 place easy(x)
predicate
easy interesting adj/noun 1 place easy(x) &
course predicate interesting(x) &
course(x)
snores intrans verb 1 place snore (x)
predicate
studies trans. verb 2 place study(x,,y)
predicate
gives
February 2009
ditrans verb 3 place pred
Introduction to Semantics
give(x,y,z) 16
 Logical Forms of Sentences
John kicks Fido:
kick(john, fido)
Every student wrote a program
xy( stud(x) prog(y) & write(x,y))
yx(stud(x) prog(y) & write(x,y))
Semantic ambiguity related to quantifier
scope

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 Building Logical Form
Freges Principle of Compositionality
The POC states that the LF of a complex
phrase can be built out of the LFs of the
constituent parts.
An everyday example of compositionality is
the way in which the meaning of arithmetic
expressions is computed
(2+3) * (4/2) =
(5 * 2) =
10
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 Compositionality for NL
The LF of the whole sentence can be
computed from the LF of the subphrases, i.e.
Given the syntactic rule X Y Z.
Suppose [Y], [Z] are the LFs of Y, and Z
respectively.
Then [X] = ([Y],[Z]) where is some function
for semantic combination

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 Claims of Richard Montague:
Each syntax rule is associated with a
semantic rule that describes how the LF of
the LHS category is composed from the LF of
its subconstituents
1:1 correspondence between syntax and
semantics (rule-to-rule hypothesis)
Functional composition proposed for
combining semantic forms.
Lambda calculus proposed as the
mechanism for describing functions for
semantic combination.
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 Sentence Rule
Syntactic Rule:
S NP VP
Semantic Rule:
[S] = [VP]([NP])
i.e. the LF of S is obtained by "applying" the
LF of VP to the LF of NP.
For this to be possible [VP] must be a
function, and [NP] the argument to the
function.

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 Parse Tree with Logical Forms
S
write(bertrand,principia)

NP VP
bertrand y.write(y,principia)

bertrand
V NP
x.y.write(y,x) principia

writes principia
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