Semantic Entailment Research Articles

BASIC ALGORITHM FOR ATTRIBUTE IMPLICATIONS AND FUNCTIONAL DEPENDENCIES IN GRADED SETTING

We present GLINCLOSURE, a graded extension of the well-known LINCLOSURE algorithm. GLINCLOSURE can be used to compute degrees of semantic entailment from sets of fuzzy attribute implications. It can also be used together with graded extension of Ganter's NEXTCLOSURE algorithm to compute non-redundant bases of data tables with fuzzy attributes. We present foundations, the algorithm, analysis of its complexity, implementation details, and illustrative examples.

Aspect selection in adult L2 Spanish and the Competing Systems Hypothesis

Native-like use of preterit and imperfect morphology in all contexts by English learners of L2 Spanish is the exception rather than the rule, even for successful learners. Nevertheless, recent research has demonstrated that advanced English learners of L2 Spanish attain a native-like morphosyntactic competence for the Preterit/Imperfect contrast, as evidenced by their native-like knowledge of associated semantic entailments (Goodin-Mayeda and Rothman 2007, Montrul and Slabakova 2003, Slabakova and Montrul, 2003, Rothman and Iverson 2007). In addition to an L2 disassociation of morphology and syntax (e.g., Bruhn de Garavito 2003, Lardiere 1998, 2000, 2005, Prévost and White 1999, 2000, Schwartz 2003), I hypothesize that a system of learned pedagogical rules contributes to target-deviant L2 performance in this domain through the most advanced stages of L2 acquisition via its competition with the generative system. I call this hypothesis the Competing Systems Hypothesis. To test its predictions, I compare and contrast the use of the Preterit and Imperfect in two production tasks by native, tutored (classroom), and naturalistic learners of L2 Spanish.

Ethnocultural Variations in Mental Illness Discourse: Some Implications for Building Therapeutic Alliances

Ethnocultural Variations in Mental Illness Discourse: Some Implications for Building Therapeutic Alliances

Concept-based search and questionnaire systems

World Wide Web search engines including Google, Yahoo and MSN have become the most heavily-used online services (including the targeted advertising), with millions of searches performed each day on unstructured sites. In this presentation, we would like to go beyond the traditional web search engines that are based on keyword search and the Semantic Web which provides a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across application. For this reason, our view is that "Before one can use the power of web search the relevant information has to be mined through the concept-based search mechanism and logical reasoning with capability to Q&A representation rather than simple keyword search". In this paper, we will first present the state of the search engines. Then we will focus on development of a framework for reasoning and deduction in the web. A new web search model will be presented. One of the main core ideas that we will use to extend our technique is to change terms-documents-concepts (TDC) matrix into a rule-based and graph-based representation. This will allow us to evolve the traditional search engine (keyword-based search) into a concept-based search and then into Q&A model. Given TDC, we will transform each document into a rule-based model including it's equivalent graph model. Once the TDC matrix has been transformed into maximally compact concept based on graph representation and rules based on possibilistic relational universal fuzzy-type II (pertaining to composition), one can use Z(n)-compact algorithm and transform the TDC into a decision-tree and hierarchical graph that will represents a Q&A model. Finally, the concept of semantic equivalence and semantic entailment based on possibilistic relational universal fuzzy will be used as a basis for question-answering (Q&A) and inference from fuzzy premises. This will provide a foundation for approximate reasoning, language for representation of imprecise knowledge, a meaning representation language for natural languages, precisiation of fuzzy propositions expressed in a natural language, and as a tool for Precisiated Natural Language (PNL) and precisation of meaning. The maximally compact documents based on Z(n)-compact algorithm and possibilistic relational universal fuzzy-type II will be used to cluster the documents based on concept-based query-based search criteria.

Threshold Boolean logic

The paper introduces threshold Boolean logic which uses multiple valued threshold truth degrees and bivalent (two-valued) notions of semantic and syntactic entailment. We prove completeness, discuss equality and similarity issues, show connections to other logics, and characterize elementary classes of models by closure properties.

Logical polysemy and variable verb valency

This paper is a discussion of how James Pustejovsky [Pustejovsky, James, 1995. The Generative Lexicon. MIT Press, Cambridge MA; Pustejovsky, James, 1998a. The semantics of lexical underspecification. Folia Linguistica 32 (3), 323–348] deals with the alleged lexical polysemy of words in semantically and structurally related syntactic contexts. Polysemy is at the centre of current semantic research, in both the cognitive and the generative paradigms. In Section 1 I discuss some similarities and differences between both paradigms and draw attention to a number of as yet unsolved problems. In particular I examine a seeming paradox in Pustejovsky’s theory of ‘qualia-structures’ which are postulated for lexical items. On the one hand Pustejovsky’s theory is based on the claim that polysemy is fundamental to meanings and that linguistic expressions change their semantic features (meanings) in context; on the other hand, the theory of ‘qualia-structures’ seems to favour a monosemy approach. I argue that in Pustejovsky’s account syntagmatically observable polysemy (meaning variation) is projected into the ‘qualia-structures’ of words and that this account is to be distinguished from a monosemy approach based on paradigmatic meaning oppositions between lexical items. In Section 2 special attention is paid to the semantics of verbs with causative/intransitive alternation, e.g. break, which have variable valency and occur in complementary argument structures exemplified by clauses like John broke the bottle and The bottle broke. In particular, the claim that propositions with the intransitive construction (‘unaccusative’) are ‘semantically entailed’ in propositions with the transitive one is called into question. I argue that this claim does not bear on the semantic function (linguistic meaning proper) of the verb or argument structure but rather on different events or states of affairs to which speakers can refer using this kind of verbs with variable valency. It is shown that a logical–referential treatment is incompatible with a coherent concept of ‘semantic entailment’. Taken in its linguistic sense, this concept implies that argument structures with fewer arguments (and, as a consequence, a simpler lexical structure) semantically entail more elaborate argument structures, rather than the other way around. Moreover, evidence is presented that ‘semantic entailment’ does not necessarily imply polysemy but should be regarded as an instance of neutralization.

Properties of models of fuzzy attribute implications

This paper deals with closure properties of models of fuzzy attribute implications. Fuzzy attribute implications are particular IF-THEN rules which can be interpreted in data tables with fuzzy attributes and/or ranked data tables over domains with similarity relations. We show that models of any set of fuzzy attribute implications form a fuzzy closure system with hedge. Conversely, we show that each fuzzy closure system with hedge can be seen as a system of models of some set of fuzzy attribute implications. Furthermore, we show applications of the closure properties: we describe semantic entailment from fuzzy attribute implications using least models and show a method for generating of non-redundant sets of dependencies which are true in a given data table with fuzzy attributes. Keywords— completeness in data, fuzzy attribute implication, fuzzy closure operator, hedge, model, non-redundant basis

Consistent Partial Model Checking

We propose assertion-consistency (AC) semi-lattices as suitable orders for the analysis of partial models. Such orders express semantic entailment, multiple-viewpoint and multiple-valued analysis, maintain internal consistency of reasoning, and subsume nite De Morgan lattices. We classify those orders that are nite and distributive and apply them to design an ecien t algorithm for multiple-viewpoint checking, where checks are delegated to single-viewpoint models | ecien tly driven by the order structure. Instrumentations of this algorithm enable the detection and location of inconsistencies across viewpoint boundaries. To validate the approach, we investigate multiple-valued models and their compositional property semantics over a nite distributive AC lattice. We prove that this semantics is computed by our algorithm above whenever the primes of the AC lattice determine ‘projected’ single viewpoints and the order between primes is preserved as renemen ts of single-viewpoint models. As a case study, we discuss a multiple-valued notion of state-machines with rst-order logic plus transitive closure.

Adquisición de las propiedades morfosintácticas del español por parte de niños bilingües en etapas avanzadas

In this study we examine the development of morphosyntactical knowledge by Spanish- English and English-Spanish simultaneous bilinguals. In particular, we investigate the acquisition of verbal aspect and its semantic entailments of the Spanish preterite and imperfect tenses from a generative point of view (de Miguel, 1992; Smith, 1997). As a departure point, we would not expect to find great differences between the bilingual and monolingual grammars if both grammars evolve in a similar way; if that is not the case, and given that both languages, English and Spanish, exhibit clear differences in relation to the categories tense and aspect (Smith, 1997), we would claim that the differences could beaccounted for due to the fact that one of the languages is the dominant one and due to the transference of properties from one language to another. Overall the results show that subjects do not confuse preterite and imperfect forms in production; however, the bilingual participants have problems with the aspectual feature and its semantic entailment. In the light of these results we claim that the acquisition of these two aspects of functional categories is dissociated as has been observed in L2 grammars (Lardiere, 1998a, 1998b).
 
 
 
 
 Neste estudio analizaremos o desenvolvemento do coñecemento morfosintáctico por parte de nenos bilingües simultáneos español-inglés e inglés-español. En concreto, investigaremos a adquisición da morfoloxía verbal e as súas propiedades semánticas nos tempos do pasado do español (imperfecto/indefinido) desde un punto de vista xerativista (de Miguel, 1992; Smith, 1997). Como hipótese inicial, non esperamos atopar diferenza algunha entre a gramática dun bilingüe e dun monolingüe de partirmos do presuposto de ambas gramáticas evolucionaren de forma paralela; en caso negativo, e dado que ambas linguas, inglés e español, mostran ter diferenzas con respecto ao tempo/aspecto (Smith, 1997), poderiamos esperar que ambas gramáticas amosen estruturas diferentes dependendo de cal sexa a lingua dominante e debido á transferencia de propiedades de unha a outra lingua. Os resultados indican que existen diferenzas significativas entre ambas gramáticas, e mentres que ambos grupos de bilingües simultáneos non semellan ter problemas á hora de recoñeceren as formas morfolóxicas do contraste imperfecto/indefinido en español, ese non parece ser o caso do aspecto e das súas implicacións semánticas. De aí que propoñamos que exista unha clara disociación entre aspecto e tempo na gramática bilingüe de ambos grupos de nenos tal e como semella ocorrer na adquisición de segundas linguas (Lardiere, 1998a, 1998b).

현대 독일어 제2형 분사의 형용사 전환에 대한 제약

This paper addresses the issue of constraints on the conversion of the participle II in German, proposing a constraint-based lexical semantic approach. I argue against the widely accepted syntactic view which is based on the dichotomous distinction of intransitive verbs, which has been advanced by the Unaccusative Hypothesis [Perlmutter (1978)]. Several arguments are also given against the semantic view which is based on some aspectual notions such as ''telicity'', ''transformativity'' or ''terminativity''. The crucial constraints on the conversion of the participle II in German, it is argued, is instead two lexical semantic entailments, movement with a definite change of location and affectedness. These and other lexical semantic entailments in the sense of Dowty (1991) are encoded into the multiple inheritance type hierarchy of qfpsoa. The proposal made in this paper is based on the multiple inheritance hierarchy which is envisaged in a recent framework of head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar. (Chungnam National University)

Aspect and Interval Tense Logic

Linguistic phenomena of tense and aspect have been investigated in a great deal of theoretical work in linguistics, philosophy and computer science. Modern tense logics, established by Prior, are part of this effort. Point tense logics offer an intuitive representation of tense but lack the expressiveness to represent many aspectual structures. Interval tense logics offer more expressiveness but in the general case can be computationally intractable. From a linguistic perspective there is the problem of precisely how to formalise the aspectual structures, such as a culmination and a culminated process. In this paper we define a computationally tractable augmented fragment of Halpern and Shoham's interval tense logic HS and apply it to represent a core set of aspectual structures, which are incorporated into a temporal semantics of a simple fragment of English. We model the logic fragment using timelines and define two procedures, one for constructing the minimal timelines that satisfy a formula and one for checking semantic entailments between one formula and another by comparing their timelines. The former is applied to compute models of temporal readings and the latter to check entailments between them. Possible extensions to the logic fragment and timeline models are discussed as ways of accounting for a wider range of linguistic behaviour.

Constraints on Spanish NP Anaphora: The Syntactic versus the Pragmatic Domain

Anaphoric NP use and interpretation in Spanish may be constrained by grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic factors. While syntactic and semantic constraints place restrictions on what is referentially possible or acceptable in sentences, empirical data suggest that the use and interpretation of anaphoric NPs in Spanish conversational discourse (excluding reflexives and reciprocals) adhere to two neo-Gricean principles of language use. Furthermore, analysis of naturally occurring conversations among native speakers reveals that the pattern of anaphora predicted by the neo-Gricean framework is constrained by antecedent salience, mutual knowledge, and semantic entailments. These data suggest that instances of intended coreference may be considered conversational implicatures that can be explained in terms of pragmatic rules of language use and intervening consistency constraints.

Truth-qualification and fuzzy relations in natural languages, application to medical diagnosis

Given two fuzzy propositions, how to truth-qualify one of them to induce the other one in a semantical equivalence is the first basic issue addressed in this paper. In the most general case, the set of solutions of this converse problem is fully characterized. Two fuzzy subsets of the unit interval ( τ 0 and τ 1, representing linguistic truth values) are introduced that provide best lower and upper approximations when no exact solution can be found: best semantic entailments of propositions are thus derived. In a new approach, the problem is reformulated in terms of fuzzy relation equations, from which results are retrieved and extended. The second part of this paper introduces a truth-possibility index defined from τ 0 and τ 1, that serves pattern-matching purposes, in addition to the usualv possibility and necessity measures. A biomedical application, in which medical knowledge is expressed in a rule form, with ANDed fuzzy propositions in the antecedent, illustrates the aggregation of these measures, for medical diagnosis assistance.

Algebraic Study of Two Deductive Systems of Relevance Logic

In this paper two deductive systems (i.e., two consequence relations) associated with relevance logic are studied from an algebraic point of view. One is defined by the familiar, Hilbert-style, formalization of R; the other one is a weak version of it, called WR, which appears as the semantic entailment of the Meyer-Routley-Fine semantics, and which has already been suggested by Wójcicki for other reasons. This weaker consequence is first defined indirectly, using R, but we prove that the first one turns out to be an axiomatic extension of WR. Moreover we provide WR with a natural Gentzen calculus (of a classical kind). It is proved that both deductive systems have the same associated class of algebras but different classes of models on these algebras. The notion of model used here is an abstract logic, that is, a closure operator on an abstract algebra; the abstract logics obtained in the case of WR are also the models, in a natural sense, of the given Gentzen calculus.

Fuzzy logic for phytosociology

The present paper aims to give an analysis of properties of the phytosociological language, which relates to the vagueness of some concepts in vegetation science. A translation of the simplest synsystematic propositions into possibility distributions has been proposed. Inferential relationships between sentences mentioned using the concept of semantic entailment have been reported. Sentences describing habitat requirements of syntaxa are in fact disguised conditionals; their paraphrases have been given the form of implication. Since these sentences include fuzzy predicates their meaning is a fuzzy relation. The latter may constitute the basis of prediction by means of the compositional rule of inference

Semantic parsing with LFG and conceptual representations

A semantic parser is presented which aims at the attainment of a high linguistic coverage and an extendibility to many languages. To this end, a frequency distionary for Italian has been classified following LFG theoretical framework and a general decoder has been implemented to pass from the syntactic. to the semantic and conceptual levels. Syntactic structural derivation is produced by complete lexical froms, lexical redundancy rules and an extended phrase structure grammar which has been implemented in Prolog using XGs. Semantic and conceptual representation are produced following Jackendoff's system of conceptual representations plus a number of additions to compute time reference mainly inspired by J. Allen's system (1983a, b). We believe that a text rethorical organizations is mainly governed by linguistic principles like the alternation of FOCUS and TOPIC, the use of definiteness to qualify referring expressions, etc. We describe two algorithm to analyse the level of text: Logical Form, which provides scope assignment to quantified expressions; an algorithm for anaphora resolution which incorporates linguistic information and a number of psycholinguistic heuristic. Finally, we briefly describe how the inference engine provided by KL-ONE is integrated into the previous modules to produce semantic entailment and linguistic inferences.

Fuzzy inference in a formal theory of semantic equivalence

Abstract This work shows how ten different fuzzy implication operators, together with appropriately corresponding versions of four different rules of inference, can be represented within a formal axiomatization of the theory of approximate reasoning. The same formalization methods can also be applied to Zadeh's notion of semantic entailment, as well as to all of the familiar linguistic hedges.

The Truth of Scientific Claims

The idea that science aspires to and routinely achieves truths about the world has been challenged in recent writings. Rather than beginning with a theory of scientific development, or of scientific explanation, we begin with a consideration of truth claims in ordinary discourse, particularly with Davidson's truth-functional semantics. Next we consider the way in which some framework features of ordinary language discourse are extended to and modified in scientific discourse. Two areas are treated in more detail: quantum theory, and the peculiar problem of semantic entailment it involves; and quantum field theory. These supply a basis for criticizing some historicist and logicist treatments of the truth of scientific claims.

PRUF—a meaning representation language for natural languages

PRUF—an acronym for Possibilistic Relational Universal Fuzzy—is a meaning representation language for natural languages which departs from the conventional approaches to the theory of meaning in several important respects. First, a basic assumption underlying PRUF is that the imprecision that is intrinsic in natural languages is, for the most part, possibilistic rather than probabilistic in nature. Thus, a proposition such as “Richard is tall” translates in PRUF into a possibility distribution of the variable Height (Richard), which associates with each value of the variable a number in the interval [0,11 representing the possibility that Height (Richard) could assume the value in question. More generally, a proposition, p , translates into a procedure, P, which returns a possibility distribution, Π p , with P and Π p representing, respectively, the meaning of p and the information conveyed by p . In this sense, the concept of a possibility distribution replaces that of truth as a foundation for the representation of meaning in natural languages. Second, the logic underlying PRUF is not a two-valued or multivalued logic, but a fuzzy logic, FL, in which the truth-values are linguistic, that is, are of the form true, not true, very true, more or less true, not very true , etc., with each such truth-value representing a fuzzy subset of the unit interval. The truth-value of a proposition is defined as its compatibility with a reference proposition, so that given two propositions p and r, one can compute the truth of p relative to r . Third, the quantifiers in PRUF—like the truth-values—are allowed to be linguistic, i.e. may be expressed as most, many, few, some, not very many, almost all, etc. Based on the concept of the cardinality of a fuzzy set, such quantifiers are given a concrete interpretation which makes it possible to translate into PRUF propositions exemplified by “Many tall men are much taller than most men,” “All tall women are blonde is not very true,” etc. The translation rules in PRUF are of four basic types: Type I—pertaining to modification; Type II—pertaining to composition; Type III—pertaining to quantification; and Type IV—pertaining to qualification and, in particular, to truth qualification, probability qualification and possibility qualification. The concepts of semantic equivalence and semantic entailment in PRUF provide a basis for question-answering and inference from fuzzy premises. In addition to serving as a foundation for approximate reasoning, PRUF may be employed as a language for the representation of imprecise knowledge and as a means of precisiation of fuzzy propositions expressed in a natural language.

On the Extension of Beth's Semantics of Physical Theories

A basic aim of E. Beth's work in philosophy of science was to explore the use of formal semantic methods in the analysis of physical theories. We hope to show that a general framework for Beth's semantic analysis is provided by the theory of semi-interpreted languages, introduced in a previous paper. After developing Beth's analysis of nonrelativistic physical theories in a more general form, we turn to the notion of the ‘logic’ of a physical theory. Here we prove a result concerning the conditions under which semantic entailment in such a theory is finitary. We argue, finally, that Beth's approach provides a characterization of physical theory which is more faithful to current practice in foundational research in the sciences than the familiar picture of a partly interpreted axiomatic theory.