Replicating Quantified Noun Phrases in Database Semantics

Abstract

Predicate calculus treats determiner-noun sequences like the man, every man, or several men as ‘quantified noun phrases.’ This analysis in terms of quantifiers, variables, and connectives creates a major structural difference compared to the handling of proper names. The modeling of natural language communication in database semantic (DBS), in contrast, treats the functor-argument structure as primary, regardless of whether an argument is of the sign type symbol (determiner-noun sequence), name, or indexical (pronoun). The meanings carried by different determiners are reanalyzed as controlling the matching between nominal symbols and individuals, or sets of individuals, at the level of context

Cf. Hopcroft & Ullman 1979, p.325. CNF consists of constants with or without negation connected by ‘&’ (and) ‘V’ (or),. The negation of, for example, p is written as p, called external negation, and paraphrased as It is not the case that p. CNF formulas are written without parentheses whereby, for example, p V q V r & s V t V u is treated as equivalent to (p V q V r) & (s V t V u).