Abstract
In this paper, we outline a model of semantics that integrates aspects of discourse-sensitive logics with the compositional mechanisms available from lexically-driven semantic interpretation. Specifically, we concentrate on developing a composition logic required to properly model complex types within the Generative Lexicon (henceforth GL), for which we employ SDRT principles. As we are presently interested in the composition of information to construct logical forms, we will build on one standard way of arriving at such representations, the lambda calculus, in which functional types are exploited. We outline a new type calculus that captures one of the fundamental ideas of GL: providing a set of techniques governing type shifting possibilities for various lexical items so as to allow for the combination of lexical items in cases where there is an apparent type mismatch. These techniques themselves should follow from the structure of the lexicon and its underlying logic.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Here the notation of earlier work on dot objects suggested these interpretations; but our approach here is resolutely different from those older attempts at description. We are very explicit that • is a type constructor and has nothing to do with the construction of a complex object.
- 3.
Not all copredications need involve dot objects. Some may exploit events that are conventionally associated with the types of the subjects, like those described in qualia structure. In (7), for example, it appears as though some predicates make reference to aspects having to do with the so called telic qualia role of the subject NP they are predicating i.e., the smoking and drinking events, respectively.
(7)
a.Arnold’s cigar is Cuban and lasted the whole afternoon.
b.Your last glass of wine was a Merlot and lasted half an hour.
Hence, copredication does not uniquely identify NPs typed as dot objects. Similarly, it is unclear whether grinding operations, which also license copredications, should be analyzed as involving dot objects, type-changing operations, or involve the exploitation of lexical information from the qualia structure. See Pustejovsky (1995) for discussion.
- 4.
The felicity of copredications often depends on the order of the predications as well. This again we feel is due to discourse factors. We don’t go into this here, as it would involve bringing in too much of the SDRT framework, obscuring our restricted aim here to provide a type composition logic. In any case, we will keep such rhetorical constraints on felicitous copredications with dot objects separate from the composition logic.
- 5.
As a result, such concepts are actually double dot objects, but we ignore this point for now, cf. Pustejovsky 1995.
- 6.
We note as well that such types may be subject to discourse effects like parallelism; for instance, (9b) improves if we shift the second event to the past:
(9b’)
The newspaper was founded in 1878 and weighed 5 lbs in its first edition.
But we will not attempt to integrate such discourse effects with our story about complex types here.
- 7.
Klein and Sag (1985) take this approach to multiple subcategorization phenomena. However, as discussed in Pustejovsky (1995), type-shifting the predicate in such cases does not change the basic meaning of the predicate, but only the surface typing. Both Klein and Sag’s analysis of believe and Godard and Jayez’s (1993) treatment of coercion predicates involve meaning postulates to relate verb senses. The alternative analysis here is similar to the sense transfer operation proposed in Nunberg (1995). As we see, however, this is an inappropriate use of transfer.
- 8.
This point is due to Melissa Bowerman, pc.
- 9.
The name is intended to evoke an analogy to a similar relation in discourse. But the development of that analogy is for another time.
- 10.
In Asher (2004), the O-Elab relation is assumed to be asymmetric, but the work that is supposed to do there is perhaps better explained on pragmatic grounds than by stipulating a strange part of relation.
- 11.
For more on fences and their usefulness in discourse semantics, see Asher and Fernando (1997).
- 12.
- 13.
Classic GL analyses (Bouillon 1997; Pustejovsky and Boguraev 1993; Pustejovsky 1995) have argued that adjectival subselection selects for a particular qualia role or the corresponding type for a quale within the feature structure of the nominal semantics. That is, they are typed to modify the particular qualia role of the noun in a specific construction. We compare this analysis to the present one below.
- 14.
Results are largely equivalent if we choose HPSG as our syntactic guide; there the verb will be the lexical head and will once again force us to change the NP’s type.
- 15.
For some cases we may have to treat the existential quantifier on \( v \) as having its force determined by the original over \( x \). As in DRT, we would have to treat such quantifiers over x as unselective. The cases we have in mind would be those where \( \phi \) is of the form \( Qx(\psi (x),\chi (x)) \), and both restrictor and nuclear scope have material that is responsible for typing \( x \) originally as being of complex type. We will not deal with this complexity here.
- 16.
This effectively replaces the Dot Object Subtyping rule, \( \dot{\Theta}^{\textit{llet}} \), as developed in Pustejovsky (1995) pp. 150–151.
- 17.
We assume for illustration purposes that the computation will accommodate the presuppositions of definiteness locally in the composition.
- 18.
For details on how such distributive and cumulative readings together are possible, see Asher and Wang 2003.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Sheila Asher, Pascal Denis, Tim Fernando, Ivan Sag, Stan Peters, David Israel, Alex Lascarides, Ann Copestake, José Castaño, Roser, Saurí, and Johanna Seibt for helpful comments on earlier drafts. This work was partially supported by NIH Grant DC03660, to James Pustejovsky.
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Asher, N., Pustejovsky, J. (2013). A Type Composition Logic for Generative Lexicon. In: Pustejovsky, J., Bouillon, P., Isahara, H., Kanzaki, K., Lee, C. (eds) Advances in Generative Lexicon Theory. Text, Speech and Language Technology, vol 46. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5189-7_3
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