Fragments of First-Order Logic for Linguistic Structures

Graf, Thomas

Abstract Logic has always played a central role in the study of natural language meaning. But logic can also be used to describe the structure of words and sentences. Recent research has revealed that these structures are so simple that they can be modeled with very weak fragments of first-order logic. Unfortunately, many of these fragments are still not particularly well-understood on a formal level, which has become a serious impediment to ongoing research. This talk is thus equally about the known and the unknown: I will survey the empirically relevant fragments of first-order logic and explain how they allow for completely new generalizations about linguistic structures at the word and sentence level. But I will also highlight the limits of our current understanding and which mathematical challenges need to be overcome if the logical approach to natural language is to realize its full potential. Hopefully, an alliance of linguists, logicians, and computer scientists will be able to solve these problems in the near future.

Files [pdf] [code]

@Misc{Graf17UConntalk,
    author = {Graf, Thomas},
    title = {Fragments of First-order Logic for Linguistic Structures},
    year = {2017},
    note = {Invited talk, April 21, UConn Logic Group, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT}
}

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Adjuncts, Islands, Algebra (with a Sprinkling of Semantics)

Graf, Thomas

Files [pdf] [code]

@Misc{Graf14CUNYtalk,
  author    = {Graf, Thomas},
  title     = {Adjuncts, Islands, Algebra (With a Sprinkling of
          Semantics)},
  year      = {2014},
  note      = {Invited talk, November 4, CUNY Graduate Center, New York,
          NY}
}

Optimality Is Not a Race: Against a Performance-Based View of Reference-Set Computation

Fri 29 April 2011 | in Talks |
| transderivationality | reference-set computation | constraints | syntax | semantics | transducers |

Graf, Thomas

Abstract Reference-set constraints (RCs; also known as transderivational constraints) differ from standard well-formedness conditions in that for every tree, they compute a set of output candidates called its reference set and pick from said set the optimal candidate(s) according to some economy …
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Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics: Where Do We Find Optimality?

Graf, Thomas

Files [pdf] [code]

@Misc{Graf10Goettingentalk,
  author    = {Graf, Thomas},
  title     = {Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics: Where do we Find
          Optimality?},
  year      = {2010},
  note      = {Invited talk, December 15, Institut für Anglistik,
          Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany}
}

Optimality Conditions Could Care Less About Optimality

Graf, Thomas

Files [pdf] [code]

@Misc{Graf10ZAStalk,
  author    = {Graf, Thomas},
  title     = {Optimality Conditions Could Care Less About Optimality},
  year      = {2010},
  note      = {Invited talk, December 10, Zentrum für Allgemeine
          Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS), Berlin, Germany}
}

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