Lecturers: Markus Egg and Valia Kordoni
Time: First Week, 9 - 13 August, 9 - 11
Room: A4
Programme
In the last two decades, computational linguists have become increasingly interested in semantic issues and the syntax-semantics interface. Recent developments in Computational Semantics converge considerably; a couple of core ideas (e.g., how to handle syntactic restrictions on scope), core issues, and benchmark examples (scope, ellipsis etc.) show up in every relevant formalism in a somewhat different guise. The development of flexible semantic formalisms that have been successfully implemented and integrated in large-scale constraint-based NLP systems also marks recent progress in computational semantics. Such formalisms include the Quasi-Logical Form of the Core Language Engine, the LFG Glue Semantics, Underspecified DRT, Minimal Recursion Semantics, and the Constraint Language for Lambda Structures, to name but a few. The aim of this course is to present and explore semantic formalisms and their interfaces as they are used in implementation efforts around the world which focus on the development of large-scale computational grammars. The course intends to continue the series of courses on advanced theoretical semantics held at previous summer schools, bringing in the so far missing overview of computational semantics.The course is based on original papers that are listed (and linked) here. In due time, we intend to provide the slides for our course on this page.
Course Schedule
| Monday, 9th August | Formalisms for Computational Semantics 1 |
| In this part of the course, we will introduce some of the formalisms that have been introduced for Computational Semantics. | |
| Today we will cover MRS and CLLS. | |
| Required reading: Copestake et al. 2001, Copestake et al. to appear, Egg et al. 1998 or Egg et al. 2001 | |
| Slides for MRS | Slides for CLLS |
| Tuesday, 10th August | Formalisms for Computational Semantics 2 |
| This lesson continues the introduction of formalisms for Computational Semantics. | |
| Today we will cover UDRT and Glue Semantics. | |
| Required reading: Reyle 1992, Asudeh and Crouch 2002a |
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| Slides for UDRT and Glue | |
| Wednesday, 11th August | Topics in Computational Semantics 1 |
| In this part of the course, we will discuss prominent topics in Computational Semantics. | |
| Today we will talk about issues of ellipsis. | |
| Required reading: Hobbs and Shieber 1987, Kasper to appear and Dalrymple et al. 1991 |
|
| Slides for ellipsis and Higher-Order Unification | |
| Thursday, 12th August | Topics in Computational Semantics 2 |
| This lesson continues the discussion of topics in Computational Semantics. | |
| Today we will talk about scope and the syntax-semantics interface. | |
| Required reading: Hobbs and Kehler 1997, Ash and Crouch 2002b, Reyle and Frank 1995, Egg and Erk 2001. |
|
| Slides for scope issues and syntax-semantics interface | |
| Friday, 13th August | Comparing Formalisms for Computational Semantics |
| In this lesson, we will compare and assess the formalisms for Computational Semantics taking into account the presented topics for Computational Semantics. | |
| Required reading: Fuchss et al. 2004 |
|
| Slides for the comparison of MRS and CLLS | |
| Glue and HPSG |