Scope as syntactic abstraction

Chris Barker

doi:10.1007/978-3-662-48119-6_14

Scope as syntactic abstraction

Chris Barker

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Abstract

What is the logic of scope? By “scope”, I mean scopetaking in natural languages such as English, as illustrated by the sentence Ann saw everyone. In this example, the quantifier denoted by everyone takes scope over the rest of the sentence, that is, it takes the denotation of the rest of the sentence as its semantic argument: everyone(λx.saw(x)(ann)). The answer I will give here will be to provide a substructural logic whose two modes are related by a single structural postulate. This postulate can be interpreted as constituting a kind of lambda-abstraction over structures, where the abstracted structures are interpreted as delimited continuations. I discuss soundness and completeness results, as well as cut elimination. I also compare the logic to a number of alternative approaches, including the standard technique of Quantifier Raising, and mention applications to scope ambiguity and parasitic scope.

Original language	English (US)
Title of host publication	New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence - JSAI-isAI 2014 Workshops, LENLS, JURISIN, and GABA, Revised Selected Papers
Editors	Tsuyoshi Murata, Koji Mineshima, Daisuke Bekki
Publisher	Springer Verlag
Pages	184-199
Number of pages	16
ISBN (Print)	9783662481189
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48119-6_14
State	Published - 2015
Event	6th International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, JSAI 2014 - Kanagawa, Japan Duration: Oct 27 2014 → Oct 28 2014

Publication series

Name	Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume	9067
ISSN (Print)	0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)	1611-3349

Other

Other	6th International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, JSAI 2014
Country/Territory	Japan
City	Kanagawa
Period	10/27/14 → 10/28/14

Keywords

Continuations
Natural language quantification
Parasitic scope
Quantifier raising
Scope
Substructural logic

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Theoretical Computer Science
Computer Science(all)

Access to Document

10.1007/978-3-662-48119-6_14

Cite this

Barker, C. (2015). Scope as syntactic abstraction. In T. Murata, K. Mineshima, & D. Bekki (Eds.), New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence - JSAI-isAI 2014 Workshops, LENLS, JURISIN, and GABA, Revised Selected Papers (pp. 184-199). (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics); Vol. 9067). Springer Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48119-6_14

Scope as syntactic abstraction. / Barker, Chris.
New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence - JSAI-isAI 2014 Workshops, LENLS, JURISIN, and GABA, Revised Selected Papers. ed. / Tsuyoshi Murata; Koji Mineshima; Daisuke Bekki. Springer Verlag, 2015. p. 184-199 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics); Vol. 9067).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Barker, C 2015, Scope as syntactic abstraction. in T Murata, K Mineshima & D Bekki (eds), New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence - JSAI-isAI 2014 Workshops, LENLS, JURISIN, and GABA, Revised Selected Papers. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), vol. 9067, Springer Verlag, pp. 184-199, 6th International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, JSAI 2014, Kanagawa, Japan, 10/27/14. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48119-6_14

Barker C. Scope as syntactic abstraction. In Murata T, Mineshima K, Bekki D, editors, New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence - JSAI-isAI 2014 Workshops, LENLS, JURISIN, and GABA, Revised Selected Papers. Springer Verlag. 2015. p. 184-199. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)). doi: 10.1007/978-3-662-48119-6_14

Barker, Chris. / Scope as syntactic abstraction. New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence - JSAI-isAI 2014 Workshops, LENLS, JURISIN, and GABA, Revised Selected Papers. editor / Tsuyoshi Murata ; Koji Mineshima ; Daisuke Bekki. Springer Verlag, 2015. pp. 184-199 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)).

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Scope as syntactic abstraction

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Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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