Formulaic language

The Lambek Calculus

There is a noticeable revival of categorial grammar these days, as a vehicle for linguistic description. The systems used differ somewhat from the original calculus of Ajdukiewicz and Bar-Hillel, however. In particular, there is a component of rules for ‘type change’ of expressions, making for greater flexibility and elegance. One fundamental system of this kind is the so-called ‘Lambek Calculus’, whose type-change rules show a close analogy with the inference rules of constructive propositional logic. In this paper, we present one calculus of this kind, and survey its theoretical properties as a device in linguistic semantics. Our two main new contributions are a new and complete semantics for this calculus, as well as a modest study of its language-accepting capacity. In this way, we hope to provide a better understanding of the background theory of flexible categorial grammar, in tandem with its descriptive uses.

We Have Always Been Action TheoristsToward a Critical Theory of Language for the Era of “Large Language Models”

Scholars of literature and culture understandably place themselves among the world’s premiere experts on matters of language. But they also know that fields like linguistics and communication have their own ways of studying how people express themselves through speech and written media. A key difference concerns the theories and methodologies...

Maite Taboada

Maite Taboada. Professor. Department of Linguistics, Simon Fraser University. Research: discourse analysis, computational linguistics

Abstract syntax and variable binding

We develop a theory of abstract syntax with variable binding. To every binding signature we associate a category of models consisting of variable sets endowed with compatible algebra and substitution structures. The syntax generated by the signature is the initial model. This gives a notion of initial algebra semantics encompassing the traditional one; besides compositionality, it automatically verifies the semantic substitution lemma.

Language Machines

How generative AI systems capture a core function of language Looking at the emergence of generative AI, Language Machines presents a new theory of meaning i...

Syntax and semantics of dependent types

In this chapter we fix a particular syntax for a dependently typed calculus and define an abstract notion of model as well as a general interpretation function mapping syntactical objects to entities in a model. This interpretation function is shown to be sound with respect to the syntax.

Operadic consistency: a label-free signal for compositional...

Detecting LLM reasoning failures at inference time without ground-truth labels has motivated a wide range of confidence baselines, including self-consistency, semantic entropy, and P(True), built...

The language of generalization.

Visual language

A visual language is a system of communication using visual elements. Speech as a means of communication cannot strictly be separated from the whole of human communicative activity which includes the visual and the term 'language' in relation to vision is an extension of its use to describe the perception, comprehension and production of visible signs.

Understanding Understanding: A Pragmatic Framework Motivated by...

Motivated by the rapid ascent of Large Language Models (LLMs) and debates about the extent to which they possess human-level qualities, we propose a framework for testing whether any agent (be it...

Computation and its Connotations

A Review of Language Machines by Leif Weatherby

Categorial grammar

Categorial grammar is a family of formalisms in natural language syntax that share the central assumption that syntactic constituents combine as functions and arguments. Categorial grammar posits a close relationship between the syntax and semantic composition, since it typically treats syntactic categories as corresponding to semantic types. Categorial grammars were developed in the 1930s by Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz and in the 1950s by Yehoshua Bar-Hillel and Joachim Lambek. It saw a surge of interest in the 1970s following the work of Richard Montague, whose Montague grammar assumed a similar view of syntax. It continues to be a major paradigm, particularly within formal semantics.

What Counts as AI Sycophancy? A Taxonomy and Expert Survey of a...

AI sycophancy has become a prominent concern in large language model (LLM) research. Yet the term lacks a consistent definition and has been applied to behaviors ranging from agreeing with a...

Quantization from the ground up | ngrok blog

A complete guide to what quantization is, how it works, and how it's used to compress large language models

Marking one’s own viewpoint: The Finnish evidential verb+kseni ‘as far as I understand’ construction

This article examines evidentiality in the frame of inferential adverbs in written interaction from the perspective of Finnish, a language that does not have evidentiality as a grammatical category. The analysis focuses on six adverbs, such as käsittääkseni ‘as far as I understand’ and tietääkseni ‘to my knowledge, as far as I know’. Evidentiality and epistemic modality intertwine in their semantics, as these adverbs represent a writer’s access to information, but also indicate her evaluation of its reliability. First, this article offers a description of the interactional functions of these adverbs such as marking a writer’s opinion in contrasts, expressing slight hedging in order to anticipate corrections, to allow space for other opinions, or to create irony. Second, in the framework of cognitive grammar, the analysis focuses on the meaning of the evidential verb+kseni construction and the effect of different verb stems on it. These adverbs share similar functions in texts, which is due to their flexible constructional meaning. While varying from lexeme to lexeme, specific evidential and epistemic dimensions can either be foregrounded and relevant in a situation or remain backgrounded and not activated.