Synopses & Reviews
This volume contains a detailed, precise and clear semantic formalism designed to allow non-programmers such as linguists and literary specialists to represent elements of meaning which they must deal with in their research and teaching. At the same time, by its basis in a functional programming paradigm, it retains sufficient formal precision to support computational implementation.
The formalism is designed to represent meaning as found at a variety of levels, including basic semantic units and relations, word meaning, sentence-level phenomena, and text-level meaning. By drawing on fundamental principles of program design, the proposed formalism is both easy to read and modify yet sufficiently powerful to allow for the representation of complex semantic phenomena.
In this monograph, the authors introduce the formalism and show its basic structure, apply it to the analysis of the semantics of a variety of linguistic phenomena in both English and French, and use it to represent the semantics of a variety of texts ranging from single sentences, to textual excepts, to a full story.
Review
"As the title promises, The Semantic Representation of Natural Language sets out to develop a formalism for representing natural language meaning. After an enjoyable journey through the world of meaning from words to texts, touching upon ancient Rome, fairy tales, and dungeons, it reaches its targeted goal…" - Christina Unger, Bielefeld University, OUP Clippings
Synopsis
Proposes robust onomasiological semantic formalism and applies it to a wide variety of linguistic phenomena.
Synopsis
Could a single semantic formalism be created which would allow for the representation of meaning at all levels from basic semantic units and relations to sentence-level and text-level meaning, while remaining practical and user-friendly?
This book showcases a detailed, precise and clear semantic formalism such that representations of meaning can be created and understood by a wide range of users, including logicians, linguists, creative writers, and literary specialists without detailed technical knowledge.
In this monograph, the authors propose the formalism, showing its basic structure, applying it to the analysis of the semantics of a wide variety of linguistic phenomena in both English and French, and using it to generate the semantics of a variety of texts ranging from single sentences, to textual excepts, to a full story. By drawing on fundamental principles of program design, the proposed formalism is both easy to read and modify yet sufficiently powerful to allow for the representation of complex semantic phenomena.
About the Author
Michael Levison is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Computing at Queen's University,
Canada.
Greg Lessard is a Professor in the Department of French Studies at Queen's University, Canada.
Craig Thomas earned his PhD from the School of Computing at Queen's University, Canada, in
2010 under the supervision of Michael Levison and Greg Lessard.
Matthew Donald earned his MSc from the School of Computing at Queen's University, Canada, in
2006 under the direction of Michael Levison and Greg Lessard.
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Preface
Typographical Conventions
1. Introduction
2. Basic Concepts
3. Previous Approaches
4. Semantic Expressions: Introduction
5. Formal Issues
6. Semantic Expressions: Basic Features
7. Advanced Features
8. Applications: Capture
9. Three Little Pigs
10. Applications Creation
Bibliography
Index