Continuations and the Nature of Quantification1
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Lexical and Syntactic Ambiguity As a Source of Humor: the Case of Newspaper Headlines
Lexical and syntactic ambiguity as a source of humor: The case of newspaper headlines CHIARA BUCARIA Abstract The paper analyzes some forms of linguistic ambiguity in English in a specific register, i.e. newspaper headlines. In particular, the focus of the research is on examples of lexical and syntactic ambiguity that result in sources of voluntary or involuntary humor. The study is based on a corpus of 135 verbally ambiguous headlines found on web sites presenting humor- ous bits of information. The linguistic phenomena that contribute to create this kind of semantic confusion in headlines will be analyzed and divided into the three main categories of lexical, syntactic, and phonological ambi- guity, and examples from the corpus will be discussed for each category. The main results of the study were that, firstly, contrary to the findings of previous research on jokes, syntactically ambiguous headlines were found in good percentage in the corpus and that this might point to di¤erences in genre. Secondly, two new configurations for the processing of the disjunctor/connector order were found. In the first of these configurations the disjunctor appears before the connector, instead of being placed after or coinciding with the ambiguous element, while in the second one two ambig- uous elements are present, each of which functions both as a connector and a disjunctor. Keywords: Ambiguity; headlines; lexical; syntactic; disjunctor; connector. Introduction The present paper sets out to analyze some forms of linguistic ambiguity in English in a specific register, i.e. newspaper headlines. In particular, the Humor 17–3 (2004), 279–309 0933–1719/04/0017–0279 6 Walter de Gruyter 280 C. -
The Meaning of Language
01:615:201 Introduction to Linguistic Theory Adam Szczegielniak The Meaning of Language Copyright in part: Cengage learning The Meaning of Language • When you know a language you know: • When a word is meaningful or meaningless, when a word has two meanings, when two words have the same meaning, and what words refer to (in the real world or imagination) • When a sentence is meaningful or meaningless, when a sentence has two meanings, when two sentences have the same meaning, and whether a sentence is true or false (the truth conditions of the sentence) • Semantics is the study of the meaning of morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences – Lexical semantics: the meaning of words and the relationships among words – Phrasal or sentential semantics: the meaning of syntactic units larger than one word Truth • Compositional semantics: formulating semantic rules that build the meaning of a sentence based on the meaning of the words and how they combine – Also known as truth-conditional semantics because the speaker’ s knowledge of truth conditions is central Truth • If you know the meaning of a sentence, you can determine under what conditions it is true or false – You don’ t need to know whether or not a sentence is true or false to understand it, so knowing the meaning of a sentence means knowing under what circumstances it would be true or false • Most sentences are true or false depending on the situation – But some sentences are always true (tautologies) – And some are always false (contradictions) Entailment and Related Notions • Entailment: one sentence entails another if whenever the first sentence is true the second one must be true also Jack swims beautifully. -
Continuation-Passing Style
Continuation-Passing Style CS 6520, Spring 2002 1 Continuations and Accumulators In our exploration of machines for ISWIM, we saw how to explicitly track the current continuation for a computation (Chapter 8 of the notes). Roughly, the continuation reflects the control stack in a real machine, including virtual machines such as the JVM. However, accurately reflecting the \memory" use of textual ISWIM requires an implementation different that from that of languages like Java. The ISWIM machine must extend the continuation when evaluating an argument sub-expression, instead of when calling a function. In particular, function calls in tail position require no extension of the continuation. One result is that we can write \loops" using λ and application, instead of a special for form. In considering the implications of tail calls, we saw that some non-loop expressions can be converted to loops. For example, the Scheme program (define (sum n) (if (zero? n) 0 (+ n (sum (sub1 n))))) (sum 1000) requires a control stack of depth 1000 to handle the build-up of additions surrounding the recursive call to sum, but (define (sum2 n r) (if (zero? n) r (sum2 (sub1 n) (+ r n)))) (sum2 1000 0) computes the same result with a control stack of depth 1, because the result of a recursive call to sum2 produces the final result for the enclosing call to sum2 . Is this magic, or is sum somehow special? The sum function is slightly special: sum2 can keep an accumulated total, instead of waiting for all numbers before starting to add them, because addition is commutative. -
Denotational Semantics
Denotational Semantics CS 6520, Spring 2006 1 Denotations So far in class, we have studied operational semantics in depth. In operational semantics, we define a language by describing the way that it behaves. In a sense, no attempt is made to attach a “meaning” to terms, outside the way that they are evaluated. For example, the symbol ’elephant doesn’t mean anything in particular within the language; it’s up to a programmer to mentally associate meaning to the symbol while defining a program useful for zookeeppers. Similarly, the definition of a sort function has no inherent meaning in the operational view outside of a particular program. Nevertheless, the programmer knows that sort manipulates lists in a useful way: it makes animals in a list easier for a zookeeper to find. In denotational semantics, we define a language by assigning a mathematical meaning to functions; i.e., we say that each expression denotes a particular mathematical object. We might say, for example, that a sort implementation denotes the mathematical sort function, which has certain properties independent of the programming language used to implement it. In other words, operational semantics defines evaluation by sourceExpression1 −→ sourceExpression2 whereas denotational semantics defines evaluation by means means sourceExpression1 → mathematicalEntity1 = mathematicalEntity2 ← sourceExpression2 One advantage of the denotational approach is that we can exploit existing theories by mapping source expressions to mathematical objects in the theory. The denotation of expressions in a language is typically defined using a structurally-recursive definition over expressions. By convention, if e is a source expression, then [[e]] means “the denotation of e”, or “the mathematical object represented by e”. -
Automated Detection of Syntactic Ambiguity Using Shallow Parsing and Web Data by Reza Khezri [email protected]
DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY, LINGUISTICS AND THEORY OF SCIENCE Automated Detection of Syntactic Ambiguity Using Shallow Parsing and Web Data By Reza Khezri [email protected] Master’s Thesis, 30 credits Master’s Programme in Language Technology Autumn, 2017 Supervisor: Prof. Staffan Larsson Keywords: ambiguity, ambiguity detection tool, ambiguity resolution, syntactic ambiguity, Shallow Parsing, Google search API, PythonAnywhere, PP attachment ambiguity Abstract: Technical documents are mostly written in natural languages and they are highly ambiguity-prone due to the fact that ambiguity is an inevitable feature of natural languages. Many researchers have urged technical documents to be free from ambiguity to avoid unwanted and, in some cases, disastrous consequences ambiguity and misunderstanding can have in technical context. Therefore the need for ambiguity detection tools to assist writers with ambiguity detection and resolution seems indispensable. The purpose of this thesis work is to propose an automated approach in detection and resolution of syntactic ambiguity. AmbiGO is the name of the prototyping web application that has been developed for this thesis which is freely available on the web. The hope is that a developed version of AmbiGO will assist users with ambiguity detection and resolution. Currently AmbiGO is capable of detecting and resolving three types of syntactic ambiguity, namely analytical, coordination and PP attachment types. AmbiGO uses syntactic parsing to detect ambiguity patterns and retrieves frequency counts from Google for each possible reading as a segregate for semantic analysis. Such semantic analysis through Google frequency counts has significantly improved the precision score of the tool’s output in all three ambiguity detection functions. -
Studies in Linguistics
STiL Studies in Linguistics Proceedings XXXV Incontro di Grammatica Generativa Vol 3. 2009 CISCL CENTRO INTERDIPARTIMENTALE DI STUDI COGNITIVI SUL LINGUAGGIO Interdepartmental Centre for Cognitive Studies on Language Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI SIENA Studies In Linguistics Vol3, 2009 2 STiL Studies in Linguistics Edited by: Vincenzo Moscati Emilio Servidio Correspondence can be addressed to: CISCL – Centro Interdipartimentale di Studi Cognitivi sul Linguaggio Dipartimento di Scienze della Comunicazione Complesso S. Niccolò, Via Roma, 56 I-53100 Siena, Italy or by email at: moscati unisi.it 3 Contents Maria Teresa Guasti, Chiara Branchini, Fabrizio Arosio Agreement in the production of Italian subject and object wh-questions 6 Liliane Haegeman The syntax of conditional clauses 28 Maria Rita Manzini & Leonardo Savoia Mesoclisis in the Imperative: Phonology, Morphology or Syntax? 51 Theresa Biberauer, Anders Holmberg & Ian Roberts Linearization and the Architecture of Grammar: A view from the Final-over- Final Constraint 77 Gloria Cocchi Bantu verbal extensions: a cartographic approach 90 Federica Cognola TopicPs and Relativised Minimality in Mòcheno left periphery 104 Silvio Cruschina & Eva-Maria Remberger Focus Fronting in Sardinian and Sicilian 118 Maria Teresa Espinal & Jaume Mateu On bare nominals and argument structure 131 Irene Franco Stylistic Fronting: a comparative analysis 144 Hanako Fujino The Adnominal Form in Japanese as a Relativization Strategy 158 Ion Giurgea Romanian null objects and gender -
Lightweight Monadic Programming in ML
Lightweight Monadic Programming in ML Nikhil Swamy? Nataliya Gutsy Daan Leijen? Michael Hicksy ?Microsoft Research, Redmond yUniversity of Maryland, College Park Abstract ing [26]. In a monadic type system, if values are given type τ then Many useful programming constructions can be expressed as mon- computations are given type m τ for some monad constructor m. ads. Examples include probabilistic modeling, functional reactive For example, an expression of type IO τ in Haskell represents programming, parsing, and information flow tracking, not to men- a computation that will produce (if it terminates) a value of type tion effectful functionality like state and I/O. In this paper, we τ but may perform effectful operations in the process. Haskell’s present a type-based rewriting algorithm to make programming Monad type class, which requires the bind and unit operations with arbitrary monads as easy as using ML’s built-in support for given above, is blessed with special syntax, the do notation, for state and I/O. Developers write programs using monadic values programming with instances of this class. of type m τ as if they were of type τ, and our algorithm inserts Moggi [22], Filinksi [11], and others have noted that ML pro- the necessary binds, units, and monad-to-monad morphisms so that grams, which are impure and observe a deterministic, call-by-value evaluation order, are inherently monadic. For example, the value the program type checks. Our algorithm, based on Jones’ qualified 0 types, produces principal types. But principal types are sometimes λx.e can be viewed as having type τ ! m τ : the argument problematic: the program’s semantics could depend on the choice type τ is never monadic because x is always bound to a value in of instantiation when more than one instantiation is valid. -
An Approach for Detecting Syntax and Syntactic Ambiguity in Software Requirement Specification
Journal of Theoretical and Applied Information Technology 30th April 2018. Vol.96. No 8 © 2005 – ongoing JATIT & LLS ISSN: 1992-8645 www.jatit.org E-ISSN: 1817-3195 AN APPROACH FOR DETECTING SYNTAX AND SYNTACTIC AMBIGUITY IN SOFTWARE REQUIREMENT SPECIFICATION 1 ALI OLOW JIM’ALE SABRIYE, 2*WAN MOHD NAZMEE WAN ZAINON 1Faculty of Computing, SIMAD University, Mogadishu, Somalia 2School of Computer Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia E-mail: [email protected], [email protected] ABSTRACT Software requirements are considered to be ambiguous if the requirements statement could have more than one interpretation. The ambiguous requirements could cause the software developers to develop software which is different from what the customer needs. The focus of this paper is to propose an approach to detect syntax and syntactic ambiguity in software requirements specification. In this paper, Parts of speech (POS) tagging technique has been used to detect these ambiguities. A prototype tool has been developed in order to evaluate the proposed approach. The evaluation is done by comparing the detection capabilities of the proposed tool against human capabilities. The overall results show that the humans do have some difficulties in detecting ambiguity in software requirements, especially the syntactic ambiguity and software requirements that contains both syntax and syntactic ambiguity in one sentence. The proposed tool can definitely help the analyst in detecting ambiguity in Software requirements. Keywords: Part of speech tagging, Syntax ambiguity, Syntactic ambiguity, Software requirements specification. 1. INTRODUCTION can negatively affect in all the software development process [7]. Software requirement specification (SRS) document is an important document with a full Ambiguity in SRS can cause some big issues that description about functional and non-functional can affect the software development process because requirements of a software sys-tem to be developed different interpretations can turn into bugs (such as [1]. -
The Ambiguous Nature of Language
International J. Soc. Sci. & Education 2017 Vol.7 Issue 4, ISSN: 2223-4934 E and 2227-393X Print The Ambiguous Nature of Language By Mohammad Awwad Applied Linguistics, English Department, Lebanese University, Beirut, LEBANON. [email protected] Abstract Linguistic ambiguity is rendered as a problematic issue since it hinders precise language processing. Ambiguity leads to a confusion of ideas in the reader’s mind when he struggles to decide on the precise meaning intended behind an utterance. In the literature relevant to the topic, no clear classification of linguistic ambiguity can be traced, for what is considered syntactic ambiguity, for some linguists, falls under pragmatic ambiguity for others; what is rendered as lexical ambiguity for some linguists is perceived as semantic ambiguity for others and still as unambiguous to few. The problematic issue, hence, can be recapitulated in the abstruseness hovering around what is linguistic ambiguity, what is not, and what comprises each type of ambiguity in language. The present study aimed at propounding lucid classification of ambiguity types according to their function in context by delving into ambiguity types which are displayed in English words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. converges in an attempt to disambiguate English language structures, and thus provide learners with a better language processing outcome and enhance teachers with a more facile and lucid teaching task. Keywords: linguistic ambiguity, language processing. 1. Introduction Ambiguity is derived from ‘ambiagotatem’ in Latin which combined ‘ambi’ and ‘ago’ each word meaning ‘around’ or ‘by’ (Atlas,1989) , and thus the concept of ambiguity is hesitation, doubt, or uncertainty and that concept associated the term ‘ambiguous’ from the first usage until the most recent linguistic definition. -
A Descriptive Study of California Continuation High Schools
Issue Brief April 2008 Alternative Education Options: A Descriptive Study of California Continuation High Schools Jorge Ruiz de Velasco, Greg Austin, Don Dixon, Joseph Johnson, Milbrey McLaughlin, & Lynne Perez Continuation high schools and the students they serve are largely invisible to most Californians. Yet, state school authorities estimate This issue brief summarizes that over 115,000 California high school students will pass through one initial findings from a year- of the state’s 519 continuation high schools each year, either on their long descriptive study of way to a diploma, or to dropping out of school altogether (Austin & continuation high schools in 1 California. It is the first in a Dixon, 2008). Since 1965, state law has mandated that most school series of reports from the on- districts enrolling over 100 12th grade students make available a going California Alternative continuation program or school that provides an alternative route to Education Research Project the high school diploma for youth vulnerable to academic or conducted jointly by the John behavioral failure. The law provides for the creation of continuation W. Gardner Center at Stanford University, the schools ‚designed to meet the educational needs of each pupil, National Center for Urban including, but not limited to, independent study, regional occupation School Transformation at San programs, work study, career counseling, and job placement services.‛ Diego State University, and It contemplates more intensive services and accelerated credit accrual WestEd. strategies so that students whose achievement in comprehensive schools has lagged might have a renewed opportunity to ‚complete the This project was made required academic courses of instruction to graduate from high school.‛ 2 possible by a generous grant from the James Irvine Taken together, the size, scope and legislative design of the Foundation. -
UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations
UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Grounds for Commitment Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1ps845ks Author Northrup, Oliver Burton Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ GROUNDS FOR COMMITMENT A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in LINGUISTICS by Oliver Northrup June 2014 The Dissertation of Oliver Northrup is approved: Professor Donka Farkas, Chair Professor Pranav Anand Professor Adrian Brasoveanu Dean Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Oliver Northrup 2014 Table of Contents List of Figures vi List of Tables vii Abstract viii Acknowledgments x 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Overview ......................................... 1 1.2 Discourse is a commitment space . 5 1.2.1 The common ground . 5 1.2.2 Affecting the common ground . 7 1.2.3 Discourse commitments . 9 1.2.4 An initial model of discourse . 11 2 An evidential model of discourse 17 2.1 Introduction ........................................ 17 2.2 Variation in commitment . 19 2.2.1 Sourcehood . 19 2.2.2 Conditional commitment . 22 2.2.3 A fledgling model of discourse . 28 2.3 Evidentiality as grounds for commitment . 29 2.3.1 Evidentiality primer . 29 2.3.2 The not-at-issue effects of evidentiality . 32 2.4 A revised model for commitments . 38 2.4.1 Model architecture . 38 2.4.2 Examples . 47 2.4.3 Summary . 54 2.5 Further evidence and issues . 54 2.5.1 Attested and unattested bases . -
RELATIONAL PARAMETRICITY and CONTROL 1. Introduction the Λ
Logical Methods in Computer Science Vol. 2 (3:3) 2006, pp. 1–22 Submitted Dec. 16, 2005 www.lmcs-online.org Published Jul. 27, 2006 RELATIONAL PARAMETRICITY AND CONTROL MASAHITO HASEGAWA Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8502 Japan, and PRESTO, Japan Science and Technology Agency e-mail address: [email protected] Abstract. We study the equational theory of Parigot’s second-order λµ-calculus in con- nection with a call-by-name continuation-passing style (CPS) translation into a fragment of the second-order λ-calculus. It is observed that the relational parametricity on the tar- get calculus induces a natural notion of equivalence on the λµ-terms. On the other hand, the unconstrained relational parametricity on the λµ-calculus turns out to be inconsis- tent. Following these facts, we propose to formulate the relational parametricity on the λµ-calculus in a constrained way, which might be called “focal parametricity”. Dedicated to Prof. Gordon Plotkin on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday 1. Introduction The λµ-calculus, introduced by Parigot [26], has been one of the representative term calculi for classical natural deduction, and widely studied from various aspects. Although it still is an active research subject, it can be said that we have some reasonable un- derstanding of the first-order propositional λµ-calculus: we have good reduction theories, well-established CPS semantics and the corresponding operational semantics, and also some canonical equational theories enjoying semantic completeness [16, 24, 25, 36, 39]. The last point cannot be overlooked, as such complete axiomatizations provide deep understand- ing of equivalences between proofs and also of the semantic structure behind the syntactic presentation.