Expressing discourse dynamics through continuations Ekaterina Lebedeva To cite this version: Ekaterina Lebedeva. Expressing discourse dynamics through continuations. Computation and Lan- guage [cs.CL]. Université de Lorraine, 2012. English. NNT : 2012LORR0025. tel-01749193v2 HAL Id: tel-01749193 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01749193v2 Submitted on 31 Jan 2013 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique Universit´ede Lorraine Ecole´ doctorale IAEM Informatique, Automatique, Electronique´ et Math´ematiques Expression de la dynamique du discours `a l’aide de continuations THESE` pr´esent´eeet soutenue publiquement le 6 Avril 2012 pour l’obtention du Doctorat de l’Universit´ede Lorraine (sp´ecialit´einformatique linguistique) par Ekaterina LEBEDEVA Composition du jury Rapporteurs : Nicholas ASHER Directeur de recherche, CNRS, Toulouse, France Reinhard MUSKENS Professeur, Tilburg University, Pays-Bas Examinateurs : Paul EGRE´ Charg´ede recherche, CNRS, Paris, France Jean-Marie PIERREL Professeur, Universit´ede Lorraine, Nancy, France Directeur de th`ese: Philippe DE GROOTE Directeur de recherche, INRIA, Nancy, France Laboratoire Lorrain de Recherche en Informatique et ses Applications — UMR 7503 Abstract This thesis develops a theoretical formalism of formal semantics of natural lan- guage in the spirit of Montague semantics. The developed framework satisfies the principle of compositionality in a simple and elegant way, by being as parsimo- nious as possible: completely new formalisms or extensions of existing formalisms with even more complex constructions to fit particular linguistic phenomena have been avoided; instead, the framework handles these linguistic phenomena using only basic and well-established formalisms, such as simply-typed lambda calculus and classical logic. Dynamics is achieved by employing a continuation-passing technique and an exception raising and handling mechanism. The context is explicitly represented by a term, and, therefore, can be easily accessed and ma- nipulated. The framework successfully handles cross-sentential anaphora and pre- suppositions triggered by referring expressions and has potential to be extended for dealing with more complex dynamic phenomena, such as presuppositions trig- gered by factive verbs and conversational implicatures. Keywords: computational linguistics, natural language semantics, Montague semantics, dynamic semantics, continuations, exceptions, presuppositions, con- versational implicatures. iii Acknowledgments Two courses that I followed during my MSc in Computational Logic influenced me to do a PhD in the area of computational linguistics. The first course was an introduction to computational linguistics taught by Dr. Rafaella Bernardi at Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy, where I learned how logical methods can be used to solve many linguistic problems elegantly. Dr. Bernardi's enthusiasm about the topic and her expertise inspired me and raised my interest in the area. The other course was an introduction to lambda calculus given by Prof. Alexan- der Leitsch at Vienna University of Technology, Austria. The course was very challenging, demanding and taught me to be mathematically precise, concise, cre- ative and productive. On a seminar related to the lambda calculus course, I gave a talk presenting the basics of Montague's semantics. I was so fascinated with what I learned for the talk that I decided that if I ever did a PhD, this should be the area of my work. I was very lucky to reach this decision exactly when Prof. Philippe de Groote announced an open PhD position at Loria (Laboratoire Lorrain de Recherche en Informatique et ses Applications), INRIA, Nancy, France, on extending Mon- tague's semantics with continuation techniques. Prof. de Groote gave me an opportunity to work in his challenging project in the intersection of exciting ar- eas such as logic, lambda calculus, natural language semantics and pragmatics, and established the theoretical and methodological foundations for my research. He has a fantastic ability of supervising the work concisely and precisely, by giv- ing just enough advice based on the student's background and simultaneously intriguing and challenging the student to go ahead and investigate the problem more deeply. This kind of supervision provides an excellent scientific environment for the development of a proper research spirit. Prof. de Groote systematically guided my research and was demanding to my primary work, but at the same time he gave me enough freedom to explore. His openness to ideas and affirmative critics helped me stay on track and to form my own perception of the subject. v Prof. Nicholas Asher and Prof. Reinhard Muskens accepted to be the re- viewers of my thesis. Dr. Paul Egr´eand Prof. Jean-Marie Pierrel accepted to be the members of the thesis committee. I appreciate their time and effort for reading the thesis. Their reviews and questions gave me a significant constructive feedback. The CAuLD (Construction Automatique de repr´esentations Logiques du Dis- cours) workshops, organized by Dr. Sylvain Pogodalla, were essential at the be- ginning of my PhD. They gave me a community to interact with and from whom to obtain feedback. They also gave me the opportunity to practice important skills such as presenting my work. I had chances to meet inspiring researchers during the years of my PhD. Lec- tures in ESSLLIs (European Summer School of Logic, Language and Information), talks in conferences or workshops and informal conversations with Prof. Nicholas Asher, Prof. Chris Barker, Prof. Makoto Kanazawa, Prof. Reinhard Muskens and Dr. Sylvain Salvati substantially influenced my work. Prof. Patrick Blackburn was a source of positive thinking for me with respect to not only research difficulties, but also life troubles. He was magically appearing around when I needed support, a wise advice or just cheering up. Dr. Luciana Benotti's enthusiasm, persistence and affection to research were an example for me to follow. She motivated me in numerous ways by being not only an inspiring colleague but also a reliable friend. The harmonious and friendly environment of the Calligramme/Semagramme team (Dr. Maxime Amblard, Dr. Daniel de Carvalho, Prof. Philippe de Groote, Dr. Bruno Guillaume, Mag. Robert Hein, Prof. Fran¸coisLamarche, Mag. Sarah Maarek, Mag. Jonathan Marchand, Dr. Mathieu Morey, Dr. Novak Novakovi´c, Prof. Guy Perrier, Dr. Sylvain Pogodalla, Mag. Florent Pompigne, Mag. Shohreh Tabatabayi, Mag. Sai Qian) allowed me to stay tranquil and focused at work. I also met wonderful, kind and supportive people working in the Talaris team (Mag. Corinna Anderson, Dr. Carlos Areces, Dr. Luciana Benotti, Prof. Patrick Blackburn, Dr. Alexandre Denis, Dr. Ingrid Falk, Prof. Claire Gardent, Dr. S´eba- stien Hinderer, Dr. Guillaume Hoffmann, Prof. Jean-Charles Lamirel, Mag. Ale- jandra Lorenzo, Dr. Yannick Parmentier, Mag. Laura P´erez,Dr. Lina Maria Ro- jas, Dr. Dmitry Sustretov). I loved to spend lunch breaks with the great company of the members of the Mosel/VeriDis team (Dr. Nazim Benaissa, Dr. Diego Cam- inha, Mag. Henri Debrat, Dr. Pascal Fontaine, Dr. Neeraj Kumar, Mag. Tianxiang Lu, Prof. Dominique M´ery, Prof. Stephan Merz, Dr. Denis Roegel, Mag. Hern´an Vanzetto, Dr. Bruno Woltzenlogel Paleo) having pleasant conversations about research, education, travelling, sports, politics and many other interesting topics. Staying late for work in the laboratory was encouraging, because Denis Roegel was always there and open for having a short break and a nice conversation. He offered me so much help when I needed, from providing valuable advice related to the French language and LATEX to giving a hand to solve housing problems. vi There was a place in Nancy where I felt as being at home. The family of Claire Gardent (Jennifer, Gabrielle and Caroline) was always welcoming me and was treating me as a family member. Before leaving Nancy, I spent so many evenings in their warm family atmosphere; after having left Nancy, I was welcomed to stay in their home numerous times when I came back for work. Jennifer supported me very much in learning French. Claire, moreover, introduced the world of yoga to me. Her Iyengar yoga classes at Loria helped me to stay in the right physical and mental shape during the years of PhD. Now yoga has a special place in my life. I had great leisure time learning French, doing sports, dancing, cooking, hav- ing dinners, parties and generally enjoying life in Nancy thankful to the friend- ship of Carlos Areces, Luciana Benotti, Jennifer Blackburn, Patrick Blackburn, Guillermo Caminer, Diego Caminha, Pascal Fontaine, Claire Gardent, Alejandra Lorenzo, Atif Mashkoor, Stephan Merz, Novak Novakovi´c,Denis Roegel, Sai Qian and Nadiya Yampolska. This thesis is a culmination of all the efforts my family, parents and grandpar- ents, spent for my education. They devoted all their resources and did their best to create good conditions for my studies. They taught me to be persistent and diligent when working towards goals, and this quality was essential for writing this thesis. It is dedicated to them. From the first days of my PhD, Bruno Woltzenlogel Paleo had no choice but to hear me out talking about my research and listen to all my scientific thoughts regardless if it was during a vacation walk along a beach or a romantic dinner. Astonishingly, he seemed to like this so much that he sometimes initiated the scientific discussion himself. Eventually, he decided to marry me when I was half- way through my PhD, and his family warmly accepted me. Bruno's confidence in me, encouragement, patience and love kept me going forward in research and life.