Computational Semantics with Functional Programming

A comprehensive introduction to computational semantics, showing students how to compute meaning using the functional programming language Haskell.

Jan van Eijck (Author), Christina Unger (Author)

9780521760300, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 September 2010

422 pages, 2 b/w illus.
24.4 x 17 x 2.4 cm, 0.98 kg

'The authors do an excellent job of exploring the connections between functional programming and Montague-style formal semantics for natural language. Anyone interested in logic-based computational semantics will learn something from this book.' Stephen Pulman, University of Oxford

Computational semantics is the art and science of computing meaning in natural language. The meaning of a sentence is derived from the meanings of the individual words in it, and this process can be made so precise that it can be implemented on a computer. Designed for students of linguistics, computer science, logic and philosophy, this comprehensive text shows how to compute meaning using the functional programming language Haskell. It deals with both denotational meaning (where meaning comes from knowing the conditions of truth in situations), and operational meaning (where meaning is an instruction for performing cognitive action). Including a discussion of recent developments in logic, it will be invaluable to linguistics students wanting to apply logic to their studies, logic students wishing to learn how their subject can be applied to linguistics, and functional programmers interested in natural language processing as a new application area.

1. Formal study of natural language
2. Lambda calculus, types and functional programming
3. Functional programming with Haskell
4. Formal syntax for fragments
5. Formal semantics for fragments
6. Model checking with predicate logic
7. The composition of meaning in natural language
8. Extension and intension
9. Parsing
10. Handling relations and scoping
11. Continuation passing style semantics
12. Discourse representation and context
13. Communication as informative action.

Subject Areas: Functional programming [UMJ], Computational linguistics [CFX], Semantics, discourse analysis, etc [CFG]