Spring 2012 IA165 Combinatory Logic for Computational Semantics by Juyeon Kang
Classwork N°5
due to 23th March 2012
Exercise: “Application of combinators to natural language analysis: Basic structures”
1. To apply successfully the combinators to natural language analysis, we need to handle
adequately the introduction and elimination rules by beta-reduction defined for each
combinator. Especially, the control of the intro. Rules can appeal to some syntactic tool.
Referring to the given combinatorial rules and types, give the formal semantic analysis
of the following sentences:
CCG types: a. primitive types: S for sentence, NP for noun phrase and proper noun, N for common noun
b. derived types: (S\NP) for intransitive verb (unary), (S\NP)/NP for transitive verb(binary),
(N/N) for adjective, (NP/N) for articles, (S\NP)\(S\NP) for adverb of verb, (N/N)/(N/N) for the
adverb of adjective, etc.
CCG rules:
e1: (x/y)  e2:(y/z) e1:x      x:e1  CONJ  x:e2
­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­>B ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­>C* ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­> (> )Φ
(x/z): B e1 e2 S/(S\x):  C* e1 x:   Φ CONJ e1 e2
(a) Anna met Manny.
(b) Anna met and marry Manny.
(c) Anna met and might married Manny. (type of might: (S\NP)/NP)/(S\NP)/NP))
(d) I requested and would prefer musicals. (type of would: (S\NP)/NP)/(S\NP)/NP))
2. Formal semantic analysis of Czech natural language using combinators: first try
(e) Krtek nosí kalhotky s kapsami.
(f) Lindu má pěknou moderní židli.