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Montague Grammar
Montague grammar is an approach to natural language semantics, named after American logician Richard Montague. The Montague grammar is based on mathematical logic, especially higher-order predicate logic and lambda calculus, and makes use of the notions of intensional logic, via Kripke models. Montague pioneered this approach in the 1960s and early 1970s. Overview Montague's thesis was that natural languages (like English) and formal languages (like programming languages) can be treated in the same way: There is in my opinion no important theoretical difference between natural languages and the artificial languages of logicians; indeed, I consider it possible to comprehend the syntax and semantics of both kinds of language within a single natural and mathematically precise theory. On this point I differ from a number of philosophers, but agree, I believe, with Chomsky and his associates. ("Universal Grammar" 1970) Montague published what soon became known as Montague gram ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Language
A natural language or ordinary language is a language that occurs naturally in a human community by a process of use, repetition, and change. It can take different forms, typically either a spoken language or a sign language. Natural languages are distinguished from constructed and formal languages such as those used to program computers or to study logic. Defining natural language Natural languages include ones that are associated with linguistic prescriptivism or language regulation. ( Nonstandard dialects can be viewed as a wild type in comparison with standard languages.) An official language with a regulating academy such as Standard French, overseen by the , is classified as a natural language (e.g. in the field of natural language processing), as its prescriptive aspects do not make it constructed enough to be a constructed language or controlled enough to be a controlled natural language. Natural language are different from: * artificial and constructed la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jaakko Hintikka
Kaarlo Jaakko Juhani Hintikka (; ; 12 January 1929 – 12 August 2015) was a Finnish philosopher and logician. Hintikka is regarded as the founder of formal epistemic logic and of game semantics for logic. Life and career Hintikka was born in Helsingin maalaiskunta (now Vantaa). In 1953, he received his doctorate from the University of Helsinki for a thesis entitled ''Distributive Normal Forms in the Calculus of Predicates''. He was a student of Georg Henrik von Wright. Hintikka was a Junior Fellow at Harvard University (1956-1969), and held several professorial appointments at the University of Helsinki, the Academy of Finland, Stanford University, Florida State University and finally Boston University from 1990 until his death. He was the prolific author or co-author of over 30 books and over 300 scholarly articles, Hintikka contributed to mathematical logic, philosophical logic, the philosophy of mathematics, epistemology, language theory, and the philosophy of scienc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Infinite Jest
''Infinite Jest'' is a 1996 novel by American writer David Foster Wallace. Categorized as an encyclopedic novel, ''Infinite Jest'' is featured in ''Time'' magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005. The novel has an unconventional narrative structure and includes hundreds of extensive endnotes, some with footnotes of their own. A literary fiction bestseller after having sold 44,000 hardcover copies in its first year of publication, the novel has since sold more than a million copies worldwide. Development Wallace began ''Infinite Jest'', "or something like it", at various times between 1986 and 1989. His efforts in 1991–92 were more productive;Burn, Stephen J. "'Webs of nerves pulsing and firing': ''Infinite Jest'' and the science of mind". ''A Companion to David Foster Wallace Studies''. 58–96 by the end of 1993, he had a working draft of the novel. From early 1992 until the novel's publication, excerpts from various drafts app ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American writer and professor who published novels, short stories, and essays. He is best known for his 1996 novel ''Infinite Jest'', which ''Time (magazine), Time'' magazine named one of the 100 best English-language novels published from 1923 to 2005. In 2008, David Ulin wrote for the ''Los Angeles Times'' that Wallace was "one of the most influential and innovative writers of the last twenty years". Wallace grew up in Illinois. He graduated from Amherst College and the University of Arizona. His honors thesis at Amherst, about modal logic, was adapted into his debut novel The Broom of the System, ''The Broom of the System'' (1987). In his writing, Wallace intentionally avoided Trope (literature), tropes of postmodern art such as irony or forms of metafiction, saying in 1990 that they were "agents of a great despair and stasis" in contemporary American culture. ''Infinite Jest'', his second novel, is known f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non-terminal Symbol
In formal languages, terminal and nonterminal symbols are parts of the ''vocabulary'' under a formal grammar. ''Vocabulary'' is a finite, nonempty set of symbols. ''Terminal symbols'' are symbols that cannot be replaced by other symbols of the vocabulary. ''Nonterminal symbols'' are symbols that can be replaced by other symbols of the vocabulary by the production rules under the same formal grammar. A formal grammar defines a formal language over the vocabulary of the grammar. In the context of formal language, the term ''vocabulary'' is more commonly known as ''alphabet''. Nonterminal symbols are also called ''syntactic variables''. Terminal symbols Terminal symbols are those symbols that can appear in the formal language defined by a formal grammar. The process of applying the production rules successively to a start symbol might not terminate, but if it terminates when there is no more production rule can be applied, the output string will consist only of terminal symb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Higher-order Function
In mathematics and computer science, a higher-order function (HOF) is a function that does at least one of the following: * takes one or more functions as arguments (i.e. a procedural parameter, which is a parameter of a procedure that is itself a procedure), * returns a function as its result. All other functions are ''first-order functions''. In mathematics higher-order functions are also termed '' operators'' or '' functionals''. The differential operator in calculus is a common example, since it maps a function to its derivative, also a function. Higher-order functions should not be confused with other uses of the word "functor" throughout mathematics, see Functor (other). In the untyped lambda calculus, all functions are higher-order; in a typed lambda calculus, from which most functional programming languages are derived, higher-order functions that take one function as argument are values with types of the form (\tau_1\to\tau_2)\to\tau_3. General examples * ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Function Application
In mathematics, function application is the act of applying a function to an argument from its domain so as to obtain the corresponding value from its range. In this sense, function application can be thought of as the opposite of function abstraction. Representation Function application is usually depicted by juxtaposing the variable representing the function with its argument encompassed in parentheses. For example, the following expression represents the application of the function ''ƒ'' to its argument ''x''. :f(x) In some instances, a different notation is used where the parentheses aren't required, and function application can be expressed just by juxtaposition. For example, the following expression can be considered the same as the previous one: :f\; x The latter notation is especially useful in combination with the currying isomorphism. Given a function f : (X \times Y) \to Z, its application is represented as f(x, y) by the former notation and f\;(x,y) (or f \ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transitive Verb
A transitive verb is a verb that entails one or more transitive objects, for example, 'enjoys' in ''Amadeus enjoys music''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not entail transitive objects, for example, 'arose' in ''Beatrice arose''. Transitivity is traditionally thought of as a global property of a clause, by which activity is transferred from an agent to a patient. Transitive verbs can be classified by the number of objects they require. Verbs that entail only two arguments, a subject and a single direct object, are monotransitive. Verbs that entail two objects, a direct object and an indirect object, are '' ditransitive'', or less commonly ''bitransitive''. An example of a ditransitive verb in English is the verb ''to give'', which may feature a subject, an indirect object, and a direct object: ''John gave Mary the book''. Verbs that take three objects are ''tritransitive''. In English a tritransitive verb features an indirect object, a direct object, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Determiner
Determiner, also called determinative ( abbreviated ), is a term used in some models of grammatical description to describe a word or affix belonging to a class of noun modifiers. A determiner combines with a noun to express its reference. Examples in English include articles (''the'' and ''a''/''an''), demonstratives (''this'', ''that''), possessive determiners (''my,'' ''their''), and quantifiers (''many'', ''both''). Not all languages have determiners, and not all systems of grammatical description recognize them as a distinct category. Description The linguistics term "determiner" was coined by Leonard Bloomfield in 1933. Bloomfield observed that in English, nouns often require a qualifying word such as an article or adjective. He proposed that such words belong to a distinct class which he called "determiners". If a language is said to have determiners, any articles are normally included in the class. Other types of words often regarded as belonging to the determiner ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Common Noun
In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an object or subject within a phrase, clause, or sentence.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, dead, or imaginary): ''mushrooms, dogs, Afro-Caribbeans, rosebushes, Mandela, bacteria, Klingons'', etc. * Physical objects: ''hammers, pencils, Earth, guitars, atoms, stones, boots, shadows'', etc. * Places: ''closets, temples, rivers, Antarctica, houses, Uluru, utopia'', etc. * Actions of individuals or groups: ''swimming, exercises, cough, explosions, flight, electrification, embezzlement'', etc. * Physical qualities: ''colors, lengths, porosity, weights, roundness, symmetry, solidity,'' etc. * Mental or bodily states: ''jealousy, sleep, joy, headache, confusion'', etc. In linguistics, nouns constitute a lexical category (part of speech) defined according to how its members combi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noun Phrase
A noun phrase – or NP or nominal (phrase) – is a phrase that usually has a noun or pronoun as its head, and has the same grammatical functions as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently occurring phrase type. Noun phrases often function as verb subjects and objects, as predicative expressions, and as complements of prepositions. One NP can be embedded inside another NP; for instance, ''some of his constituents'' has as a constituent the shorter NP ''his constituents''. In some theories of grammar, noun phrases with determiners are analyzed as having the determiner as the head of the phrase, see for instance Chomsky (1995) and Hudson (1990) . Identification Some examples of noun phrases are underlined in the sentences below. The head noun appears in bold. ::This election-year's politics are annoying for many people. ::Almost every sentence contains at least one noun phrase. ::Current economic weakness may be a re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Verb Phrase
In linguistics, a verb phrase (VP) is a syntax, syntactic unit composed of a verb and its argument (linguistics), arguments except the subject (grammar), subject of an independent clause or coordinate clause. Thus, in the sentence ''A fat man quickly put the money into the box'', the words ''quickly put the money into the box'' constitute a verb phrase; it consists of the verb ''put'' and its arguments, but not the subject ''a fat man''. A verb phrase is similar to what is considered a ''predicate (grammar), predicate'' in traditional grammars. Verb phrases generally are divided among two types: finite, of which the Head (linguistics), head of the phrase is a finite verb; and nonfinite, where the head is a nonfinite verb, such as an infinitive, participle or gerund. Phrase structure grammars acknowledge both types, but dependency grammars treat the subject as just another verbal dependent, and they do not recognize the finite verbal phrase constituent (linguistics), constituent. Un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
