Origins of Categorial Semantics

• Origins in formal syntax and semantics research fields of linguistics and logic

• Originally a calculus of syntactic categories

  • np • ( np / s \ vp) • vp --> s ``A noun phrase followed by (a sentence missing a noun phrase on the left and a verb phrase on the right) followed by a verb phrase, makes a sentence”

• Via compositionality principle a calculus of semantic types

  • Semantic algebra homomorphic to syntactic algebra
  • N • ( N / S \ V) • V --> S

Notes: