May 2023 - LFG-list - mailman.uni-konstanz.de

ParGram Meeting - Nov. 28 & 29
by Jessica Zipf 03 Jun '23

03 Jun '23

Dear all, the date for the next ParGram meeting is set. We will have online ParGram sessions in the afternoon of Monday, Nov. 28 and Tuesday, Nov. 29. - mark those dates! If anyone is interested in presenting their work or a project related to ParGram on one of the two days, please contact me. We will soon send out further information regarding the program and online participation. See you soon! Jessica Zipf -- ******************************* Jessica Zipf, M.A. Department of Linguistics University of Konstanz, Germany Room: G218

2 1

LFG23 Programme confirmed
by S.M. Jones 30 May '23

30 May '23

Dear LFG community, The programme is out for our 2023 conference in Rochester, with many interesting talks and posters, a workshop on Lexical Integrity, and a ParGram meeting! More information can be found here: https://sas.rochester.edu/cls/lfg23/program/ We hope to see many of you there for another exciting 4 days on LFG and related topics! Best wishes Tina Bögel and Stephen Jones (PC)

1 0

3rd Call for Papers - CSSP 2023: deadline 15 May 2023
by Gabriela Bilbiie 11 May '23

11 May '23

Dear LFG community, Please find below the third call for papers for CSSP 2023. Best, Gabriela Bîlbîie & Gerhard Schaden *CSSP 2023* The 15th Syntax and Semantics Conference in Paris December 7-9, 2023 https://cssp-2023.llf-paris.fr/ https://cssp2023.sciencesconf.org Extended submission deadline: May 15, 2023 The 15th Syntax and Semantics Conference in Paris (CSSP 2023) will take place on December 7-9, 2023 in Paris, and will be organized by the Jean-Nicod Institute (ENS, PSL, EHESS, CNRS). It will be followed by a thematic workshop on “Moral Language” on December 11, 2023, organized by Tess Feyen, Alda Mari & Paul Portner (separate call for papers). CSSP invites papers combining empirical inquiry and formal explicitness, and favors comparisons between different theoretical frameworks. We welcome submissions using theoretical, experimental or computational methods in: - syntax, - semantics, - pragmatics, - the syntax-semantics interface, - the semantics-pragmatics interface, - language acquisition: syntax-semantics-pragmatics. *Submission:* We invite submissions for 40 minute presentations (including 10 minutes for discussion). Submissions are expected to describe substantial, original, completed and unpublished work, hence submissions should be up to 5 pages plus an extra page for references. The submission must be anonymous. The same person can submit one abstract as author, and one as co-author, or two with different co-authors. Instructions for submissions, style templates for abstracts, and details on the selection procedure are available at https://cssp-2023.llf-paris.fr/submission?lang=en *Invited Speakers:* Heather Burnett (LLF & Université de Paris) András Kornai (Budapest Institute of Technology) Adam Przepórkowski (ICS Polish Academy of Sciences & University of Warsaw) -- Gabriela BILBIIE Faculté de Langues et Littératures Etrangères, Univ. de Bucarest Laboratoire de Linguistique Formelle - UMR 7110 CNRS et Univ. de Paris

1 0

Fwd: Your message to LFG awaits moderator approval
by Ken Kahn 02 May '23

02 May '23

Hi I did get this notification of moderation 4 days ago. Here's my message again: Vijay's message got me wondering what else GPT-4 can do. https://shareg.pt/VcJBEYK Mary thought the result was at an undergraduate level. Best, -ken ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: <lfg-owner(a)listserv.linguistlist.org> Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2023 at 16:23 Subject: Your message to LFG awaits moderator approval To: <toontalk(a)gmail.com> Your mail to 'LFG' with the subject GPT-4 producing f-structures Is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval. The reason it is being held: Post by non-member to a members-only list Either the message will get posted to the list, or you will receive notification of the moderator's decision. If you would like to cancel this posting, please visit the following URL: https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/confirm/lfg/7ecd6420d43b3…

8 13

ParGram bibliography
by Koenraad de Smedt 02 May '23

02 May '23

Dear colleagues, In a not too distant future, the IT-department at Bergen wants to discontinue the ParGram website (https://pargram.w.uib.no <https://pargram.w.uib.no/>); the last updates seem to be from 2020. There seems to be some value in the the extensive bibliography (split on different pages by year). Meanwhile, there is an LFG site at Konstanz, https://ling.sprachwiss.uni-konstanz.de/pages/home/lfg/index.html, where another extensive LFG bibliography is available. There is also a brief list of ParGram publications at https://ling.sprachwiss.uni-konstanz.de/pages/home/pargram_urdu/pargram//Pu…. However, the bibliography files on the ParGram site in Bergen contain quite a few LFG-related publications which I cannot find in the lists in Konstanz. If someone would like to get a hold of the ParGram publications and possibly merge them with the lists in Konstanz, the time to act is pretty soon. Another potentially interesting resource is the Feature Table at https://pargram.w.uib.no/documents/feature-table-no-check/. An exported version of this table in semicolon-separated format is attached. Best, Koenraad De Smedt Bergen, Norway

2 1

Fwd: Using GPT4 as an assistant for computational linguists
by Vijay Saraswat 01 May '23

01 May '23

Try 2... > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Vijay Saraswat <vijay(a)saraswat.org> > Subject: Using GPT4 as an assistant for computational linguists > Date: April 24, 2023 at 6:17:08 AM EDT > To: LFG(a)listserv.linguistlist.org, hpsg-l(a)listserv.linguistlist.org, Mary Dalrymple <mary.dalrymple(a)ling-phil.ox.ac.uk>, Ken Kahn <toontalk(a)googlemail.com>, fernando.pereira(a)gmail.com, lamping(a)gmail.com > > I thought this group might find the following interesting. > > For the last several years I have been leading an R&D group in AI (essentially applied NLP) at a major Wall Street Bank. Since 2020, I have been struck by the stunning progress made by Large Language Models (LLMs; GPT-3, ChatGPT, GPT-4, …). Essentially it seems that a lot of the work we were doing in computational linguistics (at least some of us), particularly in terms of applications to real-world question answering problems, has now been swamped by LLM advances. > > I have a separate talk on the kind of highly-specific text analyses GPT-4 can do directly for (financial) professionals with domain-specific text, without having to go through parsing / semantic representation steps. Here I thought it might be illuminating to provide a log of a conversation with GPT-4 about representing meanings of simple sentences in IL. > > As you can see it doesn’t always get things right. But some discussion helps it set things right (in itself, this is another startling capability of GPT-4). Such conversations can lead to the development of an accurate labeled data set, and thence to a fine-tuned end-point which should end up being highly accurate. (GPT-4 is not yet available to be fine-tuned, but GPT-3 is, and I would hope -4 will be, soon…) > > There are tons of things to discuss here, of course, if there is interest. Just putting this out as a conversation starter… > > > Best, > Vijay > > The examples are taken from https://aclanthology.org/E93-1013.pdf and https://aclanthology.org/E95-1005.pdf > > > VS: Parse the following sentence and generate its m meaning in Montague's Intensional Logic. > -- Sentence > Bill kissed Hillary. > -- Meaning formula > > > GPT4: To represent the given sentence "Bill kissed Hillary" in Montague's Intensional Logic, we will first parse the sentence into its components: > Subject: Bill > Verb: kissed > Object: Hillary > Montague's Intensional Logic uses lambda calculus to represent meanings. We will use the following variables: > > b for Bill > k for the verb 'kiss' > h for Hillary > Now, we can represent the meaning formula as follows: > > k(b, h) > > This formula states that the kissing action (k) occurs with Bill (b) as the subject and Hillary (h) as the object. The given sentence can be translated into Montague's Intensional Logic as the application of the binary relation 'k' to the individuals 'b' and 'h’. > VS: Good. Here is another one. > -- Sentence > Bill obviously kissed Hillary. > > GPT4: To represent the given sentence "Bill obviously kissed Hillary" in Montague's Intensional Logic, we need to consider the adverb "obviously" as a modifier of the verb "kissed". Let's denote the adverb with the letter 'o' and use the previously defined variables: > b for Bill > k for the verb 'kiss' > h for Hillary > o for the adverb 'obviously' > Now, we can represent the meaning formula as follows: > > o(k)(b, h) > > This formula states that the kissing action (k) occurs with Bill (b) as the subject and Hillary (h) as the object, and that this action is obviously true (o). The given sentence can be translated into Montague's Intensional Logic as the application of the binary relation 'k' to the individuals 'b' and 'h', modified by the adverb 'o’. > VS: Hmm.. shouldn't this be o(k(b,h))? > GPT4: Apologies for the confusion. You are correct. The correct representation of the sentence "Bill obviously kissed Hillary" in Montague's Intensional Logic should be: > o(k(b, h)) > > This formula states that the kissing action (k) occurs with Bill (b) as the subject and Hillary (h) as the object, and that this action is obviously true (o). The given sentence can be translated into Montague's Intensional Logic as the adverb 'o' modifying the result of applying the binary relation 'k' to the individuals 'b' and 'h’. > VS: Good. Now let's do: > -- Sentence > Hillary let Bill write a letter > -- Meaning formula > > GPT4: To represent the given sentence "Hillary let Bill write a letter" in Montague's Intensional Logic, we will first parse the sentence into its components: > Subject: Hillary > Verb: let > Object: Bill > Infinitive verb: write > Object of the infinitive verb: a letter > We will use the following variables: > > h for Hillary > l for the verb 'let' > b for Bill > w for the verb 'write' > a for a letter > Now, we can represent the meaning formula as follows: > > l(h, λx.w(x, a))(b) > > This formula states that the letting action (l) occurs with Hillary (h) as the subject and a function representing Bill writing a letter (λx.w(x, a)) as the object. Then, the function is applied to the individual Bill (b). > > The given sentence can be translated into Montague's Intensional Logic as the application of the ternary relation 'l' to the individuals 'h' and 'b', and the action of writing a letter (w) with 'a' as the object. > VS: Good. Next: > -- Sentence > Bill supported, and Hillary opposed, NAFTA. > > GPT4: To represent the given sentence "Bill supported, and Hillary opposed, NAFTA" in Montague's Intensional Logic, we need to parse the sentence into its components and consider the conjunction "and" that connects two separate actions: > Subject 1: Bill > Verb 1: supported > Subject 2: Hillary > Verb 2: opposed > Object: NAFTA > We will use the following variables: > > b for Bill > s for the verb 'support' > h for Hillary > o for the verb 'oppose' > n for NAFTA > ∧ for the conjunction 'and' > Now, we can represent the meaning formula as follows: > > (s(b, n) ∧ o(h, n)) > > This formula states that Bill (b) supports NAFTA (n), and Hillary (h) opposes NAFTA (n). The given sentence can be translated into Montague's Intensional Logic as two separate actions, the support action (s) with Bill (b) as the subject and NAFTA (n) as the object, and the oppose action (o) with Hillary (h) as the subject and NAFTA (n) as the object, connected by the conjunction 'and' (∧). > VS: OK, next: > -- Sentence > Bill supported, and Hillary opposed, two trade bills. > > GPT4: To represent the given sentence "Bill supported, and Hillary opposed, two trade bills" in Montague's Intensional Logic, we need to parse the sentence into its components and consider the conjunction "and" that connects two separate actions: > Subject 1: Bill > Verb 1: supported > Subject 2: Hillary > Verb 2: opposed > Quantifier: two > Object: trade bills > We will use the following variables: > > b for Bill > s for the verb 'support' > h for Hillary > o for the verb 'oppose' > tb for trade bills > ∧ for the conjunction 'and' > t for two > Since we are dealing with a quantifier, we will use lambda notation to represent the two trade bills. Let x represent trade bills and y for the second trade bill: > > Now, we can represent the meaning formula as follows: > > ∃x∃y(tb(x) ∧ tb(y) ∧ t(x, y) ∧ s(b, x) ∧ s(b, y) ∧ o(h, x) ∧ o(h, y)) > > This formula states that there exist two trade bills (x and y) such that Bill (b) supports both (s(b, x) and s(b, y)), and Hillary (h) opposes both (o(h, x) and o(h, y)). The given sentence can be translated into Montague's Intensional Logic as two separate actions, the support action (s) with Bill (b) as the subject and the two trade bills (x and y) as the objects, and the oppose action (o) with Hillary (h) as the subject and the two trade bills (x and y) as the objects, connected by the conjunction 'and' (∧). > VS: Next: > -- Sentence > Hillary wanted, found, and supported two candidates. > GPT4: To represent the given sentence "Hillary wanted, found, and supported two candidates" in Montague's Intensional Logic, we need to parse the sentence into its components and consider the conjunctions "and" that connect three separate actions: > Subject: Hillary > Verb 1: wanted > Verb 2: found > Verb 3: supported > Quantifier: two > Object: candidates > We will use the following variables: > > h for Hillary > w for the verb 'want' > f for the verb 'find' > s for the verb 'support' > c for candidates > ∧ for the conjunction 'and' > t for two > Since we are dealing with a quantifier, we will use lambda notation to represent the two candidates. Let x represent the first candidate and y for the second candidate: > > Now, we can represent the meaning formula as follows: > > ∃x∃y(c(x) ∧ c(y) ∧ t(x, y) ∧ w(h, x) ∧ w(h, y) ∧ f(h, x) ∧ f(h, y) ∧ s(h, x) ∧ s(h, y)) > > This formula states that there exist two candidates (x and y) such that Hillary (h) wanted both (w(h, x) and w(h, y)), found both (f(h, x) and f(h, y)), and supported both (s(h, x) and s(h, y)). The given sentence can be translated into Montague's Intensional Logic as three separate actions, the want action (w), find action (f), and support action (s) with Hillary (h) as the subject and the two candidates (x and y) as the objects, connected by the conjunctions 'and' (∧). > VS: It would seem to me that the meaning should be the conjunction of two propositions, one expressing the wanting, and the second that the finding-and-supporting was successfully accomplished… > GPT4: I apologize for my previous responses, and I understand now what you are looking for. To represent the given sentence "Hillary wanted, found, and supported two candidates" in Montague's Intensional Logic as the conjunction of two propositions, we can do the following: > Subject: Hillary > Intensional verb: wanted > Extensional verb 1: found > Extensional verb 2: supported > Quantifier: two > Object: candidates > We will use the following variables: > > h for Hillary > w for the verb 'want' > f for the verb 'find' > s for the verb 'support' > c for candidates > t for two > ∧ for the conjunction 'and' > Now, we can represent the meaning formula as follows: > > w(h, λx.t(c, λy.(f(h, y) ∧ s(h, y)), x)) ∧ ∃x∃y(c(x) ∧ c(y) ∧ t(x, y) ∧ f(h, x) ∧ f(h, y) ∧ s(h, x) ∧ s(h, y)) > > In this formula, we have two separate propositions joined by a conjunction. The first proposition represents the wanting, with the intensional verb 'want' as the function w(h, λx...), taking Hillary (h) as the subject and a property λx representing the existence of two candidates that Hillary found and supported as its argument. The second proposition represents the successful finding and supporting of two candidates, with the quantifier 'two' applied to the candidates, and for each candidate x and y, the extensional verbs 'found' and 'supported' are applied. > > This representation treats the intensional verb 'wanted' separately from the extensional verbs 'found' and 'supported', expressing the conjunction of two propositions: one for the wanting, and the second for the successful finding and supporting of two candidates. >

2 1

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

LFG-list May 2023