Computational Linguistics and Formal Semantics (Studies in Natural Language Processing)

This collection takes the exciting step of examining natural language phenomena from the perspectives of both computational linguistics and formal semantics. Computational linguistics has until now been primarily concerned with the construction of computational models for handling the complexities of linguistic form, but has not tackled the questions of representing or computing meaning. Formal semantics, on the other hand, has attempted to account for the relations between forms and meanings, without necessarily attending to computational concerns. Computational Linguistics and Formal Semantics introduces the reader to the two disciplines and considers the prospects for the more unified and comprehensive computational theory of language that might obtain from their amalgamation.

This collection takes the exciting step of examining natural language phenomena from the perspectives of both computational linguistics and formal semantics. Computational linguistics has, for historical reasons, concentrated primarily upon the design and implementation of computational models for handling the form of natural languages, not upon questions of meaning. Formal semantics, on the other hand, attempts to characterise the formal frameworks in which theories of meaning can be stated, but has not focused on the associated computational issues.