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Common Nouns as Types

  • Conference paper
Logical Aspects of Computational Linguistics (LACL 2012)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 7351))

Abstract

When modern type theories are employed for formal semantics, common nouns (CNs) are interpreted as types, not as predicates. Although this brings about some technical advantages, it is worthwhile to ask: what is special about CNs that merits them to be interpreted as types? We discuss the observation made by Geach that, unlike other lexical categories, CNs have criteria of identity, a component of meaning that makes it legitimate to compare, count and quantify. This is closely related to the notion of set (type) in constructive mathematics, where a set (type) is not given solely by specifying its objects, but together with an equality between its objects, and explains and justifies to some extent why types are used to interpret CNs in modern type theories. It is shown that, in order to faithfully interpret modified CNs as Σ-types so that the associated criteria of identity can be captured correctly, it is important to assume proof irrelevance in type theory. We shall also briefly discuss a proposal to interpret mass noun phrases as types in a uniform approach to the semantics of CNs.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Royal Holloway, University of London, USA

    Zhaohui Luo

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  1. Zhaohui Luo
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. LINA UMR 6241, Université de Nantes, 2, rue de la Houssinière, BP 92208, 44322, Nantes Cedex 3, France

    Denis Béchet  & Alexander Dikovsky  & 

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Luo, Z. (2012). Common Nouns as Types. In: Béchet, D., Dikovsky, A. (eds) Logical Aspects of Computational Linguistics. LACL 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7351. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31262-5_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31262-5_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-31261-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-31262-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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