A General Semantic Model of Negation in Natural Language: Representation and Inference
Iwanska, Lucja Maria
This item is only available for download by members of the University of Illinois community. Students, faculty, and staff at the U of I may log in with your NetID and password to view the item. If you are trying to access an Illinois-restricted dissertation or thesis, you can request a copy through your library's Inter-Library Loan office or purchase a copy directly from ProQuest.
Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/72069
Description
Title
A General Semantic Model of Negation in Natural Language: Representation and Inference
Author(s)
Iwanska, Lucja Maria
Issue Date
1992
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Wilkins, David C.
Department of Study
Computer Science
Discipline
Computer Science
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Language, Linguistics
Computer Science
Abstract
The research contribution of this dissertation is a formal, computational model of the semantics of negation in natural language; its major components are two knowledge representation formalisms with Boolean semantics: a computable Boolean algebra for representing concepts and a computable Boolean algebra for representing the semantics of scalar predicate expressions of natural language that denote quantitative values. The UNO computer implementation demonstrates that this semantic model faithfully captures the logical inferences that people draw from English sentences with explicit negative information. The UNO natural language processing system is shown to correctly handle a substantial subset of English: knowledge from sentences involving negation as well as conjunction and disjunction of complex determiners, adjectives, adverbs, common nouns, proper nouns, noun phrases, verbs, verb phrases, prepositions, and prepositional phrases can be represented and reasoned with. Areas of future research involve extending the model to handle modal operators, sentential adverbs, pragmatics, temporal reasoning, intensionality and non-logical reasoning.
Use this login method if you
don't
have an
@illinois.edu
email address.
(Oops, I do have one)
IDEALS migrated to a new platform on June 23, 2022. If you created
your account prior to this date, you will have to reset your password
using the forgot-password link below.
