Resource-sensitivity, binding and anaphora. (Q1414853)

This book is a special event, bringing together well-known names from logic, linguistics and computational linguistics. This fact speaks for itself about the value of the contributions. The perspective of resource sensitivity and its involved consequences is of explicit or implicit presence in almost all the papers and the investigated topics. This is because resource sensitivity represents a fundamental way of distinguishing among logical systems of grammatical type inference in natural language. In logic, the resources that a deduction depends on are a structured set of premises, and resource sensitivity refers to the status of premises and the regulation of communication among them. The logical and linguistic questions raised by the structure-dependent (e.g. order-dependency) communication among premises, extraneous premises and relevant logic subsystems, (associative or non-associative) premise grouping systems etc. are specific resource-sensitivity topics investigated within the context of themes such as referential relations, binding, and anaphora. The unique character of this outstanding collection of highest quality papers consists in most contributions adopting a (logical and linguistic) resource-sensitivity and resource management perspective for the resolution of phenomena such as contextual reference, quantification, binding and anaphora, across various levels of linguistic structuring: phonological form, syntactic structure, linguistic meaning, discourse structure etc. The book is organized with an introductory presentation, eight regular chapters, and two complementary (appended) papers: The introduction to the specific topics and problems belongs to the editors, Geert-Jan Kruijff and Richard T. Oehrle. Chapter 1 (Johan van Benthem: Categorial Grammar at a Cross-Road) presents two perspectives on categorial grammars: the proof-theoretic tradition, in which grammatical composition corresponds to derivability in a resource-sensitive syntactic calculus, and the more recent model-theoretic perspective, in which composition is investigated using the techniques of modal logic. In Chapter 2 (Reinhard Muskens: Language, Lambdas, and Logic), the author proposes a new architecture for grammatical composition, where grammatical expressions (or `signs') are taken to have properties in several dimensions. Properties are represented as appropriate \(\lambda\)-terms, and along with lexical signs there exist multi-dimensional linear combinators related to resource-sensitive modes of composition. The set of signs is taken to be closed with respect to the analog of modus ponens over the abstract type systems. Chapter 3 (Pauline Jacobson: Binding without pronouns (and pronouns without binding)) compares two variable-free accounts of binding and anaphora. Pauline Jacobson argues for reasons to prefer the approach to binding by means of a syntactic type-shifting rule which acts on grammatical expressions, in comparison to the view where binding is compiled into the lexical representation of pronouns. Chapter 4 (Gerhard Jäger: Resource Sharing in Type Logical Grammar) describes a logical system formulated within the tradition of Steedman's Combinatorial Categorial Grammar, bearing the similar lines of P. Jacobson's variable-free account of binding. As an attractive property, the proposed logical system can investigate both its formal and empirical properties. Chapter 5 (Geert-Jan Kruijff: Binding Across Boundaries) develops a framework for realizing, representing, and interpreting linguistic meaning with contextuality built in from the start. Meaning representations, associated to relational structures, are shown to be formulas in a hybrid, modal logic. The phenomena of contextual reference, information structure, and entailments arising from spatio-temporal structure can be interpreted in a dynamic discourse structure theory that is sensitive to information-structure. Chapter 6 (Glyn Morrill: On Bound Anaphora in Type Logical Grammar) provides an account of the intra-sentential binding of reflexive and non-reflexive personal pronouns from a type-logical perspective, with an explicit model theory and proof theory that give an interesting perspective to the acquisition of referential relations. Chapter 7 (Richard T. Oehrle: Structural Communication in Binding) notices that functional theories of binding and anaphora introduce forms of nonlinearity into grammatical reasoning within three steps: (a) making a copy of the antecedent; (b) establishing communication between this copy and the dependent expression; and (c) carrying out the `binding' by applying the function associated with the dependent expression to the copy. The paper develops a dynamic approach to binding in which grammatical reasoning is both context-dependent and context-affecting. Chapter 8 (Anna Szabolcsi: Binding on the Fly: Cross-Sentential Anaphora in Variable-Free Semantics) is interested in determining whether a variable-free theory of binding is best implemented by lexical compilation or by extra-lexical mechanisms of type inference such as Jacobson's combinatorial Z operator. The paper provides an analysis of treatments to cross-sentential anaphora resolution, oriented to an extra-lexical type-inference approach within discourse theories. Appendix 1 (Richard Oehrle: Resource-Sensitivity -- A Brief Guide) offers a more extensive discussion on the logical and linguistic phenomena related to resource-sensitivity, while Appendix 2 (Richard Oehrle: Some Precursors) points out the longer tradition of work on binding and anaphora within the general categorial perspective.