Related papers: Indefeasible Semantics and Defeasible Pragmatics
Translations between different nonmonotonic formalisms always have been an important topic in the field, in particular to understand the knowledge-representation capabilities those formalisms offer. We provide such an investigation in terms…
In this article we present a multivariate model for determining the different syntactic, semantic, and form (surface-structure) processes underlying the comprehension of simple phrases. This model is applied to EEG signals recorded during a…
Computing devices have recently become capable of interacting with their end users via natural language. However, they can only operate within a limited "supported" domain of discourse and fail drastically when faced with an out-of-domain…
The paper reconceptualizes pragmatics not as a subordinate, third dimension of meaning, but as a dynamic interface through which language operates as a socially embedded tool for action. With the emergence of large language models (LLMs) in…
Abstract dialectical frameworks (ADFs) have been introduced as a formalism for modeling and evaluating argumentation allowing general logical satisfaction conditions. Different criteria used to settle the acceptance of arguments are called…
We investigate the extent to which modern, neural language models are susceptible to structural priming, the phenomenon whereby the structure of a sentence makes the same structure more probable in a follow-up sentence. We explore how…
This paper proposes the use of dependent types for pragmatic phenomena such as pronoun binding and presupposition resolution as a type-theoretic alternative to formalisms such as Discourse Representation Theory and Dynamic Semantics.
The DIAlogue MOdel Learning Environment supports an engineering-oriented approach towards dialogue modelling for a spoken-language interface. Major steps towards dialogue models is to know about the basic units that are used to construct a…
Nearest neighbors in word embedding models are commonly observed to be semantically similar, but the relations between them can vary greatly. We investigate the extent to which word embedding models preserve syntactic interchangeability, as…
Learning from Preferential Feedback (LfPF) plays an essential role in training Large Language Models, as well as certain types of interactive learning agents. However, a substantial gap exists between the theory and application of LfPF…
Inthispaperwedescribeaconcept-wisemulti-preferencesemantics for description logic which has its root in the preferential approach for modeling defeasible reasoning in knowledge representation. We argue that this proposal, beside satisfying…
We present a hierarchy of natural language understanding abilities and argue for the importance of moving beyond assessments of understanding at the lexical and sentence levels to the discourse level. We propose the task of anaphora…
We study here preference revision, considering both the monotonic case where the original preferences are preserved and the nonmonotonic case where the new preferences may override the original ones. We use a relational framework in which…
This paper presents a deep learning architecture for the semantic decoder component of a Statistical Spoken Dialogue System. In a slot-filling dialogue, the semantic decoder predicts the dialogue act and a set of slot-value pairs from a set…
Non-sentential utterances (NSUs) are utterances that lack a complete sentential form but whose meaning can be inferred from the dialogue context, such as "OK", "where?", "probably at his apartment". The interpretation of non-sentential…
The connections among natural language processing and argumentation theory are becoming stronger in the latest years, with a growing amount of works going in this direction, in different scenarios and applying heterogeneous techniques. In…
What makes a presupposition of an utterance -- information taken for granted by its speaker -- different from other pragmatic inferences such as an entailment is projectivity (e.g., the negative sentence the boy did not stop shedding tears…
Decision analysis deals with modeling and enhancing decision processes. A principal challenge in improving behavior is in obtaining a transparent description of existing behavior in the first place. In this paper, we develop an expressive,…
Conditional acceptability refers to how plausible a conditional statement is perceived to be. It plays an important role in communication and reasoning, as it influences how individuals interpret implications, assess arguments, and make…
In this work, we investigate the use of Dynamic Preference Logic to encode BDI mental attitudes. Further, exploring this codification and the representation of preferences over possible worlds by preferences over propositional formulas,…