Integrating Type Theory and Distributional Semantics: A Case Study on Adjective–Noun Compositions

Abstract

International audienc

Distributional Models of Word Meaning

“…The lexical function model is an attempt to represent formal semantic operations with DS; it produces interesting results when applied to adjective-noun modification (Vecchi et al 2016, Asher et al 2016, but has great difficulties in scaling up to multiargument sentences. Estimating the matrices and tensors for complex functional types such as transitive verbs can be very complex and may encounter data-sparseness problems.…”

Don’t Blame Distributional Semantics if it can’t do Entailment

“…But for longer expressions distributional semantics on its own falls short (cf. our clarification of "on its own" in footnote 3), and this is part of what has inspired aforementioned works on integrating formal and distributional semantics (e.g., Coecke et al 2011;Grefenstette and Sadrzadeh 2011;Beltagy et al 2013;Erk 2013;Asher et al 2016). However, that distributional semantics falls short of accounting for full-fledged compositionality does not mean that it cannot be a sufficient model of expression meaning.…”

“…An alternative to the 'strong' view is what Lenci (2008) calls the 'weak' view: that an abstraction over use may be part of what determines expression meaning, but that more is needed. This view underlies for instance the common assumption that a more complete model of expression meaning would require integrating distributional and formal semantics (e.g., Beltagy et al 2013;Erk 2013;Asher et al 2016;Boleda and Herbelot 2016). But in section 4 we argue that the notions of formal semantic, like reference, truth conditions and entailment, do not belong at the level of expression meaning in the first place, and, accordingly, that distributional semantics can be sufficient as a model of expression meaning.…”

“…11 By contrast, distributional semantics on its own (cf. footnote 3) struggles with these aspects (Boleda and Herbelot 2016; see also the work discussed in section 3.2 on entailment), which has motivated aforementioned attempts to integrate formal and distributional semantics (e.g., Beltagy et al 2013;Erk 2013;Asher et al 2016;Boleda and Herbelot 2016). Put simply, distributional semantics struggles because there are no entities or truth values in distributional space to refer to.…”

“…Distributional and formal semantics are often regarded as two models of expression meaning that have complementary strengths and weaknesses and that, accordingly, must somehow be combined for a more complete model of expression meaning (e.g., Beltagy et al 2013;Erk 2013;Asher et al 2016;Boleda and Herbelot 2016). For instance, in these works the vectors of distributional semantics are regarded as capturing lexical or conceptual aspects of meaning but not, or insufficiently so, truth conditions, reference, entailment and compositionality -and vice versa for formal semantics.…”