Section: Research Program

Symbolic Logic

Symbolic logic (and, more particularly, proof-theory) is concerned with the study of the expressive and deductive power of formal systems. In a rule-based approach to computational linguistics, the use of symbolic logic is ubiquitous. As we previously said, at the level of syntax, several kinds of grammars (generative, categorial...) may be seen as basic deductive systems. At the level of semantics, the meaning of an utterance is captured by computing (intermediate) semantic representations that are expressed as logical forms. Finally, using symbolic logics allows one to formalize notions of inference and entailment that are needed at the level of pragmatics.