A Process Algebraic Approach to Situation Semantics.pdf

A Process Algebraic Approach to Situation SemanticsTsutomu Fujinami (IMS, Universitat Stuttgart)Abstract: We propose a way to base Situation Semantic to a computational groundof concurrency and to linear logic. One of the core ideas of Situation Semantics isecological realism, the idea that meaning arises from the interaction between a cog-nitive agent and his/her environments. We model both the agent and environmentsas a process and study the interaction as a system of communicating processes. Weturn to the -calculus to construct semantic objects employed in Situation TheoreticDiscourse Representation Theory (ST-DRT). The construction helps us relate ST-DRTwith linear logic, through our translation of the calculus to a combinatory intuition-istic linear logic. The multiplicative conjunction then enables us to build up varioussemantic objects as a theory. By conceiving of linear logic as a theory of information ow, we can establish a connection between Channel Theory and ST-DRT.1 IntroductionProcess algebra has been being developed in Computer Science to study commu-nication and concurrency.1 The paper proposes one way to apply the techniqueto natural language semantics. Philosophically, the approach may be justied asa development from Situation Theory [Barwise and Perry 1983]. It is argued inthe theory that the meaning of sentences is the relation between the situationwhere the sentence is uttered and the situation it describes. Channel Theory, arecent development from Situation Theory, enables us to rene the relation to apair of notions, connection and constraint [Barwise 1993, Seligman and Barwise1993]. That is, the relation between a particular utterance and the situationdescribed can be regarded as a connection. As a constraint, of which the con-nection is an instance, we can take the relation between the sentence type of theutterance and the situation type of the described situation. Statically, classifyingthe connection as an instance of a constraint is e