In this paper we present a paraconsistent abdutive semantics for extended normal logic programs, the paraconsistent minimal hypotheses semantics MHP . The MHP is a semantics of total paraconsistent models wich combines the merits of two already existing semantics: it inherits the existence property of the abductive minimal hypotheses semantics MH [1], which is a semantics of total models, and the property of detection of support on contradiction of the paraconsistent well-founded semantics with explicit negation WFSXP [2], which is a semantics of partial paraconsistent models. The MHP enjoys also the property of simple relevance, which permits top-down query answering for brave reasoning purposes. Besides, the MHP lends itself to various types of skeptical and brave reasoning, which include the possibility of drawing conclusions from inconsistent models in a nontrivial way. The MHP coincides with the MH on normal logic programs, and with the WFSXP on stratified extended programs.

Nesta tese observa-se o papel que a semântica e a pragmática desempenham, na gramática inicial (early grammar) da interlíngua de falantes de português, na compreensão de textos em inglês e em espanhol nos quais se relatam eventos passados e se empregam as oposições Present Perfect x Past Simple e Pretérito Perfecto x Pretérito Indefinido. Assumimos (MICHAELLIS, 1998) que um dos valores mais fortes das formas compostas dessas duas línguas é o resultativo e que como o português, na maioria das vezes, expressa o resultado de outros modos, o aprendiz vê naquelas apenas uma maneira de expressar ações passadas. Em função disso, ao analisar a estrutura da língua estrangeira, acaba atribuindo aos tempos compostos de ambas os valores aspectuais das perífrases [TER+Particípio] e [ESTAR+Gerúndio] do português, que em muitos casos não coincide com os valores das formas perifrásticas das línguas que estão aprendendo. Enquanto as perífrases da língua estrangeira têm o aspecto perfectivo resultativo, as do português têm valor imperfectivo continuativo. Tal fato, que afeta a compreensão do texto, não é percebido pelos aprendizes. Estes analisam primeiramente a sintaxe da língua-alvo (top-down procedure, Liceras...

Esta tese, organizada em três partes, objetiva recuperar o Ensaio de Semântica de Michel Bréal evidenciando a importância de suas idéias para a Lingüística Moderna, para a Semântica e para a Pragmática, e a aplicabilidade da sua teoria na descrição da Língua Portuguesa, em sua modalidade escrita. Na primeira parte deste trabalho, apresenta-se o teor do ensaio, conforme a terceira edição publicada em 1904. Para tanto, parte-se de uma interpretação que relaciona as propostas brealinas àquelas elaboradas pelas disciplinas lingüísticas mais vulgarizadas no Brasil, de modo a comprovar a atualidade e a importância das propostas do ES. Em seguida, a reflexão volta-se para as questões do significado, a fim de demonstrar como semanticistas e pragmatistas têm entendido e interpretado as propostas do fundador da semântica. Esta análise, apresentada na segunda parte da tese, evidencia, de um lado, a importância de suas idéias para os estudos da significação e, de outro, a ausência de trabalhos nos quais haja aplicação prática de seus postulados. Ilustrando como suas propostas podem contribuir para a descrição de determinados fenômenos semânticos da Língua Portuguesa, na terceira parte da tese, sua teoria é empregada na análise de dois textos jornalísticos: um escrito em português brasileiro e outro em português europeu.; This thesis tries to revive Michel Bréal´s Essay of Semantics supporting the importance of it´s ideas for Modern Linguistics in general...

Prosoft é um grupo de pesquisa do Instituto de Informática da UFRGS, desenvolvido pelo grupo de pesquisa homônimo e coordenado pelo Professor Daltro José Nunes. O objetivo do projeto é desenvolver um ambiente de desenvolvimento de software completo, o Ambiente Prosoft, que é baseado nos conceitos de Modelos, Cálculo Lambda, Tipos Abstratos de Dados e Orientação a Objetos. Um dos componentes do Ambiente Prosoft é sua linguagem de especificação algébrica: o Prosoft Algébrico. Apesar de ser base e tema de diversos trabalhos no grupo de pesquisa Prosoft, o Prosoft Algébrico não tem sua semântica devidamente definida. Os trabalhos desenvolvidos até agora foram baseados em noções operacionais, e apresentam diferentes interpretações do Prosoft Algébrico. Esta dissertação apresenta uma especificação de semântica denotacional para o Prosoft Algébrico, compreendendo, entre outras características, sua primitiva de comunicação entre tipos de dados, chamada ICS, e sua notação gráfica para representação de instanciação de tipos abstratos de dados. Essa dissertação apresenta também um estudo sobre prototipação semântica usando a linguagem de programação Haskell. O conceito de Literate Programming e a proximidade entre Cálculo Lambda e Haskell foram cruciais no rápido desenvolvimento de uma implementação protótipo do Prosoft Algébrico...

Esta dissertação, inscrita no projeto História das Idéias Lingüísticas no Brasil, teve como objetivo estudar alguns aspectos da configuração da semântica argumentativa em produções de Carlos Vogt e Eduardo Guimarães,em torno das décadas de 1970e 1980. Neste estudo, realizei análises sobre o nome semântica argumentativa ao lado de outros nomes de teoria presentes nas produções destes autores. Estas análises permitiram uma compreensão sobre a estabilização do nome semântica argumentativa em seus estudos e, ao mesmo tempo, sobre os sentidos deste nome em movimento. Este funcionamento da semântica argumentativa enquanto um nome de teoria estabilizado com sentidos em movimento é compreendido a partir de relações interdiscursivas produzidas por condições materiais específicas: condições históricas gerais da produção do conhecimento sobre a linguagem e condições históricas específicas ao domínio da semântica argumentativa,na relação com as instituições onde as pesquisas dos autores foram produzidas; This thesis, part of the History of Linguistic Ideas in Brazil project, studies aspects of the argumentative semantics in works of Carlos Vogt and Eduardo Guimarães, that was produced during the 1970s and 1980s. This study analyses the name argumentative semantics...

Denotational semantics is a powerful technique to formally define programming languages. However, language constructs are not always orthogonal, so many semantic equations in a definition may have to be aware of unrelated constructs semantics. Current approaches for modularity in this formalism do not address this problem, providing, for this reason, tangled semantic definitions. This paper proposes an incremental approach for denotational semantic specifications, in which each step can either add new features or adapt existing equations, by means of a formal language based on function transformation and aspect weaving.

Trabalho apresentado no âmbito do Doutoramento em Informática, como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Doutor em Informática; After a very brief introduction to the general subject of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning with Logic Programs we analyse the syntactic structure of a logic program and how it can influence the semantics. We outline the important properties of a 2-valued semantics for Normal Logic Programs, proceed to define the new Minimal Hypotheses semantics with those properties and explore how it can be used to benefit some knowledge representation and reasoning mechanisms. The main original contributions of this work, whose connections will be detailed in the sequel, are: • The Layering for generic graphs which we then apply to NLPs yielding the Rule Layering and Atom Layering — a generalization of the stratification notion; • The Full shifting transformation of Disjunctive Logic Programs into (highly nonstratified)NLPs; • The Layer Support — a generalization of the classical notion of support; • The Brave Relevance and Brave Cautious Monotony properties of a 2-valued semantics; • The notions of Relevant Partial Knowledge Answer to a Query and Locally Consistent Relevant Partial Knowledge Answer to a Query; • The Layer-Decomposable Semantics family — the family of semantics that reflect the above mentioned Layerings; • The Approved Models argumentation approach to semantics; • The Minimal Hypotheses 2-valued semantics for NLP — a member of the Layer-Decomposable Semantics family rooted on a minimization of positive hypotheses assumption approach; • The definition and implementation of the Answer Completion mechanism in XSB Prolog — an essential component to ensure XSB’s WAM full compliance with the Well-Founded Semantics; • The definition of the Inspection Points mechanism for Abductive Logic Programs;• An implementation of the Inspection Points workings within the Abdual system [21] We recommend reading the chapters in this thesis in the sequence they appear. However...

This thesis examines linguistic phenomena that implicate measurement in the nominal domain. The first is morphological number, as in one book vs. two books. Intuitively, the contrast between singular and plural forms of nouns finds its basis in whether or not some thing measures 1. Chapter 2 develops a formal account of morphological number centered around this measurement. Different classes of words and different languages employ different criteria to determine whether or not something measures 1 for the purpose of morphological singularity. The second component of the project takes a closer look at the semantics of quantizing nouns, or words that allow for the measurement or counting of individuals. Chapter 3 develops a typology of these quantizing nouns, identifying three classes of words: measure terms (e.g., kilo), container nouns (e.g., glass), and atomizers (e.g., grain), showing that each class yields a distinct interpretation on the basis of diverging structures and semantics. The third component of the project investigates our representations of measurement, modeled formally by degrees in the semantics. Chapter 4 accesses these representations of measurement through a case study of the word amount, which is shown to inhabit yet another class of quantizing noun: degree nouns. This case study motivates a new semantics for degrees. Formally...

Current work on semantics and questions of logic and meaning for syntactic systems in generative grammar.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rochester. Dept. of Computer Science, 1996. Simultaneously published in the Technical Report series.; Most natural language processing tasks require lexical semantic information such as verbal argument structure and selectional restrictions, corresponding nominal semantic class, verbal aspectual class, synonym and antonym relationships between words, and various verbal semantic features such as causation and manner. This dissertation addresses two primary questions related to such information: how should one represent it and how can one acquire it. It is argued that, in order to support inferencing, a representation with well-understood semantics should be used. Standard first order logic has well-understood semantics and a multitude of inferencing systems have been implemented for it. However, standard first order logic, although a good starting point, needs to be extended before it can efficiently and concisely support all the lexically-based inferences needed. Using data primarily from the TRAINS dialogues, the following extensions are argued for: modal operators, predicate modification, restricted quantification, and non-standard quantifiers. These representational tools are present in many systems for sentence-level semantics but have not been discussed in the context of lexical semantics. A number of approaches to automatic acquisition are considered and it is argued that a ``surface cueing' approach is currently the most promising. Morphological cueing...

Presented at The Second ACM SIGPLAN Workshop on Transactional Computing (TRANSACT 07), Portland, Oregon, August 16, 2007.; A high-level operational semantics for transactions can give transactions a precise meaning in the context of a programming language without exposing any details about how transactions are implemented. Such semantics give programmers a simple model and serve as a correctness criterion for transactional-memory implementations. This paper presents such a semantics for a simple [lambda]-calculus with shared memory, threads, and transactions. We use our approach to investigate two important aspects of a transactional programming language, namely spawning new threads (in particular, its interaction with transactions) and strong versus weak atomicity. For the former, we present a sound type system that ensures different ways of spawning threads are used correctly. For the latter, we use a different type system to prove the widely-held belief that if each mutable memory location is used outside transactions or inside transactions (but not both), then strong and weak atomicity are indistinguishable.

It has been widely suggested that memory transactions should behave as if they acquired and released a single global lock. Unfortunately, this behavior can be expensive to achieve, particularly when---as in the natural publication/privatization idiom---the same data are accessed both transactionally and nontransactionally. To avoid overhead, we propose selective strict serializability (SSS) semantics, in which transactions have a global total order, but nontransactional accesses are globally ordered only with respect to explicitly marked transactions. Our definition of SSS formally characterizes the permissible behaviors of an STM system without recourse to locks. If all transactions are marked, then SSS, single- lock semantics, and database-style strict serializability are equivalent. We evaluate several SSS implementations in the context of a TL2-like STM system. We also evaluate a weaker model, selective flow serializability (SFS), which is similar in motivation to the asymmetric lock atomicity of Menon et al. We argue that ordering-based semantics are conceptually preferable to lock-based semantics, and just as efficient.

The studies of meaning brought many internal and external controversies to the Linguistics, since the early thoughts from Plato and Aristotle in the old Greece. In the twentieth century, such discussions were intensified and built a polarization, in which there were the ones who defended the relevance of the studies on meaning, and the ones who believed to be impossible to develop those researches. In addition, the Linguistic Historiography is the approach developed in this thesis, in order to interpret the work Structural Semantics` theoretical productivity from the author Algirdas Julien Greimas, one of the linguists who defended vehemently the importance and legitimacy of the meaning analysis. Moreover, this guideline is justified due to the pertinence of this work in the linguistics setting, highlighted in different texts that deal with it as a watershed in the language studies. The Strcutural Semantics was published for the first time in French (1966), and it portrays surprisingly many aspects concerning the existing ideas in that period related to the meaning. Perhaps, Greimas lived in the most productive moment for the language studies of the twentieth century. Furthermore, it was in this period that Course in General Linguistics (Ferdinad de Saussure)...

peer-reviewed; Research on semantics in Genetic Programming (GP) has increased over the last number of years. Results in this area clearly indicate that its use in GP considerably increases performance. Many of these semantic-based approaches rely on a trial-and-error method that attempts to find offspring that are semantically different from their parents over a number of trials using the crossover operator (crossover-semantics based - CSB). This, in consequence, has a major drawback: these methods could evaluate thousands of nodes, resulting in paying a high computational cost, while attempting to improve performance by promoting semantic diversity. In this work, we propose a simple and computationally inexpensive method, named semantics in selection, that eliminates the computational cost observed in CSB approaches. We tested this approach in 14 GP problems, including continuous- and discrete-valued fitness functions, and compared it against a traditional GP and a CSB approach. Our results are equivalent, and in some cases, superior than those found by the CSB approach, without the necessity of using a “brute force” mechanism.

This dissertation develops a substitutional semantics for first-order (modal) logic which, unlike truth-value semantics, allows a fine-grained analysis of the semantical behaviour of the terms and predicates from which atomic formulae are composed. Moreover, it proposes a nondenotational philosophical foundation for the semantics of substitutional quantified (modal) logic.; Diese Arbeit präsentiert eine substitutionelle Semantik für die (modale) Prädikatenlogik erster Stufe, die im Gegensatz zur Wahrheitswertsemantik (oder Bewertungssemantik) eine feinkörnige Analyse des semantischen Verhaltens der Terme und der Prädikate erlaubt, aus denen atomare Formeln zusammengesetzt sind. Zudem wird in dieser Arbeit eine nichtdenotationelle philosophische Grundlegung für die Semantik der substitutionell quantifizierten (modalen) Logik vorgeschlagen.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.; In an attempt to bring the ML-style type inference to the C programming language, Smith and Volpano developed a type system for a dialect of C, called PolyC SmV96a SmV95b. PolyC extends C with ML-style polymorphism and a limited form of higher-order function. Smith and Volpano proved a type soundness theorem that basically says that evaluation of a well-typed PolyC program cannot fail due to a type mismatch. The type soundness proof is based on an operational characterization of a special kind of semantic formulation called a natural semantics. This thesis presents an alternative semantic formulation, called a transition semantics, that could be used in place of the natural semantics to prove type soundness. The primary advantage of the transition semantics is that it eliminates the extra operational level, but the disadvantage is that it consists of many more evaluation rules than the natural semantics. Thus it is unclear whether it is a suitable alternative to the two-level approach of Smith and Volpano. Further, the thesis gives the first full type inference algorithm for the type system of PolyC. Despite implicit variable dereferencing found in PolyC, the algorithm turns out to be a rather straight-forward extension of Damas and Milner's algorithm W DaM82. The algorithm has been implemented as an attribute grammar in Grammatech's SSL and a complete source code listing is given in the Appendix; http://archive.org/details/typeinferencealg00zgen; Lieutenant Junior Grade...

In event semantics, manner adverbs are analysed as 'predicates of events'. However, many such event predicates have variants that apply to individuals instead of events; e.g. : 'to answer the question stupidly' vs. 'a stupid person'. The thesis investigates the question of how these pervasive and systematic alternations can be explained, and in doing so aims at supplementing the neo-Davidsonian theory of adverbial modification with a lexical-semantic account of the modifiers. One and the same underlying adjective usually gives rise to a whole range of different adverbial uses. The exact range of variants is found to be conditioned by the lexical-semantic class of the adjective. Hence, a second topic dealt with in detail is the identification and semantic analysis of a number of 'borderline' adverb types which are different from manner adverbs but still raise the question of whether they might be event-related. After an introduction that motivates the general approach, chapter 2 discusses various theoretical issues concerning the lexical status of adverbs. Chapter 3 introduces the class of resultative adverbs and argues that they constitute a kind of event-related modifier that arises via lexical shift from a predicate of individuals. Chapter 4 discusses individual-level adjectives like 'stupid' and their adverbial uses...

No século XX tivemos um considerável avanço sobre o entendimento formal do significado das modalidades. Os trabalhos de Jónsson, McKinsey e Tarski na década de quarenta permitiram a construção dos resultados de completude algébrica para os sistemas modais. Estes resultados, porém, não receberam a devida atenção. Na década de cinqüenta, Kripke propôs uma semântica interessante para estes sistemas. Tal semântica, hoje conhecida como semântica de Kripke ou semântica dos mundos possíveis, causou um grande impacto no âmbito da filosofia analítica. Os artigos escritos por Lemmon na década de 60 têm por objetivo apresentar uma síntese destas duas semânticas. Um interessante resultado mostrado nestes artigos c que a completude semântica pode ser deduzida de resultados algébricos por meio de um teorema central. Um dos resultados mais surpreendente e interessante do trabalho do Lemmon é o teorema da representação. Esse teorema de representação para a lógica modal tem como conseqüência a conexão entre o ponto de vista algébrico e o ponto de vista da semântica dos mundos possíveis (ou semântica de Kripke). O objetivo inicial do presente trabalho era estender este mesmo resultado algébrico para os sistemas da classe "Gmnpq" proposta por Lemmon e Scott nas "Lemmon notes". Argumentaremos que as semânticas algébricas para as lógicas modais podem servir de base para respostas às diversas críticas direcionadas ao desenvolvimento da lógica modal. Mostraremos...

The increasing pervasiveness of computing services in everyday life, combined with the dynamic nature of their execution contexts, constitutes a major challenge in guaranteeing theexpected quality of such services at runtime. Quality of Service (QoS) contracts have been proposed to specify expected quality levels (QoS levels) on different context conditions, with different enforcing mechanisms. In this paper we present a definition for QoS contracts as a high-level policy for governing the behavior of software systems that self-adapt at runtime in response to context changes. To realize this contract definition, we specify its formal semantics and implement it in a software framework able to execute and reconfigure software applications, in order to maintain fulfilled their associated QoS contracts. The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, we extend typed-attributed graph transformation systems and finite-state machines, and use them as denotations to specify the semantics of QoS contracts. Second, this semantics makes it possible to systematically exploit design patterns at runtime by dynamically deploying them in the managed software applicaion. Third, our semantics guarantees self-adaptive properties suchas reliability and robustness in the contract satisfaction. Finally...

According to some philosophers, sentences like (1) “It is raining” and (2) “John is ready” are context sensitive sentences even if they do not contain indexicals or demonstratives. That view initiated a context sensitivity frenzy. Cappelen and Lepore (2005) summarize the frenzy by the slogan “Every sentence is context sensitive” (Insensitive Semantics, p. 6, note 5). They suggest a view they call Minimalism according to which the truth conditions of utterances of sentences like (1)/(2) are exactly what Convention T gives you. I will distinguish different propositions, and refocus semantics on sentences. As distinct from what the protagonists in the ongoing debate think, I argue that the content or truth conditions of utterances of both context sensitive sentences and sentences like (1)/(2) are not interesting from a semantic point of view, and that the problem sentences like (1)/(2) raises is not about context sensitivity or context insensitivity of sentences, but relevance of the content of utterances.; De acordo com alguns filósofos, sentenças como (1) “Está chovendo” e (2) “João está pronto” são sentenças sensíveis ao contexto mesmo não contendo dêiticos ou demonstrativos. Tal concepção deu início a uma intensa atividade no que diz respeito a sensibilidade ao contexto. Cappelen e Lepore (2005) resumem essa agitação por meio do slogan “Toda sentença é sensível ao contexto” (Insensitive Semantics...