19 May: DCLRS -- Friday, May 20, 2005 -- Mark Steedman
Dublin Computational Linguistics Research Seminar: Index of May 2005 | Dublin Computational Linguistics Research Seminar - Index of year: 2005 | Full index
[CV: NOTE THE CHANGE OF LOCATION]
+---------------------------------------------------------+
/| Dublin Computational Linguistics Research Seminar |
/| DCLRS 2004/2005 |
/| DCU TCD UCD |
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Speaker: Professor Mark Steedman, University of Edinburgh
venue: Arts Building Room 2037
Trinity College, University of Dublin
time: 4:00-6:00, Friday, May 20, 2005.
title:
The Calculus of Affordance
abstract:
This paper analyzes temporal semantics for natural language in terms
of a calculus developed for planning and reasoning about action. The
calculus depends on two fundamental operation, namely composition of
actions into sequences, and type-lifting or the relation of objects to
their "affordances"---that is, the actions that they afford or make
possible. An event calculus with these properties based on Linear
Dynamic Logic, and on instantaneous changes rather than intervals,
provides a transparent basis for planning of the reactive,
forward-chaining kind available to higher animals.
I have argued elsewhere that composition and type-raising offer a
universal combinatory basis for a leicalized theory of natural
language syntax. Here I shall argue that a related calculus provides
a helpful basis for temporal semantics, analysing including English
tenses and aspects, Navaho de-verbal nouns, and English causal and
de-nominal verbs in those terms.
In some asides, I shall touch on a very long neuropsychological
tradition linking the two domains of motor planning and syntax in
evolutionary and developmental terms.
Mark Steedman
School of Informatics
University of Edinburgh
2 Buccleuch Place
EDINBURGH, EH8 9LW
Scotland, United Kingdom
email: steedman@inf.ed.ac.uk
tel: (0)131 650 4631
Fax: (0)131 650 6626
www: http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/~steedman/home.html
Dublin Computational Linguistics Research Seminar - Index of May 2005 | Index of year: 2005 | Full index