Generalized quantifiers and discontinuous type constructors
Michael Moortgat · 1996
1 A sign-based categorial framework This paper investigates discontinuous type constructors within the framework of a signbased generalization of categorial type calculi. The paper takes its inspiration from Oehrle’s (1988) work on generalized compositionality for multidimensional linguistic objects, and, we hope, may establish a bridge between work in Unification Categorial Grammar or HPSG, and the research that views categorial grammar from the perspective of substructural type logics. Categorial sequents are represented as composed of multidimensional signs, modelled as tuples of the form 〈Type, Semantics, Syntax〉 They simultaneously characterize the semantic and structural properties of linguistic objects in terms of a type-assignment labelled with semantic information (a lambda term) and structural, syntactic information. As argued elsewhere (Moortgat 1988), the structural information refers to phonological structuring of linguistic material, rather than to syntactic structure in the conventional sense. For the purposes of this paper, structural information is simplified to a string description.