Natural language understanding and Montague grammar1, 2
Per‐Kristian Halvorsen · Computational Intelligence · 1986
This paper reevaluates some of the contributions of Montague grammar in view of the increasing importance of computational considerations in linguistic theory and the demand for linguistic theories that can provide support in the design of natural language systems. It also considers Montague grammar in relation to work on lexical semantics and semantic nets. In this perspective the techniques of Montague grammar for systematically linking syntactic form and a model‐theoretic semantics emerge as the most significant feature of the theory, while a number of the specific semantic assumptions recede in importance. Yet, with different ways of thinking about the structure mapping between levels of linguistic form and interpretations (e.g., constraint systems), we can also implement this connection using different techniques from what Montague had at his disposal.