LINGUIST List 15.1972

Thu Jul 1 2004

Diss: Comp Ling/Ling Theories: Schalley: 'The...'

Editor for this issue: Takako Matsui <takolinguistlist.org>

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1. andrea.schalley, The Unified Eventity Representation (UER)...

Institution: University of Munich
Program: Institute of Theoretical Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2003

Author: Andrea C Schalley 

Dissertation Title: The Unified Eventity Representation (UER): A
UML-Based Representational Framework for Verbal Semantics

Linguistic Field: Computational Linguistics, Linguistic Theories,
Semantics, Cognitive Science

Dissertation Director 1: Dietmar Zaefferer
Dissertation Director 2: Leila Behrens

Dissertation Abstract:
 
To date, rigorous approaches to the representation of verbal semantics
and lexical semantics in general have not put much effort into
achieving cognitive adequacy for their frameworks. This dissertation
set out to take a major step in this direction. A representational
framework for verbal semantics is developed that is formal and
intuitive at the same time. This is tantamount to proposing a
framework that is computer processable on the one hand, and whose
representations reflect the wealth and flexibility of natural language
in an intuitively plausible way and in accordance with our current
knowledge about natural language on the other hand.

A new decompositional framework for the modeling of verbal semantics
is proposed, the Unified Eventity Representation (UER). The
development of the framework is based on results from theoretical and
typological linguistics, psychology, and computer science. In
particular, the UER framework adapts and adopts the current lingua
franca for the design of object-oriented systems in computer science,
the Unified Modeling Language (UML). Different from other formal
approaches to lexical semantics, it is neither logical nor functional
in nature, but uses a third paradigm reflected in programming
languages: Object-orientation is introduced as a new paradigm to
linguistic semantics, and thus a completely new way to a formal
treatment of verbal semantics is opened up.