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<td width=25%><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/type-logical-syntax"><img src="cover.jpg" width=200 height=200 alt="Type-Logical Syntax book cover"></a></td>
<td><b><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/type-logical-syntax" style="color:#FCFCFC">Type-Logical Syntax</a></b><br><br>
A novel logic-based framework for representing the syntax–semantics interface of natural language, applicable to a range of phenomena.
The open access edition of this book was made possible by generous funding from Arcadia – a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin.
In this book, Yusuke Kubota and Robert Levine propose a type-logical version of categorial grammar as a viable alternative model of natural language syntax and semantics. They show that this novel logic-based framework is applicable to a range of phenomena—especially in the domains of coordination and ellipsis—that have proven problematic for traditional approaches.
The type-logical syntax the authors propose takes derivations of natural language sentences to be proofs in a particular kind of logic governing the way words and phrases are combined. This logic builds on and unifies two deductive systems from the tradition of categorial grammar; the resulting system, Hybrid Type-Logical Categorial Grammar (Hybrid TLCG) enables comprehensive approaches to coordination (gapping, dependent cluster coordination, and right-node raising) and ellipsis (VP ellipsis, pseudogapping, and extraction/ellipsis interaction). It captures a number of intricate patterns of interaction between scopal operators and seemingly incomplete constituents that are frequently found in these two empirical domains. Kubota and Levine show that the hybrid calculus underlying their framework incorporates key analytic ideas from competing approaches in the generative syntax literature to offer a unified and systematic treatment of data that have posed considerable difficulties for previous accounts. Their account demonstrates that logic is a powerful tool for analyzing the deeper principles underlying the syntax and semantics of natural language.</td>
</table>
#### Research interests:
Syntax, syntax-semantics interface, mathematical linguistics,
deductive calculi and their empirical applications, categorial grammar
#### [CV](abridged-cv.pdf)
#### Recent work
- 2022 . (with Yusuke Kubota). Embedded-complement and discontinuous
pseudogapping in Hybrid Type-Logical Grammar: a rejoinder to Kim and Runner (2022). *The Linguistic Review*. (online). [PDF](https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/006741)
- 2021a. (with Yusuke Kubota). The logic of the English auxiliary
system. To appear in *Logical Aspects of Computational Linguistics
10*. (https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/006040). Berlin: Springer Verlag/Foundation for Logic, Language and Information.
- 2021b . (with Yusuke Kubota). NPI licensing and the logic of the syntax-semantics
interface. *Linguistic Research* 38.2.151-205. [PDF](publications/Kubota_Levine_logic_of_NPIs_LR.pdf)
- 2020 . (with Yusuke Kubota). *Type-Logical Syntax.* Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- 2019a . (with Yusuke Kubota). Modal auxiliaries and negation: a type-logical
account. In *Logic, Language, Information and Computation* (Lecture
Notes on Computer Science 11541), ed. by Rosalie Iemhoff, Michael
Moortgat and Ruy de Queiroz. Berlin: Springer/Foundation for Logic, Language and Information
[PDF](publications/modals_wollic.pdf)
- 2019b . (with Yusuke Kubota, Koji Mineshima, and Daisuke
Bekki). Underspecification and interpretive parallelism in
Dependent Type Semantics. *Proceedings of the IWCS 2019 Workshop on
Computing Semantics with Types, Frames and Related
Structures.* 1–9. [PDF](publications/Gothenburg2019.pdf)
- 2018 . 'Biolinguistics': some foundational problems. *Essays on Linguistic Realism*,
ed. by Christina Behme and Martin Neef. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 21--60.[PDF](publications/Levine_Braunschweig.pdf)
- 2017a . (with Yusuke Kubota). Pseudogapping as pseudo-VP
ellipsis. *Linguistic
Inquiry* 48.213--257. [PDF](publications/KL_Pseudogapping-LI-version.pdf)
- 2017b . (with Yusuke Kubota). Scope parallelism in coordination in
Dependent Type Semantics. In *New Frontiers in Artificial
Intelligence*. Berlin: Springer Verlag. 79--92. [PDF](publications/kl-lenls2015.pdf)
- 2017c . *Syntactic Argumentation: an
HPSG-based approach. * Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press
(Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics).
- 2016a . (with Yusuke Kubota). Gapping as hypothetical reasoning.
*Natural Language and Linguistic Theory*
34.107--156. [PDF](publications/kl-gapping.pdf)
- 2016b . (with Yusuke Kubota). The syntax-semantic interface of *respective*
predication: a unified analysis in Hybrid Type-Logical Categorial
Grammar. (with Yusuke Kubota). *Natural Language and Linguistic
Theory* 34.911--973. [PDF](publications/kl-resp.pdf)
- 2015 . (with Yusuke Kubota). Against ellipsis: Arguments for the
direct licensing of 'non-canonical' coordinations. *Linguistics &
Philosophy* 38.521--576.[PDF](publications/kl-coord.pdf)
- 2014a . (with Yusuke Kubota). Unifying local and nonlocal modelling
of 'respective' and symmetrical predicates. In *Formal Grammar*,
ed. by Glynn Morrill and Rainer Osswald. Lecture Notes on Computer
Science 8612. Heidelberg: Springer Verlag/Foundation for Logic, Language and
Information. [PDF](publications/resp-fg-paper.pdf)
- 2014b . (with Yusuke Kubota).
Pseudogapping as pseudo-VP ellipsis.
In Nicholas Asher and Sergei Soloviev (eds.),
*Logical Aspects of Computational Linguistics 2014*.
122--137. Berlin: Springer Verlag/Foundation for Logic, Language and Information [PDF](publications/kl-pseudo.pdf)
- 2014c . (with Yusuke Kubota). The scope anomaly of Gapping. In
*Proceedings of the Northeastern Linguistics Society* 44.247--260,
ed. Jyoti Iyer and Leland
Kusmer. [PDF](publications/levine_14_The-scope-anomaly.pdf)
- 2013a. The modal *need* VP gap
(non)anomaly. In *Beyond* <strong>ever</strong> *and* <strong>any</strong>:
*New Perspectives on Negative Polarity Sensitivity*,
ed. by Eva Csipak, Regine Eckhardt, Mingya Liu, and Manfred Sailer,
pp. 241--265. Berlin: Mouton de
Gruyter. [PDF](publications/mouton-template_need.pdf)
- 2013b. (with Yusuke Kubota). Determiner Gapping as higher order discontinuous
constituency. In *Formal Grammar*,
ed. by Glynn Morrill and Mark-Jan Nederhof. *Lecture Notes on Computer
Science* 8036. Heidelberg: Springer/Foundation for Logic, Language and
Information. [PDF](publications/kl-determiner-gapping.pdf)
- 2012a . (with Yusuke Kubota). Gapping as like-category
coordination. *Lecture Notes on Computer Science.* 7351, ed. by
Denis Béchet and Alexander Dikovsky, 135--150. Berlin: Springer Verlag/Foundation for Logic, Language and Information. [PDF](publications/gapping-lacl-published.pdf)
- 2012b . Auxiliaries: *to*'s company. *Journal of Linguistics*
48.187--203. [PDF](publications/Levine_auxiliary_to.pdf)
- 2010 . The *ass* camouflage construction: masks as parasitic
heads. *Language*
86.265--301. [PDF](publications/Levine_on_ASS_camouflage.pdf)
#### Current research
My current work comprises a set of interlocking research projects
which amplify and extend my central focus on proof-theoretic
formalisms in both syntax and semantics. This program includes
the following projects:
<ul>
<li>Empirically based investigations of type-logical categorial
grammar (TLCG) using a combined Abstract Categorial Grammar/Lambek
calculus foundation with independent λ-calculi for both
prosodic and semantic proof terms and an innovative hybrid
implicational logic (Kubota & Levine 2012, 2013a,b, 2015, 2016a,b,
2017a,2020). We present an application of this hybrid logic to
yield a simple analysis of Gapping as like-category coordination
(Kubota & Levine 2016a), as part of a full-scale unitary treatment
of all major 'non-constituent' coordination phenomena (Kubota &
Levine 2015); other work on the syntax/semantics interface carried
out in our research program appears in Kubota & Levine 2016a,b,
2017a, 2020.</li>
<li>Development of a wide-ranging approach to ellipsis phenomena
employing Hybrid TLCG along the lines of Kubota & Levine 2017a, 2020, and
its interaction with the syntax and semantics of extraction.</li>
<li>Exploration of the role of proof-theoretic semantics, in
particular, Dependent Type Semantics along the lines of Ranta and
Bekki, in providing an empirically adequate formal framework for the
interpretive component of type-logical proof terms; Kubota & Levine
2017b and Kubota, Minishima, Bekki and Levine 2019b illustrate the
application of a particular dependent type formalism to the
notorious 'Geach scope parallelism' problem posed by Right Node
Raising (and other coordination phenomena).</li>
<li> Syntactic conditions on polarity item distribution; ramifications
of the apparently anomalous entanglement of NPI and auxiliary
properties in the distribution of modal *need*, described in Levine
2013a, and extension of the polarity behavior of *need* (and, more
weakly, *dare*) to the full range of modal auxiliaries as the basis
for a principled account of their scopal interaction with negation
(Kubota and Levine 2019a).</li>
<li> Fundamental issues in grammatical theory; formal foundations and
well-foundedness of hybrid type logics incorporating both Lambek
and λ-implicational connectives and the possible embedding of
such logics in first-order linear logic with only a single mode of linear
implication, by means of a rich phenoterm subtyping, as per ongoing
work by Chris Worth and Jordan Needle.</li>
</ul>
#### Contact information
Office: 024B Oxley Hall, 1712 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210-1298
Office phone \#: (614) 292-2217
Email: levine.1@osu.edu
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