Generating Pragmatically Appropriate Sentences from Logic: The Case of the Conditional and Biconditional

Renhao Pei; Kees van Deemter

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-21780-7_8

Generating Pragmatically Appropriate Sentences from Logic: The Case of the Conditional and Biconditional

Renhao Pei^*, Kees van Deemter

^*Corresponding author for this work

Sub Natural Language Processing

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

It is widely assumed that there exist mismatches between the connectives of Propositional Logic and their counterparts in Natural Language. One mismatch that has been extensively discussed is Conditional Perfection, the phenomenon in which a conditional sentence is interpreted as a biconditional under some circumstances. The Pragmatics literature has provided valuable insights into the question of whether Conditional Perfection will happen in a given context. In order to make these insights more explicit and testable, we designed an algorithm to generate pragmatically more appropriate sentences from propositional logical formulas involving material implication and biconditional implication. This algorithm was tested in an evaluation by human participants, in which generated sentences are compared against those generated by a simple baseline algorithm. The evaluation results suggest that the designed algorithm generates better sentences, which capture the semantics of the logical formulas more faithfully.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Logic and Algorithms in Computational Linguistics, LACompLing 2021
Editors	Roussanka Loukanova, Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine, Reinhard Muskens
Place of Publication	Cham
Publisher	Springer
Pages	171-190
Number of pages	20
ISBN (Print)	9783031217791
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21780-7_8
Publication status	Published - 12 Mar 2023

Publication series

Name	Studies in Computational Intelligence
Volume	1081
ISSN (Print)	1860-949X
ISSN (Electronic)	1860-9503

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Keywords

Conditional perfection
Propositional logic
Natural language generation

Access to Document

10.1007/978-3-031-21780-7_8

978-3-031-21780-7_8Final published version, 220 KBLicence: Taverne

Cite this

Pei, R., & van Deemter, K. (2023). Generating Pragmatically Appropriate Sentences from Logic: The Case of the Conditional and Biconditional. In R. Loukanova, P. L. Lumsdaine, & R. Muskens (Eds.), Logic and Algorithms in Computational Linguistics, LACompLing 2021 (pp. 171-190). (Studies in Computational Intelligence; Vol. 1081). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21780-7_8

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abstract = "It is widely assumed that there exist mismatches between the connectives of Propositional Logic and their counterparts in Natural Language. One mismatch that has been extensively discussed is Conditional Perfection, the phenomenon in which a conditional sentence is interpreted as a biconditional under some circumstances. The Pragmatics literature has provided valuable insights into the question of whether Conditional Perfection will happen in a given context. In order to make these insights more explicit and testable, we designed an algorithm to generate pragmatically more appropriate sentences from propositional logical formulas involving material implication and biconditional implication. This algorithm was tested in an evaluation by human participants, in which generated sentences are compared against those generated by a simple baseline algorithm. The evaluation results suggest that the designed algorithm generates better sentences, which capture the semantics of the logical formulas more faithfully.",

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Pei, R & van Deemter, K 2023, Generating Pragmatically Appropriate Sentences from Logic: The Case of the Conditional and Biconditional. in R Loukanova, PL Lumsdaine & R Muskens (eds), Logic and Algorithms in Computational Linguistics, LACompLing 2021. Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol. 1081, Springer, Cham, pp. 171-190. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21780-7_8

Generating Pragmatically Appropriate Sentences from Logic: The Case of the Conditional and Biconditional. / Pei, Renhao; van Deemter, Kees.
Logic and Algorithms in Computational Linguistics, LACompLing 2021. ed. / Roussanka Loukanova; Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine; Reinhard Muskens. Cham: Springer, 2023. p. 171-190 (Studies in Computational Intelligence; Vol. 1081).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review

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Generating Pragmatically Appropriate Sentences from Logic: The Case of the Conditional and Biconditional

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