A Compositional Treatment of Polysemous Arguments in Categorial Grammar

We discuss an extension of the standard logical rules (functional application and abstraction) in Categorial Grammar (CG), in order to deal with some specific cases of polysemy. We borrow from Generative Lexicon theory which proposes the mechanism of {\em coercion}, next to a rich nominal lexical semantic structure called {\em qualia structure}. In a previous paper we introduced coercion into the framework of {\em sign-based} Categorial Grammar and investigated its impact on traditional Fregean compositionality. In this paper we will elaborate on this idea, mostly working towards the introduction of a new semantic dimension. Where in current versions of sign-based Categorial Grammar only two representations are derived: a prosodic one (form) and a logical one (modelling), here we introduce also a more detaled representation of the lexical semantics. This extra knowledge will serve to account for linguistic phenomena like {\em metonymy\/}.

Bridging as Coercive Accommodation

In this paper we discuss the notion of "bridging" in Discourse Representation Theory as a tool to account for discourse referents that have only been established implicitly, through the lexical semantics of other referents. In doing so, we use ideas from Generative Lexicon theory, to introduce antecedents for anaphoric expressions that cannot be "linked" to a proper antecedent, but that do not need to be "accommodated" because they have some connection to the network of discourse referents that is already established.