Maryam Ramezankhani
Abstract
The present paper aimed at discussing the possibility of formalizing the sense relation of hyponymy. In order to do so, the research applied mathematical tools borrowed from set theory and algebra. Firstly, it went over the definitions of the sense relation in question presented in linguistic dictionaries ...
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The present paper aimed at discussing the possibility of formalizing the sense relation of hyponymy. In order to do so, the research applied mathematical tools borrowed from set theory and algebra. Firstly, it went over the definitions of the sense relation in question presented in linguistic dictionaries and also semantics’ text books. The definitions show that hyponymy between two words might be based on type, time or both. That is an important feature of hyponymy which the present research takes into account while trying to introduce a formal translation. Next, the paper presented a formal expression corresponding the sense relation of hyponymy, mostly using the fundamental concepts from set theory such a subset, conjunction, disjunction, etc. Finally, the efficiency and correctness of the introduced formal translations were examined using some examples of natural language which is Farsi in this case. The expression proved to be consistent with what we expect according to the way hyponymy works in natural language.
Maryam Ramezankhani
Abstract
The present paper studies the possibility of translating “sense relations” in the level of sentences into formal expressions. In so doing, it applies the mathematical logic, especially the logic of propositions within the constraints of sufficient Farsi examples. That is, firstly, a definition ...
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The present paper studies the possibility of translating “sense relations” in the level of sentences into formal expressions. In so doing, it applies the mathematical logic, especially the logic of propositions within the constraints of sufficient Farsi examples. That is, firstly, a definition for each relation in sentence level is presented. Secondly, using the tools of propositional logic, a formal translation for each relation is offered. Then, each of the proposed relation is shown to be in accordance with its corresponding sense relation; finally, the efficiency of the formal expression is tested by examples from Farsi. The sense relations discussed are as follows: entailment, contradiction, inference, and presupposition. The author concluded that the sense relation of “synonymy” is, basically, impossible to be translated into formal expression since there are no two sentences in any language that can be considered “synonymous”. Thus, no formal translation can be proposed for “synonymy” in the sentence level.
