> My email is in my profile.

OK, I’ll email you if you want to continue this discussion elsewhere.

> https://champollion.hosting.nyu.edu

Looks interesting… where should I start reading?

> If I am correct in this assessment, then the next logical step from a conlang/auxlang perspective is: can we build a direct, unambiguous spoken grammar for this universal semantics framework? If so, then we will have achieved what Lojban failed to even attempt: unambiguous meaning.

Personally, I’m not sure if ‘unambiguous meaning’ is possible or even desirable. Even if formal semantics allows us to achieve complete unambiguity when it comes to grammatical categories (quantifiers, temporal and spatial setting, etc.), I think it would be exceedingly difficult to make every single lexeme completely unambiguous. And even if this were achieved, I’m not sure if such a language would even be usable by humans. Still, it would be an interesting experiment!

Oh I'm happy to continue this conversation here, although it's late where I am and I'll be going to bed soon, and HN threads are ephemeral. Feel free to email me if you'd like to actually collaborate on this.

> Looks interesting… where should I start reading?

IIRC he did some graduate summer schools that were recorded online and have attached lecture notes. Those plus the referenced papers would be a good place to start. The one in particular that I'm thinking of is, I believe, the Summer 2014 topic of "Integrating Montague Semantics and Event Semantics." That marriage of Davidsonian and Montague semantics into a single framework is, I believe, a universal theory of semantics. [It should be noted that he makes no such grandiose claims.]

> Personally, I’m not sure if ‘unambiguous meaning’ is possible or even desirable

By 'unambiguous meaning' I mean something more specific than the words alone imply. [I am aware of the irony.]

In computational semantics, the goal is to transform a parsing of a sentence into a logical statement (or in the case of a question, a query) about the world. For example, the sentence "every dog barks" would be translated into a logical statement of the form "for every dog there exists at least one barking event with that dog as the acting subject." Or rather a mathematical statement to that effect that I don't know how to render on HN.

But unfortunately in natural language even when a language is correctly parsed in terms of syntax--which is all Lojban seeks to accomplish--there are still many different possible semantic implications. For example, the sentence "Spot didn't bark" could mean

1. There is no event in which Spot has ever barked, or 2. In the case of a specific event, Spot did not bark.

English doesn't differentiate without clarification, e.g. "Spot never barks" or "Spot didn't bark that time." Lojban has universal and existential quantifiers, but their use is not mandated.

When I say I want unambiguous meaning, I mean something very specific: monoparsing of sentences to logical statements/semantic formalisms. There ought to be a one-to-one mapping between sentences in the language, and logical sentences in this universal formalism. The claims of those sentences could be as broad or narrow as desired, but there shouldn't be any ambiguity about what is being claimed.

> Feel free to email me if you'd like to actually collaborate on this.

Emailed, though I’m not sure how much time I’d actually have available to collaborate.

> The one in particular that I'm thinking of is, I believe, the Summer 2014 topic of "Integrating Montague Semantics and Event Semantics."

I’ll have a look at it, thanks!

> When I say I want unambiguous meaning, I mean something very specific: monoparsing of sentences to logical statements/semantic formalisms. There ought to be a one-to-one mapping between sentences in the language, and logical sentences in this universal formalism. The claims of those sentences could be as broad or narrow as desired, but there shouldn't be any ambiguity about what is being claimed.

OK, this makes far more sense. I still maintain there will be a lot of ambiguity, purely because the individual words themselves are ambiguous, but it’s an interesting goal nonetheless.

Well I'm working two jobs and beginning the process of fundraising a new startup, all while parenting two kids. I'll be lucky to have any time myself ;) But it's good to keep in contact with like-minded individuals, in case the opportunity arises to get some work done on it.

> OK, this makes far more sense. I still maintain there will be a lot of ambiguity, purely because the individual words themselves are ambiguous, but it’s an interesting goal nonetheless.

I think we are in agreement. There are two definitions of ambiguity in play here. There is logical ambiguity, which I want to eliminate, in which a sentence can be parsed in multiple, contradictory ways. And then there is ambiguity due to imprecision, in which words have broad meaning and without context or clarification a given sentence parsed to a single logical statement can nevertheless have multiple distinct interpretations. That's ok.

> I think we are in agreement. There are two definitions of ambiguity in play here. There is logical ambiguity, which I want to eliminate, in which a sentence can be parsed in multiple, contradictory ways. And then there is ambiguity due to imprecision, in which words have broad meaning and without context or clarification a given sentence parsed to a single logical statement can nevertheless have multiple distinct interpretations. That's ok.

Yeah, I can agree with all of this. (Although Anna Wierzbicka’s work on the ‘Natural Semantic Language’ is an attempt to control the latter sort of ambiguity… you might find it quite interesting, actually.)

Thanks, I'll check it out.

> But unfortunately in natural language even when a language is correctly parsed in terms of syntax--which is all Lojban seeks to accomplish--there are still many different possible semantic implications. For example, the sentence "Spot didn't bark" could mean

> 1. There is no event in which Spot has ever barked, or 2. In the case of a specific event, Spot did not bark.

Or maybe even a third case:

3. There exists an event in which Spot did not bark.

English pragmatic usage would make this interpretation rare, but you could still imagine a case in which it was valid.

For example, suppose that Spot normally barks 100% of the time (and never sleeps?).

Then there is a fortunate day in which Spot only barked 70% of the time, and was quiet 30% of the time.

Someone who witnessed this might say "Spot didn't bark [today]!" to emphasize the unusual event, even though Spot did bark the majority of the time on that day.

I just mean to distinguish this from your second case because I think in the second case the "specific event" is possibly already one which is known to the listener or already under discussion.

My intended reading of (2) is the same as your (3), but that just goes to show how ill suited English is for making these sorts of exact inferences.

I guess I was distinguishing them in terms of whether the event in question has already previously been specified, or is being newly introduced and specified now.

> for every dog there exists at least one barking event with that dog as the acting subject

Just to wrap my head around your definition of universal and unambiguous here. If the language cant nail down the definition of dog to something all parties agree on, would the claim still be unambigous?

Yes, as explained in my other comment down thread. All parties would agree on the logical claim being made “for-each dog, exists event { dog did bark }”. There could be multiple interpretations of this claim using alternative or stretched definitions of the words “dog” or “bark,” but the logical structure would be unambiguous.