Professor of Linguistics, Ohio State University <table border=0 cellspace=0 cellpadding=0> <tr><td colspan=2>New book out from MIT Press (see Barker review in *Journal of Linguistics*: [PDF](publications/Barker_review_of_Type-Logical_Syntax.pdf))</td></tr> <tr style="background-color:#7B7637;color:#ffffff;"> <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> <a href=UE.pdf>Irish English and the Status of Intermediate Traces</a> #### 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* &nbsp;VP gap (non)anomaly. In *Beyond* &nbsp;<strong>ever</strong> *and* <strong>any</strong>: *New Perspectives on Negative Polarity Sensitivity*, &nbsp;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, &nbsp;ed. by Denis B&eacute;chet 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 &#955;-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 &#955;-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