--- title: "An Algebra for Semantic Construction in Constraint-based Grammars — Copestake 2001" description: "The paper offers a framework for semantic construction inside grammars written in typed feature structure logics… 12 references, cited by 52 papers here." authors: ["Ann Copestake", "Alex Lascarides", "Dan Flickinger"] year: 2001 venue: "Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics" source: "https://aclanthology.org/P01-1019/" doi: "10.3115/1073012.1073031" licence: "CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (ACL Anthology, before 2016)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/copestake-2001-algebra-semantic-construction-constraint-based/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/copestake-2001-algebra-semantic-construction-constraint-based/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [2001](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2001/) / An Algebra for Semantic Construction in Constraint-based Grammars # An Algebra for Semantic Construction in Constraint-based Grammars **Authors:** [Ann Copestake](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/ann-copestake/), [Alex Lascarides](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/alex-lascarides/) and [Dan Flickinger](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/dan-flickinger/) · **Year:** 2001 · **Venue:** Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics **Link:** [aclanthology.org/P01-1019](https://aclanthology.org/P01-1019/) · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC-SA 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/) — summary only [**128** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W2139974778) OpenAlex, 2026-10-14 · [**52** citations in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/copestake-2001-algebra-semantic-construction-constraint-based/cited-by/) of the 140,884 papers whose bibliographies we read · [Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics](https://aclanthology.org/volumes/P01-1/) · [licence](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/) - [Publisher's page](https://aclanthology.org/P01-1019/) - [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/P01-1019.pdf) - [DOI 10.3115/1073012.1073031](https://doi.org/10.3115/1073012.1073031) - [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W2139974778) **Authors (3)** 1. [Ann Copestake](https://openalex.org/A5012396877) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0347-946X) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/15379653) · h 33 · 5,852 citations · 120 works 2. [Alex Lascarides](https://openalex.org/A5083233594) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1704-1864) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/1876168) · h 34 · 5,482 citations · 219 works 3. [Dan Flickinger](https://openalex.org/A5089106912) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7959-999X) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/3209288) · h 31 · 5,030 citations · 90 works Citations and author metrics: OpenAlex, 2026-10-14; authors with the same name are not always told apart. ## What it is about The paper offers a framework for semantic construction inside grammars written in typed feature structure logics, including HPSG. It is an alternative to the lambda calculus. Each sign has a hook, the value that fills a hole in another sign. Composition is limited to a small set of named operations on hooks, holes and lists of elementary predications. This keeps the grammar flexible but constrains what each rule may do. The constraints are checked as metalevel conditions on the grammar, not at run time. Applied to the English Resource Grammar, the work exposed many grammar bugs and made the grammar monotonic, which a chart generator needs. The paper gives no numbers. ## Ideas - I3. Slot audit: count the mismatches between the slots a rule declares and the heads it attaches on EWT dev, and list them for review. ## For Mova - I1. `en/src/expert.rs`: declare for each rule its head, its dependents and its output slots, and let a checker reject rules that break the slot discipline. Count how many existing rules fail the check. - I2. `en/src/udreg.rs`: a metalevel pass that flags any rule which overwrites a feature set set by an earlier rule (the non-monotonic case). Count the findings on EWT and on PUD. The code is `en/src/expert.rs` and `en/src/udreg.rs`; the chapter is [languages/en/20-syntax-overview.md](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/en/20-syntax-overview/). The paper has no numbers, and it is written for HPSG, not for our rules. Test on EWT and PUD only. ## Institutions [🎓**Stanford University** Stanford · United States 248 works · 214,804 citations](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/stanford-university/) · [🎓**University of Cambridge** Cambridge · United Kingdom 119 works · 110,950 citations](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-cambridge/) · [🎓**University of Edinburgh** Edinburgh · United Kingdom 202 works · 55,753 citations](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-edinburgh/) ## Cite Cite as Ann Copestake, Alex Lascarides and Dan Flickinger. 2001. An Algebra for Semantic Construction in Constraint-based Grammars. Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics. The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.3115/1073012.1073031](https://doi.org/10.3115/1073012.1073031) ```bibtex @inproceedings{copestake2001algebra, title = {{An Algebra for Semantic Construction in Constraint-based Grammars}}, author = {Ann Copestake, Alex Lascarides and Dan Flickinger}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics}, year = {2001}, doi = {10.3115/1073012.1073031}, url = {https://doi.org/10.3115/1073012.1073031} } ``` - [← previous Toward Semantics-Based Answer Pinpointing](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/hovy-2001-semantics-based-answer-pinpointing/) - [next → Classifying the Semantic Relations in Noun Compounds via a Domain-Specific Lexical Hierarchy](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/rosario-2001-classifying-semantic-relations-noun-compounds/) - [↑ back to papers of 2001](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2001/) ## References 12 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet. 1. Alshawi, Hiyan [1992] (ed.) The Core Language Engine, MIT Press. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Alshawi%2C+Hiyan+%5B1992%5D+%28ed%2E%29+The+Core+Language+Engine%2C+MIT+Press%2E) 2. Carroll, John, Ann Copestake, Dan Flickinger and Victor Poznanski [1999] An Efficient Chart Generator for Lexicalist Grammars, The 7th International Workshop on Natural Language Generation, 86–95. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Carroll%2C+John%2C+Ann+Copestake%2C+Dan+Flickinger+and+Victor+Poznanski+%5B1999%5D+An+Efficient+Chart+Generator+for+Lexicalist+Grammars%2C+The+7th+International+Workshop+on+Natural+Language+Generation%2C+86%E2%80%9395%2E) 3. Copestake, Ann, Dan Flickinger, Ivan Sag and Carl Pollard [1999] Minimal Recursion Semantics: An Introduction, manuscript at www-csli.stanford.edu/˜aac/newmrs.ps Egg, Marcus [1998] Wh-Questions in Underspecified Minimal Recursion Semantics, Journal of Semantics, 15.1:37–82. 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