1 # Seminar in Semantics / Philosophy of Language #
3 or: **What Philosophers and Linguists Can Learn From Theoretical Computer Science But Didn't Know To Ask**
5 This course is co-taught by [Chris Barker](http://homepages.nyu.edu/~cb125/) and [Jim Pryor](http://www.jimpryor.net/). Linguistics calls it "LING-GA 3340" and Philosophy calls it "PHIL-GA 2296".
6 The seminar meets in spring 2015 on Thursdays from 4 until a bit before 7 (with a short break in the middle), in
7 the Linguistics building at 10 Washington Place, in room 103 (front of the first floor).
9 One student session to discuss homeworks will be held every Wednesday from 5-6, in Linguistics room 104 (back of the first floor).
11 ## [[Index of Main Content|content]] (lecture notes and more) ##
13 ## [[Offsite Readings|readings]] ##
17 * [[Untyped lambda calculus evaluator|code/lambda_evaluator]] on this site
19 * This wiki will be undergoing lots of changes throughout the semester, and particularly in these first few days as we get it set up, migrate over some of the content from the previous time
20 we taught this course, and iron out various technical wrinkles. Please be patient. When you sit down to read the wiki, it's a good idea to always hit "Refresh" in your browser to make sure you're reading the latest additions and refinements of the website. (Sometimes these will be tweaks, other times very substantial. Updates will happen at miscellaneous hours, sometimes many times in a given day.)
22 If you're eager to learn, though, you don't have to wait on us to be ready to serve you. You can go look at the [archived first version](http://lambda1.jimpryor.net) of this course. Just keep in mind that
23 the text and links there haven't been updated. And/or you can get started on installing the software and ordering some of the books.
25 * As we mentioned in class, if you're following the course and would like to be emailed occasionally, send an email to <mailto:jim.pryor@nyu.edu>, saying "lambda" in the subject line. Most often, we will just post announcements to this website, rather than emailing you. But occasionally an email might be more appropriate.
28 * As we mentioned in class, we're also going to schedule a session to discuss the weekly homeworks. If you'd like to participate in this, please complete [this Doodle poll](http://doodle.com/7xrf4w8xq4i9e5za). It asks when you are available on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
31 * The student session has been scheduled for Wednesdays from 5-6, in Linguistics room 104 (back of the first floor).
33 Those of you interested in additional Q&A but who can't make that time, let us know.
35 You should see these student sessions as opportunities to clear up lingering
36 issues from material we've discussed, and help get a better footing for what
37 we'll be doing the next week. It's expected you'll have made at least a serious start on that
38 week's homework (due the following day) before the session.
40 * Here is information about [[How to get the programming languages running on your computer|installing]]. If those instructions seem overwhelming, note that it should be possible to do a lot of this course using only demonstration versions of these languages [[that run in your web browser|browser]].
42 * Henceforth, unless we say otherwise, every homework will be "due" by
43 Wednesday morning after the Thursday seminar in which we refer to it.
44 (Usually we'll post the assignment shortly before the seminar, but don't
45 rely on this.) However, for every assignment there will be a "grace
46 period" of one further week for you to continue working on it if you
47 have trouble and aren't able to complete the assignment to your
48 satisfaction by the due date. You shouldn't hesitate to talk to us---or
49 each other!---about the assignments when you do have trouble. We don't
50 mind so much if you come across answers to the assignment when browsing
51 the web, or the Little Schemer book, or anywhere. So long as you can
52 reason yourself through the solutions and experience for yourself the
55 We reserve the privilege to ruthlessly require you to
56 explain your solutions in conversations at any point, in section or in
59 You should always *aim* to complete the assignments by the "due" date,
60 as this will fit best with the progress of the seminar.
62 The assignments will tend to be quite challenging. Again, you should by
63 all means talk amongst yourselves, and to us, about strategies and
64 questions that come up when working through them.
66 We will not always be able to predict accurately which problems are
67 easy and which are hard. If we misjudge, and choose a problem that is
68 too hard for you to complete to your own satisfaction, it is still
69 very much worthwhile (and very much appreciated) if you would explain
70 what is difficult, what you tried, why what you tried didn't work, and
71 what you think you need in order to solve the problem.
76 (**Week 1**) Thursday 29 Jan 2015
79 [[Order in programming languages and natural language|topics/week1 order]];
80 [[Introduction to functional programming|topics/week1 kapulet intro]];
81 [[Homework|exercises/assignment1]];
82 [[Advanced notes|topics/week1 kapulet advanced]]
85 > Help on [[learning Scheme]], [[OCaml|learning OCaml]], and [[Haskell|learning Haskell]];
86 The [[differences between our made-up language and Scheme, OCaml, and Haskell|rosetta1]];
87 [[What do words like "interpreter" and "compiler" mean?|ecosystem]] (in progress)
89 (**[[Lambda Evaluator|code/lambda evaluator]]**) Usable in your browser. It can help you check whether your answer to some of the (upcoming) homework questions works correctly.
91 There is also now a [library](/lambda library) of lambda-calculus arithmetical and list operations, some relatively advanced.
94 (**Week 2**) Thursday 5 February 2015
96 [[Intro to the Lambda Calculus|topics/week2 lambda intro]];
97 [[Advanced notes|topics/week2 lambda advanced]];
98 [[Encoding Booleans, Tuples, Lists, and Numbers|topics/week2 encodings]];
99 [[Homework|exercises/assignment2]]
101 > Also, if you're reading the Hankin book, try reading Chapters 1-3. You will most likely need to come back again and read it multiple times; but this would be a good time to make the first attempt.
103 > We posted [[answers to Week 1's homework|exercises/assignment1_answers]].
105 (**Week 3**) Thursday 12 February 2015
106 *We will continue to develop these notes over the next few days.*
109 [[Arithmetic with Church numbers|topics/week3_church_arithmetic]];
110 [[More on Lists|topics/week3 lists]] (expanded on Sunday);
111 [[What is computation?|topics/week3_what_is_computation]];
112 [[Reduction Strategies and Normal Forms|topics/week3_evaluation_order]] (posted on Monday 23 Feb);
113 [[Unit and its usefulness|topics/week3 unit]] (posted on Wednesday);
114 [[Combinatory Logic|topics/week3 combinatory logic]] (revised on Monday and Tuesday);
115 [[Homework|exercises/assignment3]]
117 > Also, by this point you should be able to handle all of *The Little Schemer* except for Chapters 9 and 10. Chapter 9 covers what is going on under the hood with `letrec`, and that will be our topic for next week. You can also read Chapter 4 of Hankin on Combinatory Logic.
119 > We posted [[answers to Week 2's homework|exercises/assignment2_answers]].
121 (**Week 4**) Thursday 19 February 2015
123 > Topics: [[!img images/tabletop_roleplaying.png size="240x240" alt="Hey, no recursing"]]
124 [[Yes, recursing|topics/week4_fixed_point_combinators]];
125 [[More about fixed point combinators|topics/week4_more_about_fixed_point_combinators]];
126 Towards types (in progress);
127 [[Homework|exercises/assignment4]]
129 > Now you can read Sections 3.1 and 6.1 of Hankin; and browse the rest of Hankin Chapter 6, which should look somewhat familiar.
131 > If you're reading along in the Pierce book, we've now covered much of the material in his Chapters 1-7.
133 > We posted [[answers to Week 3's homework|exercises/assignment3_answers]].
135 (**Week 5**) Thursday 26 February 2015
137 > *Note*: Jim will be updating and expanding the lecture notes by Tuesday, but doesn't want to delay any longer letting you have access to the drafts we (in part) presented from in seminar. But do come back and re-read the pages when the expanded versions are posted.
140 [[Simply-typed lambda calculus|topics/week5 simply typed]];
141 [[System F|topics/week5 system F]];
142 Types in OCaml and Haskell;
143 Practical advice for working with OCaml and/or Haskell (all will be posted soon);
144 [[Homework|exercises/assignment5]]
146 > *There is some assigned reading for our next meeting.* This comes in two batches. The first batch consists of [[this footnote|readings/kaplan-plexy.pdf]] from Kaplan's *Demonstratives*. Also recommended, but not mandatory, is [[this selection|readings/king-on-schiffer.pdf]] from Chapter 4 of Jeff King's 2007 book *The Nature and Structure of Content*. The second batch consists of [[this paper|readings/rieppel-beingsthg.pdf]] from Michael Rieppel, a recent Berkeley Philosophy PhD, on Frege's "concept horse" problem. Also recommended, but not mandatory, is [[this selection|readings/king-on-logicism.pdf]] from Chapter 5 of King's book. (It reviews and elaborates his paper "[Designating propositions](http://philpapers.org/rec/KINDP)".)
148 > If you're interested in the scholarly background on Frege's "concept horse" problem, here is [an entry point](http://philpapers.org/rec/PROWIF).
150 > If you're reading along in Hankin, you can look at Chapter 7.
152 > If you're reading along in the Pierce book, the chapters most relevant to this week's discussion are 22 and 23; though for context we also recommend at least Chapters 8, 9, 11, 20, and 29. We don't expect most of you to follow these recommendations now, or even to be comfortable enough yet with the material to be able to. We're providing the pointers as references that some might conceivably pursue now, and others later.
154 (**Week 6**) Thursday March 5
156 > We will be discussing the readings posted above.
160 We've added a [[Monad Library]] for OCaml.
161 We've posted a [[State Monad Tutorial]].
165 ## Course Overview ##
167 The overarching goal of this seminar is to introduce concepts and techniques from
168 theoretical computer science and show how they can provide insight
169 into established philosophical and linguistic problems.
171 This is not a seminar about any particular technology or software.
172 Rather, it's about a variety of conceptual/logical ideas that have been
173 developed in computer science and that linguists and philosophers ought to
174 know, or may already be unknowingly trying to reinvent.
176 Philosphers and linguists tend to reuse the same familiar tools in
177 ever more (sometime spectacularly) creative ways. But when your only
178 hammer is classical logic, every problem looks like modus ponens. In
179 contrast, computer scientists have invested considerable ingenuity in
180 studying the design of their conceptual tools (among other things), and they've made much progress that we can benefit from.
182 "Why shouldn't I reinvent some idea X for myself? It's intellectually
183 rewarding!" Yes it is, but it also takes time you might have better
184 spent elsewhere. After all, you can get anywhere you want to go by walking, but you can
185 accomplish more with a combination of walking and strategic subway
188 More importantly, the idiosyncrasies of your particular
189 implementation may obscure what's fundamental to the idea you're
190 working with. Your implementation may be buggy in corner cases you
191 didn't think of; it may be incomplete and not trivial to generalize; its
192 connection to existing literature and neighboring issues may go
193 unnoticed. For all these reasons you're better off understanding the
196 The theoretical tools we'll be introducing aren't part of the diet of most
197 everyday programmers, but they are prominent in academic computer science,
198 especially in the fields of functional programming and type theory.
200 Of necessity, this course will lay a lot of logical groundwork. But throughout
201 we'll be aiming to mix that groundwork with real cases
202 in our home subjects where these tools can (or already do, covertly) play central roles.
205 course is to enable you to make these tools your own; to have enough
206 understanding of them to recognize them in use, use them yourself at least
207 in simple ways, and to be able to read more about them when appropriate.
209 "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." -- [E. W. Dijkstra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsger_W._Dijkstra) <small>(or Hal Abelson, or Michael Fellows; the quote's <a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Computer_science">origins are murky</a>)</small>
212 [[More about the topics and larger themes of the course|overview]]
215 ## Who Can Participate? ##
217 The course will not presume previous experience with programming. We
218 will, however, discuss concepts embodied in specific programming
219 languages, and we will encourage experimentation with running,
220 modifying, and writing computer programs.
222 The course will not presume lots of mathematical or logical background, either.
223 However, it will demand a certain amount of comfort working with such material; as a result,
224 it will not be especially well-suited to be a first graduate-level course
225 in formal semantics or philosophy of language. If you have concerns about your
226 background, come discuss them with us.
228 If you hope to have the class satisfy the logic requirement for Philosophy PhD students, this needs to be discussed with us and approved in advance. If this would be
229 your first or only serious
230 engagement with graduate-level formal work you should consider
231 carefully, and must discuss with us, (1) whether you'll be adequately
232 prepared for this course, and (2) whether you'd be better served by
233 taking a logic course
234 with a more canonical syllabus.
235 This term you could take PHIL-GA 1003, [Logic for Philosophers](http://jdh.hamkins.org), offered by Joel Hamkins on Wednesdays 12-2.
237 Faculty and students from outside of NYU Linguistics and Philosophy are welcome
238 to audit, to the extent that this coheres well with the needs of our local
242 ## Recommended Software ##
244 During the course, we'll be encouraging you to try out various things in Scheme
245 and OCaml. Occasionally we will also make remarks about Haskell. All three of these
246 are prominent *functional programming languages*. The term "functional" here means they have
247 a special concern with functions, not just that they aren't broken. But what precisely is
248 meant by "functional" is somewhat fuzzy and even its various precisifications take some
249 time to explain. We'll get clearer on this during the course. Another term used roughly the same as "functional"
250 is "declarative." At a first pass, "functional" or "declarative" programming is primarily focused on complex
251 expressions that get computationally evaluated to some (usually simpler) result. In class I gave the examples
252 of `1+2` (which gets evaluated in arithmetic to `3`), `1+2 < 5` (which gets evaluated in arithmetic to a truth-value), and `1`
253 (which gets evaluated in arithmetic to `1`). Also Google search strings, which get evaluated by Google servers to a
256 The dominant contrasting class of programming languages (the great majority of what's used
257 in industry) are called "imperatival" languages, meaning they have more to do with following a sequence of commands (generating what we
258 called in class "side-effects", though sometimes what they're *alongside* is not that interesting, and all the focus is instead
259 on the effects). Programming languages like C and Python and JavaScript and so on are predominantly of this sort.
261 In truth, nothing that gets marketed as a "programming language" is really completely 100% functional/declarative, and even the
262 languages I called "imperatival" will have some "functional" *fragments* (they evaluate `1+2` to `3`, also). So these labels aren't
263 strictly exclusive. The labels are better thought of as concerning different
264 *styles* or *idioms* of programming. Languages like Scheme and OCaml and especially Haskell get called "functional languages" because
265 of the extent to which they emphasize, and are designed around those idioms. Languages like Python and JavaScript are sometimes themselves
266 described as "more functional" than other languages, like C.
269 <a name=installing></a>
270 [[How to get the programming languages running on your computer|installing]].
271 And here is some more context for the three languages we will be focusing on:
273 * **Scheme** is one of two or three major dialects of *Lisp*, which is a large family
274 of programming languages. Scheme
275 is the more clean and minimalist dialect of Lisp, and is what's mostly used in
277 Scheme itself has umpteen different "implementations", which share most of
278 their fundamentals, but have slightly different extensions and interact with
279 the operating system differently. One major implementation is called Racket,
280 and that is what we recommend you use. If you're already using or comfortable with
281 another Scheme implementation, though, there's no compelling reason to switch.
283 Another good Scheme implementation is Chicken. For our purposes, this is in some
284 respects superior to Racket, and in other respects inferior. <!--
285 Racket doesn't have R7RS-small, and won't anytime soon. :-(
286 Also Chicken's library collection seems stronger, or at least better organized and maintained.
287 Other R7RS-friendly: [Gauche](http://practical-scheme.net/gauche), [Chibi](https://code.google.com/p/chibi-scheme).
290 Racket and Chicken stand to Scheme in something like the relation Firefox stands to HTML.
293 [Lisp](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_%28programming_language%29),
294 [Scheme](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheme_%28programming_language%29),
295 [Racket](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racket_%28programming_language%29), and
296 [Chicken](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHICKEN_%28Scheme_implementation%29).)
297 (Help on [[Learning Scheme]])
299 * **Caml** is one of two major dialects of *ML*, which is another large
300 family of programming languages. Caml has only one active "implementation",
301 OCaml, developed by the INRIA academic group in France. Sometimes we may refer to Caml or ML
302 more generally; but you can assume that what we're talking about always works more
303 specifically in OCaml.
306 [ML](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ML_%28programming_language%29),
307 [Caml](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caml), and
308 [OCaml](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCaml).)
309 (Help on [[Learning OCaml]])
312 * **Haskell** is also used a
313 lot in the academic contexts we'll be working through. Its surface syntax
314 differs from Caml, and there are various important things one can do in
315 each of Haskell and Caml that one can't (or can't as easily) do in the
316 other. But these languages also have *a lot* in common, and if you're
317 familiar with one of them, it's generally not hard to move between it and the
320 Like Scheme, Haskell has a couple of different implementations. The
321 dominant one, and the one we recommend you install, is called GHC, short
322 for "Glasgow Haskell Compiler".
325 [Haskell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskell_%28programming_language%29) and
326 [GHC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_Haskell_Compiler).)
327 (Help on [[Learning Haskell]])
330 [Helium](https://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell/2003-January/011071.html) is a simplified Haskell for teaching (no typeclasses)
335 ## Recommended Books ##
337 It's not *mandatory* to purchase these for the class. But they are good ways to get a more thorough and solid understanding of some of the more basic conceptual tools we'll be using. We especially recommend the first three of them.
339 * *An Introduction to Lambda Calculi for Computer Scientists*, by Chris
340 Hankin, currently $18 paperback on
341 [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0954300653).
343 * *The Little Schemer, Fourth Edition*, by Daniel P. Friedman and Matthias
344 Felleisen, currently $29 paperback on [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262560992).
345 This is a classic text introducing the gentle art of programming, using the
346 functional programming language Scheme. Many people love this book, but it has
347 an unusual dialog format that is not to everybody's taste. **Of particular
348 interest for this course** is the explanation of the Y combinator, available as
349 a free sample chapter [at the MIT Press web page for the
350 book](http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/BTLS/).
352 * *The Seasoned Schemer*, also by Daniel P. Friedman and Matthias Felleisen, currently $29 paperback
353 on [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/Seasoned-Schemer-Daniel-P-Friedman/dp/026256100X). This is a sequel to The Little Schemer, and it focuses on mutation and continuations in Scheme. We will be covering those topics in the second half of the course.
355 * *The Little MLer*, by Matthias Felleisen and Daniel P. Friedman, currently $31 paperback / $29 kindle
356 on [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/Little-MLer-Matthias-Felleisen/dp/026256114X).
357 This covers much of the same introductory ground as The Little Schemer, but
358 this time in a dialect of ML. It doesn't use OCaml, the dialect we'll be working with, but instead another dialect of ML called SML. The syntactic differences between these languages is slight.
359 ([Here's a translation manual between them](http://www.mpi-sws.org/~rossberg/sml-vs-ocaml.html).)
360 Still, that does add an extra layer of interpretation, and you might as well
361 just use The Little Schemer instead. Those of you who are already more
362 comfortable with OCaml (or with Haskell) than with Scheme might consider
363 working through this book instead of The Little Schemer. For the rest of you,
364 or those of you who *want* practice with Scheme, go with The Little Schemer.
366 * *The Haskell Road to Logic, Math and Programming*, by Kees Doets and Jan van Eijck, currently $22 on [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0954300696) is a textbook teaching the parts of math and logic we cover in the first few weeks of Logic for Philosophers. (Notions like validity, proof theory for predicate logic, sets, sequences, relations, functions, inductive proofs and recursive definitions, and so on.) The math here should be accessible and familiar to all of you. What is novel about this book is that it integrates the exposition of these notions with a training in (part of) Haskell. It only covers the rudiments of Haskell's type system, and doesn't cover monads; but if you wanted to review this material and become comfortable with core pieces of Haskell in the process, this could be a good read.
367 (The book also seems to be available online [here](http://fldit-www.cs.uni-dortmund.de/~peter/PS07/HR.pdf).)
370 The rest of these are a bit more advanced, and are also looser suggestions:
372 * *Computational Semantics with Functional Programming*, by Jan van Eijck and Christina Unger, currently $42 on [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0521757606). We own this but haven't read it yet. It *looks* like it's doing the same kind of thing this seminar aims to do: exploring how natural language meanings can be understood to be "computed". The text uses Haskell, and is aimed at linguists and philosophers as well as computer scientists. Definitely worth a look.
374 It deals with both denotational meaning (where meaning
375 comes from knowing the conditions of truth in situations), and
376 operational meaning (where meaning is an instruction for performing
380 * Another good book covering the same ground as the Hankin book, but
381 more thoroughly, and in a more mathematical style, is *Lambda-Calculus and Combinators:
382 an Introduction*, by J. Roger Hindley and Jonathan P. Seldin, currently $74 hardback / $65 kindle on [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0521898854).
383 This book is substantial; and although it doesn't presuppose any specific
384 mathematical background knowledge, it will be a good choice only if you're
385 already comfortable reading advanced math textbooks.
386 If you choose to read both the Hankin book and this book, you'll notice the authors made some different
387 terminological/notational choices. At first, this makes comprehension slightly slower,
388 but in the long run it's helpful because it makes the arbitrariness of those choices more salient.
391 * Another good book, covering a bit of the same ground as the Hankin and the Hindley & Seldin, but focusing especially on typed lambda calculi, is *Types and Programming Languages*, by Benjamin Pierce, currently $77 hardback / $68 kindle on [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0262162091). This book has many examples in OCaml. It seems to be the standard textbook for CS students learning type theory.
393 * The next two books focus on the formal semantics of typed programming languages, both in the "denotational" form that most closely corresponds to what we mean by semantics, and in the "operational" form very often used in CS. These are: *The Formal Semantics of Programming Languages*, by Glynn Winskel, currently $38 on [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0262731037), and *Semantics of Programming Languages*, by Carl Gunter, currently $41 on [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0262071436).
398 All wikis are supposed to have a [[SandBox]], so this one does too.
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