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<Paper uid="P96-1001">
  <Title>Higher-Order Coloured Unification and Natural Language Semantics</Title>
  <Section position="8" start_page="8" end_page="8" type="concl">
    <SectionTitle>
7 Conclusion
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Higher-Order Unification has been shown to be a powerful tool for constructing the interpretation of NL. In this paper, we have argued that Higher-Order Coloured Unification allows a precise specification of the interface between semantic interpretation and other sources of linguistic information, thus preventing over-generation. We have substantiated this claim by specifying the linguistic, extra-semantic constraints regulating the interpretation of VP-ellipsis, focus, SOEs, adverbial quantification and pronouns whose antecedent is a focused NP.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> Other phenomena for which the HOCU approach seems particularly promising are phenomena in which the semantic interpretation process is obviously constrained by the other sources of linguistic information. In particular, it would be interesting to see whether coloured unification can appropriately model the complex interaction of constraints governing the interpretation and acceptability of gapping on the one hand, and sloppy/strict ambiguity on the other.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Another interesting research direction would be the development and implementation of a monostratal grammar for anaphors whose interpretation are determined by coloured unification. Colours are tags which decorate a semantic representation thereby constraining the unification process; on the other hand, there are also the reflex of linguistic, non-semantic (e.g. syntactic or prosodic) information. A full grammar implementation would make this connection more precise.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
class="xml-element"></Paper>