Mats Rooth

About

Mats Rooth is a professor in the Department of Linguistics at Cornell University, affiliated with the Cognitive Science Program, Philosophy, and the College of Arts and Sciences. His research focuses on computational linguistics and natural language semantics, with work on mixed symbolic/probabilistic models of syntax and the lexicon, contrastive intonation (focus), and related phenomena such as ellipsis and presupposition. He is currently working on finite state models of phonology and phonetics. Rooth has contributed to the understanding of semantics and information structure, and his work involves formal semantics, focus scoping, and the discourse representation of multimodal content, including pictorial narratives and film. His research integrates theoretical and computational approaches to language, emphasizing the formal analysis of meaning and its interface with phonology, phonetics, and multimodal communication.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Natural Language Processing
• Philosophy
• Linguistics
• Epistemology
• Programming language
• Social psychology
• Physics
• Theoretical physics

Selected publications

• Alternative Semantics

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2016-02-11 · 88 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This chapter presents the semantics and pragmatics of prosodic focus in alternative semantics. Half a dozen examples are given of empirical phenomena that are to be covered by the theory. Then a syntax marking the locus, scope, and antecedent for focus is introduced. The syntax is interpreted semantically and pragmatically by a presupposition involving alternatives. The alternative sets that are used in the definition are computed compositionally using a recursive definition. Alternativ…

  PublisherDOI

• Picture Descriptions and Centered Content

  eCommons (Cornell University) · 2018-01-01 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  There is an argument based on sentences that describe pictures in favor of a viewpoint- centered possible worlds semantics for pictures, over a propositional semantics (J. Ross 1997). The argument involves perspectival lexical items such as ?front?. We show that when a projective possible worlds semantics for pictures is employed, there is a problem with the argument coming from propositional contents being strong. The argument is reconstructed in a model modal space involving linear worlds, and…

  Publisher

• Acoustic classification of focus: On the web and in the lab

  Laboratory Phonology Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology · 2017-07-11 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  <p class="p1">We present a new methodological approach which combines both naturally-occurring speech harvested on the web and speech data elicited in the laboratory. This proof-of-concept study examines the phenomenon of focus sensitivity in English, in which the interpretation of particular grammatical constructions (e.g., the comparative) is sensitive to the location of prosodic prominence. Machine learning algorithms (support vector machines and linear discriminant analysis) and human percep…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Finite state intensional semantics

  eCommons (Cornell University) · 2017-10-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The paper presents a computable formulation of Hintikka semantics for clausal complements and partition semantics for questions in a framework where worlds are strings, propositions are regular sets of worlds, and epistemic acquaintance relations and question meanings are regular relations between worlds. A logical language is defined in a finite state calculus with function definitions, where terms denote regular sets of strings, interpreted as propositions. An interface to English syntax uses…

  Publisher

• Representing Focus Scoping over New

  eCommons (Cornell University) · 2015-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  1. Syntax of focus Example (1) illustrates the locus/scope/antecedent syntax for focus. Focused phrases are marked with a feature F (Jackendoff 1972). The operator ∼k marks the scope of F (Rooth 1992), and index k marks an antecedent in the syntax or discourse representation with respect to which the scope of the focus is partially redundant. Redundancy is characterized semantically either in terms of alternatives (Rooth 1991) or a generalized notion of entailment (Schwarzschild 1999). In the fi…

  Publisher

Frequent coauthors

• Dorit Abusch

  Cornell University

  12 shared

• Glenn R. Carroll

  Stanford University

  7 shared

• Stefan Riezler

  6 shared

• Detlef Prescher

  6 shared

• Jonathan R. Howell

  Princess Elizabeth Orthopaedic Centre

  5 shared

• Franz Beil

  University of Stuttgart

  4 shared

• Michael Wagner

  Medical University of Vienna

  4 shared

• M. Thelen

  SAS Institute (United States)

  3 shared

Labs

• Cornell NLPPI

  Natural Language Processing at Cornell

Education

• PhD, Linguistics

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  1985

• S.B., Mathematics

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  1977

Similar researchers at Cornell University

• John B. Whitmanh-27
• Abigail C Cohnh-20
• Marten van Schijndelh-16