Publications
Books
The Ontology of Language.
Chris Fox.
CSLI. 2000.
(Distributed by
Chicago
University Press.)
Foundations of Intensional Semantics.
Chris Fox and Shalom Lappin.
Blackwell. 2005.
Handbook of Natural Language Processing and
Computational Linguistics.
Alex Clark, Chris Fox and Shalom Lappin (eds).
Wiley-Blackwell. 2010.
Articles and Conference Papers
Details of my other academic publications are available on a separate
interactive publications
page, which includes comprehensive abstracts, BibTeX entries and
links to papers, all presented in an incrementally searchable table.
Here is a small selection:
“The Good Samaritan and the Hygienic Cook”.
In Philosophy of Language and Linguistics, Volume I: The formal turn.
Edited by Piotr Stalmaszczyk.
2010. pp103–118.
“Computational Semantics”.
In Handbook of Natural Language Processing and Computational Linguistics.
Edited by Alex Clark, Chris Fox and Shalom Lappin.
Wiley-Blackwell. 2010.
“Obligations, Permissions and Transgressions: an
alternative approach to deontic reasoning”.
In Proceedings of the Tenth Symposium on Logic and Language.
2009. pp81–88.
“Underspecified Interpretations in a Curry-Typed Representation Language”.
Chris Fox and Shalom Lappin.
In Journal of Logic and Computation 15(2).
2005. pp131–143.
“An Expressive First-Order Logic with Flexible Typing for Natural Language Semantics”.
Chris Fox and Shalom Lappin.
In Logic Journal of the Interest Group in Pure and Applied Logics 12.
2004. pp135–168.
“Plurals and Mass Terms in Property Theory”.
In Plurality and Quantification.
Edited by F. Hamm and E. Hinrichs.
Kluwer.
1998. pp113–175.
“Existence Presuppositions and Category Mistakes”.
In Acta Linguistica Hungarica 42.
1994. pp325–339.
“Individuals and Their Guises: a Property-theoretic Analysis”.
In Proceedings of the Ninth Amsterdam Colloquium II.
1993. pp301–312.
Research Interests
My primary research interests lie in the area of
the philosophy of language and formal semantics. I also have
interests in program analysis, particularly in human
comprehension of computer programs,
and process
modelling. Much of my work in these last two
areas exploits my knowledge of general ideas and techniques
from language analysis.
Computational Linguistics, Formal Semantics & the
Philosophy of Language
This is my primary research interest. I am currently working
on deontic reasoning and
on imperatives, with a particular focus on
a non-Kripkean analysis. Topics on which
I have made contributions include
- Fine-grained intensionality
- Imperatives
- Deontic reasoning
- Underspecification
- Anaphora and ellipsis
- Property Theory
- Type theory, including polymorphic and dependent types
- Weak first-order theories
- Plurals and mass terms
I am a founding member of the interdisciplinary Language and Computation Group
at Essex (LAC) which holds regular workshops. Details are available from the
Language and Computation Wiki.
I also helped setup the CSEE Logic Seminar Series.
Details of these regular talks can be found on the
Logic Seminar Series website.
Some of this work has been supported at various times by the Royal
Society, EPSRC/SERC and ESRC.
Program Analysis & Software Engineering
I am interested in weak conservative approaches to reasoning
with computer programs to aid human comprehension, reverse
engineering, re-engineering and code reuse. I produced the
first fully-automatic conditioned program
slicer. Areas I have explored include
- Variable dependence analysis
- Program transformation to aid testing
- Conditioned program slicing
- Slicing and conditioning of state-charts
Some of this work has been supported by DaimlerChrysler and the EPSRC.
Process Modelling
I have an interest in modelling of processes, and have worked
on the following problems.
- Translating between formal process representation
languages and business models
- Weak conservative reasoning with process models
- Translating controlled descriptions of processes into formal models
- Distributed workflow management
Most of this work has been funded by the EU.
Teaching & Supervision
Research Degrees
I can supervise PhD and MPhil research in the area of natural
language semantics, computational linguistics, program
analysis (applied and theoretical) and related areas. Possible
topics include:
- Combinining type-logical grammar with intensional semantics
- Modelling questions and answers without possible worlds
- Using Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) for topic identification
- Implementing a type-theoretic analysis of anaphora and ellipsis
- Slicing of event-driven process models
- Restructuring and refactoring process models
Contact me if you wish to discuss these or any other research topics
(email
preferred).
Further details on the application procedure for research
degrees are given on the
departmental website.
Taught Modules
For 2010-11, I developed and taught
Digital Systems (CE161-4-AU)
[an introduction to computer science], and a new final-year module
Languages and Compilers (CE305-6-SP),
and was also responsible for the postgraduate Directed Studies module (CE892-7-SP)
[a one-term research project].
(I have previously taught in areas including
natural language semantics,
logic,
formal methods,
artificial intelligence,
discrete mathematics,
program semantics,
algorithms,
data-structures,
at undergraduate and postgraduate level,
and supervised group projects and individual dissertations.)
