Straight-Line Programs (SLP) are widely used compressed representations of words. In this work we study the rational transformations and the literal shuffle of words compressed via SLP, proving that the first preserves the compression rate, while the second does not. As a consequence, we prove a tight bound for the descriptional complexity of 2D texts compressed via SLP. Finally, we observe tha...

We develop a formal framework intended as a preliminary step for a single knowledge representation system that provides different representation techniques in a unified way. In particular we consider first-order logic extended by techniques for second-order quantifier elimination and non-monotonic reasoning. Background of the work is literal projection, a generalization of second-order quantifi...

Given an over-constrained system, a Maximal Satisfiable Subset (MSS) denotes a maximal set of constraints that are consistent. A Minimal Correction Subset (MCS, or co-MSS) is the complement of an MSS. MSSes/MCSes find a growing range of practical applications, including optimization, configuration and diagnosis. A number of MCS extraction algorithms have been proposed in recent years, enabling ...

The computation of literal projection generalizes predicate quantifier elimination by permitting, so to speak, quantifying upon an arbitrary sets of ground literals, instead of just (all ground literals with) a given predicate symbol. Literal projection allows, for example, to express predicate quantification upon a predicate just in positive or negative polarity. Occurrences of the predicate i...

This study examines the processing of metaphoric reference by bilingual speakers. English dominant, Spanish dominant, and balanced bilinguals read passages in English biasing either a figurative (e.g., describing a weak and soft fighter that always lost and everyone hated) or a literal (e.g., describing a donut and bakery shop that made delicious pastries) meaning of a critical metaphoric refer...

Idiomatic expressions can be interpreted literally or figuratively. These two meanings are often processed in parallel or very rapidly, as evidenced by online measures of idiomatic processing. Because in many cases the figurative meaning cannot be derived from the component lexical elements and because of the speed with which this meaning is accessed, it is assumed such meanings are stored in s...

The goal of the current study was to identify the neural substrate of idiom comprehension using fMRI. Idioms are familiar, fixed expressions whose meaning is not dependent on the literal interpretation of the component words. We presented literally plausible idioms in a sentence forcing a figurative or a literal interpretation and contrasted them with sentences containing idioms for which no li...

Suppose you ask a colleague how a class he just taught went, and he replies that "It was a great class the students were glued to their seats." There are two clearly distinct interpretations of this utterance, which might usefully be categorized as a literal and a figurative one. Which interpretation you believe is appropriate will determine your course of action; whether you congratulate your ...

This note proposes a notion of user-defined literals based on literal constructors without requiring new syntax. If combined with the separate proposal for generalized initializer lists, it becomes a generalization of the C99 notion of compound literals. Basically, a constructor defines a user-defined literal if it is inline and specifies a simple mapping of its arguments to object representati...

The two English constructions exemplified in Let’s get the hell out of here (type G) and They beat the hell out of him (type B) differ both syntactically and semantically, but in both the taboo expression has the force of an intensifier. History (through a corpus investigation) reveals that the B-construction started as a literal exorcism (beat the devil out of someone), where the hell substitu...