Semantic verification of multilingual texts

Abstract

Verifying text, both syntactically and semantically, is a very necessary task of text generation. By treating languages formally, semantic verification can be done computationally.

With Grammatical Framework, grammars can be defined for multilingual text generation. By using these defined grammars, we can parse text into abstract syntax trees which can be interpreted as first-order logic formulas using the theories of Montague grammar & semantics. These formulas can thereafter be processed and transformed into intermediate representations such that they can be verified against data.

In this project, we have successfully managed to create a program which can fact check simple textual statements about geography against data from WikiData, using a small Grammatical Framework grammar that is interpreted in accordance to Montague grammar & semantics.