# Composing Conversational Negation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.06820 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.06820/

## Key facts

- Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 13 of its 36 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 14 Jul 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 13 of 13)

- [The Mathematics of Text Structure](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.03478/) (2019)
- [Open System Categorical Quantum Semantics in Natural Language Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.00831/) (2015)
- [Interacting Conceptual Spaces I : Grammatical Composition of Concepts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.08314/) (2017)
- [Modelling Lexical Ambiguity with Density Matrices](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.05670/) (2020)
- [Sentence Entailment in Compositional Distributional Semantics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.04419/) (2015)
- [Meaning updating of density matrices](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.00862/) (2020)
- [Towards logical negation for compositional distributional semantics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.04929/) (2020)
- [Conversational Negation using Worldly Context in Compositional Distributional Semantics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05748/) (2021)
- [Computing Lexical Contrast](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1308.6300/) (2013)
- [Cats climb entails mammals move: preserving hyponymy in compositional distributional semantics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14134/) (2020)
- [Distributional Sentence Entailment Using Density Matrices](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.06534/) (2015)
- [Distributional Inclusion Hypothesis for Tensor-based Composition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.04416/) (2016)
- [A Compositional Explanation of the Pet Fish Phenomenon](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1509.06594/) (2015)

## Built on by (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [Distilling Text into Circuits](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.10595/) (2023)
- [On Meta-Prompting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.06562/) (2023)
- [Language-independence of DisCoCirc's Text Circuits: English and Urdu](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.10281/) (2022)
- [A Pipeline For Discourse Circuits From CCG](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17892/) (2023)
- [From Conceptual Spaces to Quantum Concepts: Formalising and Learning Structured Conceptual Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.08585/) (2023)
- [Formalising and Learning a Quantum Model of Concepts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.14822/) (2023)
- [Density Matrices for Metaphor Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.11846/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Negation in natural language does not follow Boolean logic and is therefore inherently difficult to model. In particular, it takes into account the broader understanding of what is being negated. In previous work, we proposed a framework for the negation of words that accounts for 'worldly context'. This paper extends that proposal now accounting for the compositional structure inherent in language within the DisCoCirc framework. We compose the negations of single words to capture the negation of sentences. We also describe how to model the negation of words whose meanings evolve in the text.