# ITLC at SemEval-2026 Task 11: Normalization and Deterministic Parsing for Formal Reasoning in LLMs

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.02676 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.02676/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 10 of its 13 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 3 Mar 2026.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/lr/reasoning-benchmarks-and-evaluation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 10 of 10)

- [Faithful Logical Reasoning via Symbolic Chain-of-Thought](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.18357/) (2024)
- [Verification and Refinement of Natural Language Explanations through LLM-Symbolic Theorem Proving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.01379/) (2024)
- [Reasoning Circuits in Language Models: A Mechanistic Interpretation of Syllogistic Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.08590/) (2024)
- [Do Large Language Models Have an English Accent? Evaluating and Improving the Naturalness of Multilingual LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.15956/) (2024)
- [Mitigating Content Effects on Reasoning in Language Models through Fine-Grained Activation Steering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.12189/) (2025)
- [Improving Chain-of-Thought Reasoning via Quasi-Symbolic Abstractions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.12616/) (2025)
- [Exploring Reasoning Biases in Large Language Models Through Syllogism: Insights from the NeuBAROCO Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.04403/) (2024)
- [Generalized Quantifiers as a Source of Error in Multilingual NLU Benchmarks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.10615/) (2022)
- [Language Surgery in Multilingual Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.12450/) (2025)
- [Categorical Syllogisms Revisited: A Review of the Logical Reasoning Abilities of LLMs for Analyzing Categorical Syllogism](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.18762/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Large language models suffer from content effects in reasoning tasks, particularly in multi-lingual contexts. We introduce a novel method that reduces these biases through explicit structural abstraction that transforms syllogisms into canonical logical representations and applies deterministic parsing to determine validity. Evaluated on the SemEval-2026 Task 11 multilingual benchmark, our approach achieves top-5 rankings across all subtasks while substantially reducing content effects and offering a competitive alternative to complex fine-tuning or activation-level interventions.