Glue semantics, or simply Glue (Dalrymple et al. 1993; Dalrymple 1999, 2001), is a linguistic theory of semantic composition and the syntax–semantics interface which assumes that meaning composition is constrained by a set of instructions stated within a formal logic (linear logic).
Glue was developed as a theory of the syntax–semantics interface within the linguistic theory of lexical functional grammar, and most work within Glue has been conducted within that framework.
This is similar in some respects to the view of the syntax-semantics interface assumed within categorial grammar, except that abstract syntactic relations like subject and object rather than relations such as to-the-left-of are involved in meaningful constructor specifications.
Glue analyses within other syntactic formalisms have also been proposed; besides LFG, glue analyses have been proposed within HPSG,[1] context-free grammar, categorial grammar, and tree-adjoining grammar.
Semantic formalisms that have been used as the meaning languages in glue semantics analyses include versions of discourse representation theory, intensional logic, first-order logic, and natural semantic metalanguage.