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Allan Third

Allan ThirdAllan ThirdAllan Third is a member of the COSSAC project, working as a Research Assistant at the University of Oxford.

After a BSc in Mathematics and Philosophy, and an MSc in Information Technology, both from the University of Glasgow, he undertook a PhD in the area of natural language semantics. His thesis concerned the formal expressive power of a range of natural features of English grammar, and the implications of those results in formal semantics and the philosophy of language. He was awarded his doctorate by the University of Manchester in 2006.

He then spent two years in Leeds investigating the semantics of vagueness, with specific reference to the interpretation of vague geographic terms such as "river", "lake", and so on, and the gap between "natural" definitions of these terms and their actual physical interpretation.

He is currently part of the development team in the COSSAC project, working on the integration of Tallis with OpenKnowledge and resurrecting the HOMEY dialogue system. He is continuing his theoretical research into the semantics of vagueness and natural language modalities.