In this paper we introduce coercion in Lambek calculus. Coercion in natural language is studied within Generative Lexicon theory and is named after common usage in programming language design for a similar technique.
Essential about coercion is that it changes the compositional semantics, while it leaves the syntactic type unaltered. Because of this, a functor may take an argument that does not fit its requirements, in fact a/b, c |- a can be a valid inference if coercing C into B is allowed. This is very unusual in Categorial Grammar and it would imply an adjustment to its traditional Fregean view on compositionality.
We also show how coercion relates to recent proposals on disjunctive categories in sign-based Lambek calculus, in the sense that coercion relates disjunctive syntactic types through a shared underlying lexical semantics.
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