Lambek Calculus and Grammars are rarely taught in CS courses, despite their strong logical foundations and despite being the the first resource-sensitive calculus (proposed 30 years prior linear logic). This talk is a half-tutorial on Lambek Grammars, focusing on their relation with Context-Free Grammars, and inviting to look at grammars from a rarely taken (in CS) point of view.

The talk also discusses a technical result: under a reasonable restriction (which seems to hold for natural languages at least) Lambek Grammars are strongly equivalent to Context-Free Grammars. The key is the algebraic description of Lambek Grammar derivations.