Constraint-Based Parsing as an Efficient Solution: Results from the Parsing Evaluation Campaign EASy

International audienceThis paper describes the unfolding of the EASy evaluation campaign for French parsers as well as the techniques employed for the participation of laboratory LPL to this campaign. Three symbolic parsers based on a same resource and a same formalism (Property Grammars) are described and evaluated. The first results of this evaluation are analyzed and lead to the conclusion that symbolic parsing in a constraint-based formalism is efficient and robust

Anaphora and Discourse Structure

We argue in this paper that many common adverbial phrases generally taken to signal a discourse relation between syntactically connected units within discourse structure, instead work anaphorically to contribute relational meaning, with only indirect dependence on discourse structure. This allows a simpler discourse structure to provide scaffolding for compositional semantics, and reveals multiple ways in which the relational meaning conveyed by adverbial connectives can interact with that associated with discourse structure. We conclude by sketching out a lexicalised grammar for discourse that facilitates discourse interpretation as a product of compositional rules, anaphor resolution and inference.Comment: 45 pages, 17 figures. Revised resubmission to Computational Linguistic

Distributional Semantics Today

This introduction to the special issue of the TAL journal on distributional semantics provides an overview of the current topics of this field and gives a brief summary of the contribution

Discourse structure and information structure : interfaces and prosodic realization

In this paper we review the current state of research on the issue of discourse structure (DS) / information structure (IS) interface. This field has received a lot of attention from discourse semanticists and pragmatists, and has made substantial progress in recent years. In this paper we summarize the relevant studies. In addition, we look at the issue of DS/ISinteraction at a different level—that of phonetics. It is known that both information structure and discourse structure can be realized prosodically, but the issue of phonetic interaction between the prosodic devices they employ has hardly ever been discussed in this context. We think that a proper consideration of this aspect of DS/IS-interaction would enrich our understanding of the phenomenon, and hence we formulate some related research-programmatic positions

Anaphora and Discourse Semantics

We argue in this paper that many common adverbial phrases generally taken to be discourse connectives signalling discourse relations between adjacent discourse units are instead anaphors. We do this by (i) demonstrating their behavioral similarity with more common anaphors (pronouns and definite NPs); (ii) presenting a general framework for understanding anaphora into which they nicely fit; (iii) showing the interpretational benefits of understanding discourse adverbials as anaphors; and (iv) sketching out a lexicalised grammar that facilitates discourse interpretation as a product of compositional rules, anaphor resolution and inference

La phrase verbale noyau en français

La phrase verbale noyau en français, caractérisée comme la chaîne de mots qui comprend clitiques, auxiliaire, noyau verbal, particules de négation, l'adverbe toujours et la forme tous est étudiée dans un cadre -- libellé 5P -- qui essaye d'intégrer observation, test et calcul -- c'est-à-dire les activités essentielles de toute science du réel -- dans l'étude des phénomènes linguistiques. Le cadre 5P est présenté dans ses caractéristiques essentielles. Les Propriétés permettant de spécifier, sous certaines conditions d'observation, les phrases verbales noyau sont définies, de même que le calcul à effectuer pour générer tous les conséquences de ces Propriétés -- c'est-à-dire les suites qui sont des phrases verbales noyau en français. On montre, par ailleurs, les possibilités de calcul à partir de ces suites. Les caractéristiques de modularité et d'incrémentalité du système sont illustrées, et celui-ci est mis en perspective par rapport à d'autres points de vue qui ont cours en linguistique

Genericity and (Non)accidentalness

This paper attempts to clarify nature of the “law-likness” or “nonaccidentalness” that generic sentences are usually claimed to express. It does so by examining the interactions of such generic sentences with a construction which seems to express “accidentalness,” namely the happens to construction (as in John happens not to see well). In particular, it turns out that generics with bare plural subjects (BP generics, like Dogs have four legs), but not generics with indefinite singular subjects (IS generics, like A dog has four legs) are compatible with this construction (compare Dogs happen to have four legs vs #A dog happens to have four legs). I analyze happens to as a domain vague necessity operator, i.e. a universal quantifier over worlds, whose restriction (the domain of worlds quantified over) is systematically vague. Following Greenberg (2003, 2008) I propose that a number of distributional and interpretational differences between IS and BP generics can be attributed to the fact that although both have the same basic modal quantificational semantic structure the restriction over worlds is necessarily precise in the former kind of generics but is allowed to be vague in the latter. The compatibility of BP generics with happens to is thus analyzed as a case of modal concord.Cet article entreprend de clarifier la nature de la « law-likness » ou « non-accidentalité » qu’expriment, selon l’opinon courante, les phrases génériques. Pour ce faire, il examine les interactions des ces phrases génériques avec une construction qui semble exprimer « l’accidentalité », à savoir la construction en happens to (comme dans John happens not to see well, fr. il se trouve que John ne voit pas bien). En particulier, il s’avère que les génériques avec un sujet pluriel nu (génériques BP, comme Dogs have four legs, fr. les chiens ont quatre pattes), mais pas les génériques avec un sujet indéfini singulier (génériques IS, comme A dog has four legs, fr. un chien a quattre pattes), sont compatibles avec cette construction (cf. Dogs happen to have four legs vs #A dog happens to have four legs). J’analyse happens to comme un opérateur de nécessité à domaine vague, c’est-à-dire un quantificateur universel sur les mondes dont la restriction (le domaine de mondes sur lequel opère la quantification) est systématiquement vague. À la suite de Greenberg (2003, 2008), je propose qu’un certain nombre de différences distributionnelles et interprétatives entre les génériques IS et BP peuvent être attribuées au fait que bien que les deux ont la même structure sémantique quantificationnelle modale de base, la restriction des mondes est nécessairement précise dans le premier type de génériques, alors qu’elle peut être vague dans le second. La compatibilité des génériques BP avec happens to est ainsi analysée comme un cas de concordance modale

The Syntax Of Information Structure And The PF Interface

Focus movement to a left-peripheral position has been posited for both Hungarian and Italian. In this paper I argue against a unified cartographic treatment of focus movement, which analyses both as instances of movement to [Spec, Focus0]. I raise some theoretical issues for cartography, such as the proliferation of focus heads and the difficulties with accounting for optionality. Empirically, I show that a set of properties distinguish Hungarian and Italian left-peripheral focus movement suggesting a different syntactic analysis for the two constructions. Following Hamlaoui & Szendrői’s (2015) proposal for the syntax-prosody mapping of clauses, I show that Hungarian focus movement is prosodically motivated in that it is movement targeting the position that main stress is assigned to in the prosody. I show how the same proposal extends to right-peripheral and string-medial focus in Italian and heavy NP shift in English. I discuss the typological predictions of the that it follows from the proposal that left-peripheral focus movement is always accompanied by verb movement, while right-peripheral focus movement will target a position lower than the surface position of the finite verb. Finally, I propose that Italian left-peripheral focus movement is motivated by contrastivity. This accounts for the different characteristics of the two constructions: (i) that Hungarian, but not Italian, focus movement is accompanied by the movement of the finite verb; (ii) that Hungarian left-peripheral focus is prosodically unmarked, while Italian left-peripheral focus comes with marked prosody; and (iii) that Hungarian focus movement is pragmatically unmarked, in the sense that it can answer a wh-question, while Italian focus movement is explicitly contrastive (or perhaps even mirative or corrective)