Data-Oriented Language Processing. An Overview

During the last few years, a new approach to language processing has started to emerge, which has become known under various labels such as "data-oriented parsing", "corpus-based interpretation", and "tree-bank grammar" (cf. van den Berg et al. 1994; Bod 1992-96; Bod et al. 1996a/b; Bonnema 1996; Charniak 1996a/b; Goodman 1996; Kaplan 1996; Rajman 1995a/b; Scha 1990-92; Sekine & Grishman 1995; Sima'an et al. 1994; Sima'an 1995-96; Tugwell 1995). This approach, which we will call "data-oriented processing" or "DOP", embodies the assumption that human language perception and production works with representations of concrete past language experiences, rather than with abstract linguistic rules. The models that instantiate this approach therefore maintain large corpora of linguistic representations of previously occurring utterances. When processing a new input utterance, analyses of this utterance are constructed by combining fragments from the corpus; the occurrence-frequencies of the fragments are used to estimate which analysis is the most probable one. In this paper we give an in-depth discussion of a data-oriented processing model which employs a corpus of labelled phrase-structure trees. Then we review some other models that instantiate the DOP approach. Many of these models also employ labelled phrase-structure trees, but use different criteria for extracting fragments from the corpus or employ different disambiguation strategies (Bod 1996b; Charniak 1996a/b; Goodman 1996; Rajman 1995a/b; Sekine & Grishman 1995; Sima'an 1995-96); other models use richer formalisms for their corpus annotations (van den Berg et al. 1994; Bod et al., 1996a/b; Bonnema 1996; Kaplan 1996; Tugwell 1995).Comment: 34 pages, Postscrip

MOTION-DIRECTION SERIAL VERB CONSTRUCTIONS IN JAVANESE: A LEXICAL-FUNCTIONAL APPROACH

Motion-direction serialization (MDS) is a type of verb serialization that involves motion and directional verbs. This type of verb serialization commonly occurs in serializing languages including Javanese. This paper aims to discuss the characteristics and syntactic structure of MDS in Javanese. The syntactic structure, which comprises constituent and functional structures, is presented by using the theory of lexical -functional grammar (LFG) By adopting the lexical conceptual structure, the writer presents a model of functional structure to explain the syntactic and semantic relation between the motion verb and the directional verb in MDS. The data used in this study were taken from the novel “Suparto Brata’s Omnibus: Kumpulan Roman” written by Suparto Brata (2007) In Addition, this paper also used spoken data from two Javanese native speakers of the Surakarta dialect. The result shows that MDS in Javanese shares the same SUBJ argument, aspect, and negation. This shows that MDS expresses a single event. The LFG analysis of MDS shows that the directional verb has an X-COMP function, which is semantically represented as DIRECTION in the functional structure. The use of lexical conceptual structure in lexical entry and functional structure can clearly show the semantic and syntactic relation of the verbs involved in MDS

Linear logic-based semantics construction for LTAG

In this paper we review existing appoaches to semantics construction in LTAG (Lexicalised Tree Adjoining Grammar) which are all based on the notion of derivation (tree)s. We argue that derivation structures in LTAG are not appropriate to guide semantic composition, due to a non-isomorphism, in LTAG, between the syntactic operation of adjunction on the one hand, and the semantic operations of complementation and modification, on the other. Linear Logic based “glue” semantics, by now the classical approach to semantics construction within the LFG framework (cf. Dalrymple (1999)) allows for flexible coupling of syntactic and semantic structure. We investigate application of “glue semantics” to LTAG syntax, using as underlying structure the derived tree, which is more appropriate for principle-based semantics construction. We show how linear logic semantics construction helps to bridge the non-isomorphism between syntactic and semantic operations in LTAG. The glue approach allows to capture non-tree local dependencies in control and modification structures, and extends to the treatment of scope ambiguity with quantified NPs and VP adverbials. Finally, glue semantics applies successfully to the adjunction-based analysis of long-distance dependencies in LTAG, which differs significantly from the f-structure based analysis in LFG