Primary and secondary discourse connectives: definitions and lexicons

Starting from the perspective that discourse structure arises from the presence of coherence relations, we provide a map of linguistic discourse structuring devices (DRDs), and focus on those for written text. We propose to structure these items by differentiating between primary and secondary connectives on the one hand, and free connecting phrases on the other. For the former, we propose that their behavior can be described by lexicons, and we show one concrete proposal that by now has been applied to three languages, with others being added in ongoing work. The lexical representations can be useful both for humans (theoretical investigations, transfer to other languages) and for machines (automatic discourse parsing and generation)

Primary and secondary discourse connectives: definitions and lexicons

Starting from the perspective that discourse structure arises from the presence of coherence relations, we provide a map of linguistic discourse structuring devices (DRDs), and focus on those for written text. We propose to structure these items by differentiating between primary and secondary connectives on the one hand, and free connecting phrases on the other. For the former, we propose that their behavior can be described by lexicons, and we show one concrete proposal that by now has been applied to three languages, with others being added in ongoing work. The lexical representations can be useful both for humans (theoretical investigations, transfer to other languages) and for machines (automatic discourse parsing and generation)

Lexicons and grammars for language processing: industrial or handcrafted products?

Lexicon and Grammar: From Meanings to the Construction of SignificationDuring the recent years, the use of linguistic data for language processing (semantic ambiguityresolution, translation...) increased progressively. Such data are now commonly called languageresources. A few years ago, nearly all the language resources used for this purpose were collectionsof texts as the Brown Corpus and the Penn Treebank, but the use of electronic lexicons (WordNet,FrameNet, VerbNet, ComLex, Lexicon-Grammar...) and formal grammars (TAG...) developed recently. Thisdevelopment is slow because most processes of construction of lexicons and grammars aremanual, whereas the construction of corpora has always been highly automated.However, more and more specialists of language processing realize that the information content oflexicons and grammars is richer than that of corpora, and hence the former make more elaborateprocessing possible. The difference in construction time is likely to be connected with thedifference in information content: the handcrafting of lexicons and grammars by linguists wouldmake them more informative than automatically generated data.This situation can evolve into two directions: either specialists of language technology getprogressively used to handling manually constructed resources, which are more informative andmore complex, or the process of construction of lexicons and grammars is automated andindustrialized, which is the mainstream perspective. Both evolutions are already in progress, and atension exists between them. The relation between linguists and computer scientists depends on thefuture of these evolutions, since the first implies training and hiring numerous linguists, whereasthe other depends essentially on solutions elaborated by computer engineers.The aim of this article is to analyse practical examples of the language resources in question, andto discuss about which of the two trends, handcrafting or generating industrially, or a combinationof both, can give the best results or is the most realistic.L'utilisation de données linguistiques pour le traitement des langues : levée d'ambiguïtés sémantiques, traduction... a augmenté progressivement au cours des dernières années. De telles données sont communément appelées ressources linguistiques. Il y a quelques années, presque toutes les ressources linguistiques exploitées pour ce type d'usage étaient des collections de textes telles que le Corpus de Brown et le Corpus arboré de Penn, mais l'utilisation de lexiques électroniques (WordNet, FrameNet, VerbNet, ComLex, Lexique-Grammaire...) et de grammaires formelles (grammaires d'adjonction d'arbres...) s'est développé depuis. Cet essor est lent, car la plupart des processus de construction de lexiques et de grammaires sont manuels, alors que la construction de corpus a été très tôt en grande partie automatisée. Cependant, de plus en plus de spécialistes du traitement des langues jugent le contenu informatif des lexiques et des grammaires plus riche que celui des corpus, ce qui ouvre la possibilité de traitements plus élaborés. La différence dans la durée de construction de ces deux types de ressources est sans doute liée à la différence de richesse du contenu informatif : la construction artisanale de lexiques et de grammaires par les linguistes les rendrait plus informatifs que des données engendrées automatiquement.Cette situation peut évoluer dans deux directions : ou les spécialistes de technologie linguistique se familiarisent progressivement avec la manipulation de ressources construites manuellement, plus informatives et plus complexes, ou les processus de construction de lexiques et de grammaires sont automatisés et industrialisés, ce qui est la perspective la plus répandue.Les deux évolutions sont déjà à l'œuvre, et il existe une tension entre elles deux. Les relations entre linguistes et informaticiens dépendent du futur de ces évolutions, puisque celle-là suppose la formation et le recrutement de nombreux linguistes, alors que celle-ci dépend essentiellement de solutions élaborées par des ingénieurs de l'informatique.Le but de cet article est d'analyser des exemples pratiques des ressources linguistiques en question, et de discuter sur la question de savoir laquelle des deux tendances, l'artisanale ou l'industrielle, ou une combinaison des deux, pourrait donner les meilleurs résultats ou s'avérer la plus réaliste

Demonstratives in discourse

This volume explores the use of demonstratives in the structuring and management of discourse, and their role as engagement expressions, from a crosslinguistic perspective. It seeks to establish which types of discourse-related functions are commonly encoded by demonstratives, beyond the well-established reference-tracking and deictic uses, and also investigates which members of demonstrative paradigms typically take on certain functions. Moreover, it looks at the roles of non-deictic demonstratives, that is, members of the paradigm which are dedicated e.g. to contrastive, recognitional, or anaphoric functions and do not express deictic distinctions. Several of the studies also focus on manner demonstratives, which have been little studied from a crosslinguistic perspective. The volume thus broadens the scope of investigation of demonstratives to look at how their core functions interact with a wider range of discourse functions in a number of different languages. The volume covers languages from a range of geographical locations and language families, including Cushitic and Mande languages in Africa, Oceanic and Papuan languages in the Pacific region, Algonquian and Guaykuruan in the Americas, and Germanic, Slavic and Finno-Ugric languages in the Eurasian region. It also includes two papers taking a broader typological approach to specific discourse functions of demonstratives

A Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammar for French: The General Framework

We present the first sizable grammar written in the Tree Adjoining Grammar formalism (TAG)1. In particular we have used \u27lexicalized\u27 TAGs as described in [Schabes, Abeillé and Joshi 1988]. We present the linguistic coverage of our grammar, and explain the linguistic reasons which lead us to choose the particular representations. We have shown that a wide range of linguistic phenomena can be handled within the TAG formalism with lexically specified structures only. We first state the basic structures needed for French, with a particular emphasis on TAG\u27s extended domain of locality that enables us to state complex subcategorization phenomena in a natural way. We motivate the choice of the head for the different structures and we contrast the treatment of nominal arguments with that of sentential ones, which is particular to the TAG framework. We also give a detailed analysis of sentential complements, because it has lead us to introduce substitution into the formalism, and because TAG makes interesting predictions in these cases. We discuss the different linguistic phenomena corresponding to adjunction and to substitution respectively. We then move on to \u27light verb\u27 constructions, in which extraction freely occurs out of the predicative NP. They are handled in a TAG straightforwardly as opposed to the usual double analysis. We lastly give an overview of the treatment of adjuncts,and suggest a treatment of idioms which make them fall into the same representations as \u27free\u27 structures

Datives and adpositions in North-Eastern Basque

Many languages show a degree of overlapping between the distinct categories of adpositions and oblique cases. The use of oblique cases very frequently extends to cover semantic roles that are typically expressed by adpositions. Spatial roles, such as locations, goals of motion or sources are a case in point. A common approach to this general phenomenon assimilates dative case-suffixes to adpositions, and specifies in the lexicon the relation between particular spatial roles and the two types of entities. In north-eastern varieties of Basque, datives can express spatial roles, such as targets of motion or locations. Basque is a particularly intriguing case of overlap, in the sense that its dative case-suffix behaves as a bona fide case marker outside the spatial cases, on the same level as absolutive and ergative cases, triggering agreement with the auxiliary and showing behaviour typical of DPs. We will argue that the spatial dative cases in north-eastern Basque are not different from what we see in canonical dative DPs: they are case suffixes, attached to nominal phrases, and expressing purely syntactic relations. The only difference being that the kind of functional support necessary to license case in verbal predicates can also be found internal to adpositional phrases, within certain conditions. Concretely, we will capitalize on recent work by Koopman (2000), Tortora (2009) and Den Dikken (2010) and argue that the spatial dative cases of north-eastern Basque are licensed in an aspectual projection internal to a phrase headed by a Path adposition. The argument will require a detailed discussion of some of the aspects involved in the syntax of postpositional phrases in Basque

Datives and adpositions in North-Eastern Basque

Many languages show a degree of overlapping between the distinct categories of adpositions and oblique cases. The use of oblique cases very frequently extends to cover semantic roles that are typically expressed by adpositions. Spatial roles, such as locations, goals of motion or sources are a case in point. A common approach to this general phenomenon assimilates dative case-suffixes to adpositions, and specifies in the lexicon the relation between particular spatial roles and the two types of entities. In north-eastern varieties of Basque, datives can express spatial roles, such as targets of motion or locations. Basque is a particularly intriguing case of overlap, in the sense that its dative case-suffix behaves as a bona fide case marker outside the spatial cases, on the same level as absolutive and ergative cases, triggering agreement with the auxiliary and showing behaviour typical of DPs. We will argue that the spatial dative cases in north-eastern Basque are not different from what we see in canonical dative DPs: they are case suffixes, attached to nominal phrases, and expressing purely syntactic relations. The only difference being that the kind of functional support necessary to license case in verbal predicates can also be found internal to adpositional phrases, within certain conditions. Concretely, we will capitalize on recent work by Koopman (2000), Tortora (2009) and Den Dikken (2010) and argue that the spatial dative cases of north-eastern Basque are licensed in an aspectual projection internal to a phrase headed by a Path adposition. The argument will require a detailed discussion of some of the aspects involved in the syntax of postpositional phrases in Basque

Demonstratives in discourse

This volume explores the use of demonstratives in the structuring and management of discourse, and their role as engagement expressions, from a crosslinguistic perspective. It seeks to establish which types of discourse-related functions are commonly encoded by demonstratives, beyond the well-established reference-tracking and deictic uses, and also investigates which members of demonstrative paradigms typically take on certain functions. Moreover, it looks at the roles of non-deictic demonstratives, that is, members of the paradigm which are dedicated e.g. to contrastive, recognitional, or anaphoric functions and do not express deictic distinctions. Several of the studies also focus on manner demonstratives, which have been little studied from a crosslinguistic perspective. The volume thus broadens the scope of investigation of demonstratives to look at how their core functions interact with a wider range of discourse functions in a number of different languages. The volume covers languages from a range of geographical locations and language families, including Cushitic and Mande languages in Africa, Oceanic and Papuan languages in the Pacific region, Algonquian and Guaykuruan in the Americas, and Germanic, Slavic and Finno-Ugric languages in the Eurasian region. It also includes two papers taking a broader typological approach to specific discourse functions of demonstratives