Application of shape grammar theory to underground rail station design and passenger evacuation

This paper outlines the development of a computer design environment that generates station ‘reference’ plans for analysis by designers at the project feasibility stage. The developed program uses the theoretical concept of shape grammar, based upon principles of recognition and replacement of a particular shape to enable the generation of station layouts. The developed novel shape grammar rules produce multiple plans of accurately sized infrastructure faster than by traditional means. A finite set of station infrastructure elements and a finite set of connection possibilities for them, directed by regulations and the logical processes of station usage, allows for increasingly complex composite shapes to be automatically produced, some of which are credible station layouts at ‘reference’ block plan level. The proposed method of generating shape grammar plans is aligned to London Underground standards, in particular to the Station Planning Standards and Guidelines 5th edition (SPSG5 2007) and the BS-7974 fire safety engineering process. Quantitative testing is via existing evacuation modelling software. The prototype system, named SGEvac, has both the scope and potential for redevelopment to any other country’s design legislation

Linking in fluid construction grammars

Trabajo presentado a la 17th Belgium-Netherlands Conference on Artificial Intelligence, celebrada en Bruselas (Bélgica) del 17 al 18 de octubre de 2005.One of the key problems in any language processing system is to establish an adequate syntax/semantics interface, and one of the major requirements of such an interface is that partial meanings contributed by individual words are properly linked with each other based on grammatical constructions. This paper reports how we deal with this problem within the context of Fluid Construction Grammars (fcg). Fcg is a general unification-based inference engine which has been designed to support experiments in the self-organisation of language in a population of interacting situated embodied agents. The paper focuses on technical details pertaining to the linking problem.N

Semantic and syntactic demarcations of Classical Greek object cases: An object(ive) study

In Classical Greek, many verbs take direct objects marked with genitive (GEN) or dative (DAT), rather than accusative (ACC) case. Traditional grammars (Smyth 1956, Boas et al. 2019) fail to offer principled descriptions or accounts of the distribution of ACC, GEN, DAT object case for transitive verbs. This paper analyzes a corpus involving case-assigning transitive verbs, and examines Luraghi's 2010 Transitivity Hierarchy in this context. We find that, while her ranking of verbs' transitivity is correct, the features used to determine the hierarchy are not. Our study demonstrates a highly significant correlation between a verb's level of transitivity (as indicated by the case marking on its object) and the Proto-role Properties of Change of State and subject Volitionality (Dowty 1991)

How to Play the Syntax Game

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.This paper introduces the Syntax Game, a language game for exploring the origins of syntactic structure, specifically phrase structure. We define the game and propose a particular strategy for playing it. We show that this strategy leads to the emergence of a phrase structure grammar through the collective invention, adoption, and alignment of culturally established conventions.The research reported here has been funded by an ICREA Research fellowship to LS and by the EU FET-Open Insight Project and a Marie Curie Integration Grant EVOLAN.Peer reviewe

The evolution of case grammar

"There are few linguistic phenomena that have seduced linguists so skillfully as grammatical case has done. Ever since Panini (4th Century BC), case has claimed a central role in linguistic theory and continues to do so today. However, despite centuries worth of research, case has yet to reveal its most important secrets. This book offers breakthrough explanations for the understanding of case through agent-based experiments in cultural language evolution. The experiments demonstrate that case systems may emerge because they have a selective advantage for communication: they reduce the cognitive effort that listeners need for semantic interpretation, while at the same time limiting the cognitive resources required for doing so.