4 research outputs found
Un análisis de parecido familiar de la construcción media: un enfoque funcional-cognitivo
This doctoral dissertation aims at delimiting the lexical-semantic and discourse-pragmatic features that regulate well-formedness in middle expressions and which could legitimate the adscription of a particular nominal, verb, or adjunct to the middle construction in English. The middle construction is here analysed in terms of its prototype effects (cf. Taylor, 1995; Langacker, 2008; Sakamoto, 2001; Goldberg, 1995; and MarÃn Arrese, 2001 and 2013), hence accommodating not only prototypical instances but also marginal structures largely ignored in the literature. This dissertation examines the prototype effects of the middle construction by exploring the Agent-like features of the Subject entity, the aspectuality of the verb, the role of the implicit Agent, and the nature of the middle adjunct. The structures analysed here conform a family of intransitive constructions that are understood as segments on the Unergative – Middle – Ergative continuum. The idea that the middle construction can actually be considered as a prototype category accommodating central and marginal structures contrasts with the postulates of the projectionist model (cf. Pinker, 1989; Ackema and Schoorlemmer, 1994; Hale and Keyser, 2002; and Fagan, 1992). The projectionist approach cannot account for the process of lexical-constructional interaction of the middle construction in an entirely satisfactory way. This is so because it does not attend to the prototype effects and discourse-pragmatic factors surrounding the middle construction, since it merely focuses on the structural information (cf. Hundt, 2007: 60; and Lemmens, 1998: 4). Therefore, it seems to be pertinent to apply the notions of ‘family-resemblance’ (cf. Wittgenstein, 1958) and ‘prototype effects’ (cf. Taylor, 1995) to the study of the middle construction, following cognitive-linguistic perspectives such as those of Lakoff (1987), Langacker (1987, 1991, 2008), Taylor (1995), and Goldberg (1995, 2006). The theory of prototypes allows for the application of the idea of a family-resemblance relation among different but related structures in order to justify the accommodation of non-prototypical cases into the prototype category. This doctoral dissertation applies a usage-based methodology to carry out a corpus study of contextualised examples. The compilation process has been conducted through the ‘Concordance’ within the Sketch Engine tool. The total sample retrieved and analysed here is 14099 instances, based on colloconstructional schemas which combine ±Animate subject entities with 254 different verbal predicates (cf. Levin, 1993), collocated with middable adjuncts (cf. Davidse and Heyvaert, 2007). The family-resemblance analysis challenges the traditionally accepted restricting features associated with the middle construction, thus demonstrating that both central and marginal structures can be accommodated within the middle prototype category. This is due to the fact that the segments of the continuum share certain commonalities with respect to their syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and cognitive underlying schemas, as well as a functional symmetry in the underlying structure of the subject and the verb (cf. Rijkhoff, 1991, 2002, 2008a and 2008b). In addition, the family-resemblance analysis of the middle prototype category is also based on the similarities and differences found across the family members examined in terms of their processes of Compositional Cospecification (cf. Yoshimura, 1998; Yoshimura and Taylor, 2004). Such process involves the specification of the semantics of the predicate in accordance with the meaning of the nominal and the semantic value of the adjunct in the middle construction. The family of constructions analysed includes: (i) prototypical action-oriented middles; (ii) prototypical ergative-like middles; (iii) the metonymically-motivated extensions of the action-oriented prototype (namely, Locative, Means, and Circumstanceof- Instrument middles); and (iv) metonymically-motivated extensions from the ergativelike prototype (namely, Agent-Instrument and Experiencer-Subject middles). Corpus data reveal that prototypical ergative-like middles are the most productive group (with 6801 instances, 68.24%), followed by prototypical action-oriented-middles (with 3633 examples, 25.77%). Among the metonymically-motivated extensions, the most productive structures are Experiencer-Subject middles (with 1789 instances, 12.69%), followed by Agent-Instrument middles (with 286 examples, 2.03%), whereas the least frequent types are Locative middles (with 48 instances, 0.34%), Means middles (with 60 examples, 0.43%), and Circumstance-of-Instrument middles (with 7 instances, 0.05%). The rest of corpus examples belong to the semantic types of Destiny- and Resultoriented middles (with 1475 instances, 10.46%).El propósito de esta tesis es delimitar las caracterÃsticas léxico-semánticas y discursivo-pragmáticas que regulan la formación de expresiones medias y que podrÃan legitimar la adscripción de un determinado nominal, verbo o adjunto a la construcción media inglesa. La construcción media se analiza en términos de sus efectos prototÃpicos (cf. Taylor, 1995; Langacker, 2008; Sakamoto, 2001; Goldberg, 1995; y MarÃn Arrese, 2001 y 2013), acomodando no sólo ejemplos centrales sino también estructuras marginales generalmente ignoradas en la literatura. Esta tesis doctoral examina los efectos prototÃpicos de la construcción media mediante la exploración de las caracterÃsticas pseudo-agentivas de la entidad sujeto, la aspectualidad del verbo, el rol del argumento agente implÃcito y la naturaleza del adjunto. Las estructuras analizadas forman una familia de construcciones intransitivas que se entienden como segmentos del continuo Inergativo – Medio – Ergativo. La idea de que la construcción media, de hecho, pueda considerarse como una categorÃa prototÃpica que acomoda estructuras centrales y periféricas contrasta con los postulados del modelo proyeccionista (cf. Pinker, 1989; Ackema y Schoorlemmer, 1994; Hale y Keyser, 2002; y Fagan, 1992). Dicho modelo no puede dar cuenta del proceso de interacción léxico-construccional de la construcción media de forma satisfactoria. Esto se debe a que el modelo proyeccionista no atiende a los efectos prototÃpicos y los factores discursivo-pragmáticos de la construcción media, ya que se centra únicamente en la información estructural (cf. Hundt, 2007: 60; y Lemmens, 1998: 4). Por ello, parece pertinente aplicar las nociones de ‘parecido familiar’ (cf. Wittgenstein, 1958) y ‘efectos prototÃpicos’ (cf. Taylor, 1995) al estudio de la construcción media, siguiendo perspectivas cognitivistas tales como las de Lakoff (1987), Langacker (1987, 1991, 2008), Taylor (1995) y Goldberg (1995, 2006). La teorÃa de los prototipos permite la aplicación de la idea de una relación de parecido familiar entre estructuras distintas pero relacionadas, justificando asà la acomodación de casos marginales dentro de la categorÃa prototÃpica. Esta tesis doctoral aplica una metodologÃa basada en el uso para llevar a cabo un estudio de corpus de ejemplos contextualizados. El proceso de compilación se ha llevado a cabo a través de la sección ‘Concordancia’ de la herramienta Sketch Engine. La muestra total analizada aquà es de 14099 ejemplos, basados en esquemas colo-construccionales en los que se combinan entidades de sujeto ±Animadas y 254 predicados verbales distintos (cf. Levin, 1993), colocados con adverbios compatibles con la construcción media (cf. Davidse y Heyvaert, 2007). El análisis de parecido familiar cuestiona las caracterÃsticas restrictivas tradicionalmente asociadas con la construcción media, demostrando asà que tanto las estructuras centrales como las marginales pueden acomodarse dentro de la categorÃa prototÃpica media. Esto se debe a que todos los segmentos del continuo comparten ciertas semejanzas con respecto a sus esquemas subyacentes de naturaleza sintáctica, semántica, pragmática y cognitiva, asà como una simetrÃa funcional en la estructura subyacente del sujeto y el predicado (cf. Rijkhoff, 1991, 2002, 2008a y 2008b). Además, el análisis de parecido familiar de la categorÃa prototÃpica media también se basa en las similitudes y diferencias encontradas entre los miembros de la familia de estructuras examinadas en función de sus procesos de Coespecificación Composicional (cf. Yoshimura, 1998; Yoshimura y Taylor, 2004). Dicho proceso se refiere a que la semántica del verbo se especifica de acuerdo con el significado del nominal y el valor semántico del adjunto en la construcción media. La familia de construcciones analizadas incluye: (i) medias prototÃpicas orientadas a la acción; (ii) medias prototÃpicas de naturaleza ergativa; (iii) extensiones metonÃmicamente motivadas de las medias prototÃpicas orientadas a la acción (concretamente, locativas, de medio e instrumentales de circunstancia); y (iv) extensiones metonÃmicamente motivadas de las medias prototÃpicas de naturaleza ergativa (concretamente, agentivo-instrumentales y de sujeto experimentador). Los datos del corpus examinado revelan que las medias prototÃpicas de naturaleza ergativa son las más productivas (con 6801 ejemplos, 68.24%), seguidas de las medias prototÃpicas orientadas a la acción (con 3633 ejemplos, 25.77%). Entre las extensiones motivadas metonÃmicamente, las estructuras más productivas son las medias de sujeto experimentador (con 1789 ejemplos 12.69%), seguidas de las medias agentivo-instrumentales (con 286 ejemplos, 2.03%), mientras que las menos frecuentes pertenecen a la clase de locativas (con 48 ejemplos, 0.34%), de medio (con 60 ejemplos, 0.43%), e instrumentales de circunstancia (con 7 ejemplos, 0.05%). El resto de ejemplos del corpus pertenecen a los tipos semánticos de medias orientadas al Destino y Resultado (con 1475 ejemplos, 10.46%)
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A shallow processing approach to anaphor resolution
The thesis describes an investigation of the feasibility of resolving anaphors in natural language texts by means of a "shallow processing" approach which exploits knowledge of syntax, semantics and local focussing as heavily as possible; it does not rely on the presence of large amounts of world or domain knowledge, which are notoriously hard to process accurately. The ideas reported are implemented in a program called SPAR (Shallow Processing Anaphor Resolver), which resolves anaphoric and other linguistic ambiguities in simple English stories and generates sentence-by-sentence paraphrases that show what interpretations have been selected. Input to SPAR takes the form of semantic structures for single sentences constructed by Boguraev's English analyser. These structures are integrated into a network-style text representation as processing proceeds. To achieve anaphor resolution, SPAR combines and develops several existing techniques, most notably Sidner's theory of local focussing and Wilks' "preference semantics" theory of semantics and common sense inference. Consideration of the need to resolve several anaphors in the same sentence results in Sidner's framework being modified and extended to allow focus-based processing to interact more flexibly with processing based on other types of knowledge. Wilks' treatment of common sense inference is extended to incorporate a wider range of types of inference without jeopardizing its uniformity and simplicity. Further, his primitive-based formalism for word sense meanings is developed in the interests of economy, accuracy and ease of use. Although SPAR is geared mainly towards resolving anaphors, the design of the system allows many non-anaphoric (lexical and structural) ambiguities that cannot be resolved during sentence analysis to be resolved as a by-product of anaphor resolution
Hierarchical Transactions for Hardware/Software Cosynthesis
Modern heterogeneous devices provide of a variety of computationally diverse components holding tremendous performance and power capability. Hardware-software cosynthesis offers system-level synthesis and optimization opportunities to realize the potential of these evolving architectures. Efficiently coordinating high-throughput data to make use of available computational resources requires a myriad of distributed local memories, caching structures, and data motion resources. In fact, storage, caching, and data transfer components comprise the majority of silicon real estate. Conventional automated approaches, unfortunately, do not effectively represent applications in a way that captures data motion and state management which dictate dominant system costs. Consequently, existing cosynthesis methods suffer from poor utility of computational resources. Automated cosynthesis tailored towards memory-centric optimizations can address the challenge, adapting partitioning, scheduling, mapping, and binding techniques to maximize overall system utility.This research presents a novel hierarchical transaction model that formalizes state and control management through an abstract data/control encapsulation semantic. It is designed from the ground-up to enable efficient synthesis across heterogeneous system components, with an emphasis on memory capacity constraints. It intrinsically encourages a high degree of concurrency and latency tolerance, and provides verification tools to ensure correctness. A unique data/execution hierarchical encapsulation framework guarantees scalable analysis, supporting a novel concept of state and control mobility. A front-end language allows concise expression of designer intent, and is structured with synthesis in mind. Designers express families of valid executions in a minimal format through high-level dependencies, type systems, and computational relationships, allowing synthesis tools to manage lower-level details. This dissertation introduces and exercises the model, discussing language construction, demonstrating control and data-dominated applications, and presenting a synthesis path that exhibits near-linear scalability with problem size
Handbook of Lexical Functional Grammar
Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) is a nontransformational theory of
linguistic structure, first developed in the 1970s by Joan Bresnan and
Ronald M. Kaplan, which assumes that language is best described and
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functional correspondences. This volume has five parts. Part I,
Overview and Introduction, provides an introduction to core syntactic
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