Incremental Interpretation: Applications, Theory, and Relationship to Dynamic Semantics

Why should computers interpret language incrementally? In recent years psycholinguistic evidence for incremental interpretation has become more and more compelling, suggesting that humans perform semantic interpretation before constituent boundaries, possibly word by word. However, possible computational applications have received less attention. In this paper we consider various potential applications, in particular graphical interaction and dialogue. We then review the theoretical and computational tools available for mapping from fragments of sentences to fully scoped semantic representations. Finally, we tease apart the relationship between dynamic semantics and incremental interpretation.Comment: Procs. of COLING 94, LaTeX (2.09 preferred), 8 page

A Transition-Based Directed Acyclic Graph Parser for UCCA

We present the first parser for UCCA, a cross-linguistically applicable framework for semantic representation, which builds on extensive typological work and supports rapid annotation. UCCA poses a challenge for existing parsing techniques, as it exhibits reentrancy (resulting in DAG structures), discontinuous structures and non-terminal nodes corresponding to complex semantic units. To our knowledge, the conjunction of these formal properties is not supported by any existing parser. Our transition-based parser, which uses a novel transition set and features based on bidirectional LSTMs, has value not just for UCCA parsing: its ability to handle more general graph structures can inform the development of parsers for other semantic DAG structures, and in languages that frequently use discontinuous structures.Comment: 16 pages; Accepted as long paper at ACL201

Syntactic Computation as Labelled Deduction: WH a case study

This paper addresses the question "Why do WH phenomena occur with the particular cluster of properties observed across languages -- long-distance dependencies, WH-in situ, partial movement constructions, reconstruction, crossover etc." These phenomena have been analysed by invoking a number of discrete principles and categories, but have so far resisted a unified treatment. The explanation proposed is set within a model of natural language understanding in context, where the task of understanding is taken to be the incremental building of a structure over which the semantic content is defined. The formal model is a composite of a labelled type-deduction system, a modal tree logic, and a set of rules for describing the process of interpreting the string as a set of transition states. A dynamic concept of syntax results, in which in addition to an output structure associated with each string (analogous to the level of LF), there is in addition an explicit meta-level description of the process whereby this incremental process takes place. This paper argues that WH-related phenomena can be unified by adopting this dynamic perspective. The main focus of the paper is on WH-initial structures, WH in situ structures, partial movement phenomena, and crossover phenomena. In each case, an analysis is proposed which emerges from the general characterisatioan of WH structures without construction-specific stipulation.Articl

TDL--- A Type Description Language for Constraint-Based Grammars

This paper presents \tdl, a typed feature-based representation language and inference system. Type definitions in \tdl\ consist of type and feature constraints over the boolean connectives. \tdl\ supports open- and closed-world reasoning over types and allows for partitions and incompatible types. Working with partially as well as with fully expanded types is possible. Efficient reasoning in \tdl\ is accomplished through specialized modules.Comment: Will Appear in Proc. COLING-9