1,553 research outputs found
Multiple Context-Free Tree Grammars: Lexicalization and Characterization
Multiple (simple) context-free tree grammars are investigated, where "simple"
means "linear and nondeleting". Every multiple context-free tree grammar that
is finitely ambiguous can be lexicalized; i.e., it can be transformed into an
equivalent one (generating the same tree language) in which each rule of the
grammar contains a lexical symbol. Due to this transformation, the rank of the
nonterminals increases at most by 1, and the multiplicity (or fan-out) of the
grammar increases at most by the maximal rank of the lexical symbols; in
particular, the multiplicity does not increase when all lexical symbols have
rank 0. Multiple context-free tree grammars have the same tree generating power
as multi-component tree adjoining grammars (provided the latter can use a
root-marker). Moreover, every multi-component tree adjoining grammar that is
finitely ambiguous can be lexicalized. Multiple context-free tree grammars have
the same string generating power as multiple context-free (string) grammars and
polynomial time parsing algorithms. A tree language can be generated by a
multiple context-free tree grammar if and only if it is the image of a regular
tree language under a deterministic finite-copying macro tree transducer.
Multiple context-free tree grammars can be used as a synchronous translation
device.Comment: 78 pages, 13 figure
Factoring Predicate Argument and Scope Semantics : underspecified Semantics with LTAG
In this paper we propose a compositional semantics for lexicalized tree-adjoining grammar (LTAG). Tree-local multicomponent derivations allow separation of the semantic contribution of a lexical item into one component contributing to the predicate argument structure and a second component contributing to scope semantics. Based on this idea a syntax-semantics interface is presented where the compositional semantics depends only on the derivation structure. It is shown that the derivation structure (and indirectly the locality of derivations) allows an appropriate amount of underspecification. This is illustrated by investigating underspecified representations for quantifier scope ambiguities and related phenomena such as adjunct scope and island constraints
Lexicalization and Grammar Development
In this paper we present a fully lexicalized grammar formalism as a
particularly attractive framework for the specification of natural language
grammars. We discuss in detail Feature-based, Lexicalized Tree Adjoining
Grammars (FB-LTAGs), a representative of the class of lexicalized grammars. We
illustrate the advantages of lexicalized grammars in various contexts of
natural language processing, ranging from wide-coverage grammar development to
parsing and machine translation. We also present a method for compact and
efficient representation of lexicalized trees.Comment: ps file. English w/ German abstract. 10 page
D-Tree Grammars
DTG are designed to share some of the advantages of TAG while overcoming some
of its limitations. DTG involve two composition operations called subsertion
and sister-adjunction. The most distinctive feature of DTG is that, unlike TAG,
there is complete uniformity in the way that the two DTG operations relate
lexical items: subsertion always corresponds to complementation and
sister-adjunction to modification. Furthermore, DTG, unlike TAG, can provide a
uniform analysis for em wh-movement in English and Kashmiri, despite the fact
that the em wh element in Kashmiri appears in sentence-second position, and not
sentence-initial position as in English.Comment: Latex source, needs aclap.sty, 8 pages, to appear in ACL-9
An Alternative Conception of Tree-Adjoining Derivation
The precise formulation of derivation for tree-adjoining grammars has
important ramifications for a wide variety of uses of the formalism, from
syntactic analysis to semantic interpretation and statistical language
modeling. We argue that the definition of tree-adjoining derivation must be
reformulated in order to manifest the proper linguistic dependencies in
derivations. The particular proposal is both precisely characterizable through
a definition of TAG derivations as equivalence classes of ordered derivation
trees, and computationally operational, by virtue of a compilation to linear
indexed grammars together with an efficient algorithm for recognition and
parsing according to the compiled grammar.Comment: 33 page
Punctuation in Quoted Speech
Quoted speech is often set off by punctuation marks, in particular quotation
marks. Thus, it might seem that the quotation marks would be extremely useful
in identifying these structures in texts. Unfortunately, the situation is not
quite so clear. In this work, I will argue that quotation marks are not
adequate for either identifying or constraining the syntax of quoted speech.
More useful information comes from the presence of a quoting verb, which is
either a verb of saying or a punctual verb, and the presence of other
punctuation marks, usually commas. Using a lexicalized grammar, we can license
most quoting clauses as text adjuncts. A distinction will be made not between
direct and indirect quoted speech, but rather between adjunct and non-adjunct
quoting clauses.Comment: 11 pages, 11 ps figures, Proceedings of SIGPARSE 96 - Punctuation in
Computational Linguistic
Global Thresholding and Multiple Pass Parsing
We present a variation on classic beam thresholding techniques that is up to
an order of magnitude faster than the traditional method, at the same
performance level. We also present a new thresholding technique, global
thresholding, which, combined with the new beam thresholding, gives an
additional factor of two improvement, and a novel technique, multiple pass
parsing, that can be combined with the others to yield yet another 50%
improvement. We use a new search algorithm to simultaneously optimize the
thresholding parameters of the various algorithms.Comment: Fixed latex errors; fixed minor errors in published versio
Monoid automata for displacement context-free languages
In 2007 Kambites presented an algebraic interpretation of
Chomsky-Schutzenberger theorem for context-free languages. We give an
interpretation of the corresponding theorem for the class of displacement
context-free languages which are equivalent to well-nested multiple
context-free languages. We also obtain a characterization of k-displacement
context-free languages in terms of monoid automata and show how such automata
can be simulated on two stacks. We introduce the simultaneous two-stack
automata and compare different variants of its definition. All the definitions
considered are shown to be equivalent basing on the geometric interpretation of
memory operations of these automata.Comment: Revised version for ESSLLI Student Session 2013 selected paper
A Processing Model for Free Word Order Languages
Like many verb-final languages, Germn displays considerable word-order
freedom: there is no syntactic constraint on the ordering of the nominal
arguments of a verb, as long as the verb remains in final position. This effect
is referred to as ``scrambling'', and is interpreted in transformational
frameworks as leftward movement of the arguments. Furthermore, arguments from
an embedded clause may move out of their clause; this effect is referred to as
``long-distance scrambling''. While scrambling has recently received
considerable attention in the syntactic literature, the status of long-distance
scrambling has only rarely been addressed. The reason for this is the
problematic status of the data: not only is long-distance scrambling highly
dependent on pragmatic context, it also is strongly subject to degradation due
to processing constraints. As in the case of center-embedding, it is not
immediately clear whether to assume that observed unacceptability of highly
complex sentences is due to grammatical restrictions, or whether we should
assume that the competence grammar does not place any restrictions on
scrambling (and that, therefore, all such sentences are in fact grammatical),
and the unacceptability of some (or most) of the grammatically possible word
orders is due to processing limitations. In this paper, we will argue for the
second view by presenting a processing model for German.Comment: 23 pages, uuencoded compressed ps file. In {\em Perspectives on
Sentence Processing}, C. Clifton, Jr., L. Frazier and K. Rayner, editors.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 199
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