Syntax, morphology, and phonology in text-to-speech systems

The paper is concerned with the integration of linguistic information in text-to-speech systems. Research in synthesis proper is at a stage where the need for systematic integration of comprehensive linguistic information in such systems is making itself felt more than ever. A surface structure parsing system is presented whose main virtue is that it permits linguists to express syntactic as well as lexical and morphological regularities and irregularities of a language in a simple and easy-to-learn formalism. Most aspects of the system are seen in the light of Danish and - sporadically - English and Finnish surface structure

Passive sentences and structural parsing

Traditional language parsing is mainly based on generative grammar in English. As English and Chinese belong to two different families of language, a grammar is not sufficient for Chinese parsing although it is still important. In passive sentences in English and Chinese, there exists some similarity, but there also exists some difference. In this paper, first the sememe analysis is introduced in Chinese parsing. Second, we will compare the passive sentence in English and Chinese with respect to sentence pattern, semantic relations and other aspects in view of knowledge graph theory. We find that after we use sememe analysis in Chinese parsing, we can easily deal with Chinese passive sentences

What's in a compound? Review article on Lieber and Štekauer (eds) 2009. 'The Oxford Handbook of Compounding'

The Oxford Handbook of Compounding surveys a variety of theoretical and descriptive issues, presenting overviews of compounding in a number of frameworks and sketches of compounding in a number of languages. Much of the book deals with Germanic noun–noun compounding. I take up some of the theoretical questions raised surrounding such constructions, in particular, the notion of attributive modification in noun-headed compounds. I focus on two issues. The first is the semantic relation between the head noun and its nominal modifier. Several authors repeat the argument that there is a small(-ish) fixed number of general semantic relations in noun–noun compounds (‘Lees's solution’), but I argue that the correct way to look at such compounds is what I call ‘Downing's solution’, in which we assume that the relation is specified pragmatically, and hence could be any relation at all. The second issue is the way that adjectives modify nouns inside compounds. Although there are languages in which compounded adjectives modify just as they do in phrases (Chukchee, Arleplog Swedish), in general the adjective has a classifier role and not that of a compositional attributive modifier. Thus, even if an English (or German) adjective–noun compound looks compositional, it isn't

The strengths and weaknesses of simplicity: Review of Birger Andersen, Basic English Grammar

Review of Birger Andersen, Basic English Grammar, 3rd ed. Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur, 2018, 228 pp., ISBN: 978-87-593-3204-

Clafer: Lightweight Modeling of Structure, Behaviour, and Variability

Embedded software is growing fast in size and complexity, leading to intimate mixture of complex architectures and complex control. Consequently, software specification requires modeling both structures and behaviour of systems. Unfortunately, existing languages do not integrate these aspects well, usually prioritizing one of them. It is common to develop a separate language for each of these facets. In this paper, we contribute Clafer: a small language that attempts to tackle this challenge. It combines rich structural modeling with state of the art behavioural formalisms. We are not aware of any other modeling language that seamlessly combines these facets common to system and software modeling. We show how Clafer, in a single unified syntax and semantics, allows capturing feature models (variability), component models, discrete control models (automata) and variability encompassing all these aspects. The language is built on top of first order logic with quantifiers over basic entities (for modeling structures) combined with linear temporal logic (for modeling behaviour). On top of this semantic foundation we build a simple but expressive syntax, enriched with carefully selected syntactic expansions that cover hierarchical modeling, associations, automata, scenarios, and Dwyer's property patterns. We evaluate Clafer using a power window case study, and comparing it against other notations that substantially overlap with its scope (SysML, AADL, Temporal OCL and Live Sequence Charts), discussing benefits and perils of using a single notation for the purpose

SFL and Descriptive Translation Studies:Systemic-functional grammar as a framework for the analysis of shifts in translation

This article is concerned with demonstrating the methodological relevance of Systemic-Functional Grammar (SFG) for Descriptive Translation Studies. More specifically, the article establishes a framework for the analysis of so-called shifts in translation, i.e. lexicogrammatical changes occurring between source and target texts. It is thus argued that SFG may serve to fill a methodological void within Translation Studies, since, while other typologies of microstrategies exist, these other taxonomies typically serve a pedagogic purpose, being aimed at alerting translator trainees to a relatively limited number of broad options available to them in the translation process. This means that, given the didactic nature of such frameworks, the level of granularity is typically too low to be suitable for the retrospective analysis of a translation product in comparison with its source. Hence it is argued that what is needed for retrospective research is a much more fine-grained framework with clearly defined categories derived from an elaborate grammatical theory such as SFG. Therefore, on the basis of key SFG concepts such as paradigmatic organization, metafunction, rank and cline of delicacy, the very nature of shifts in translation is theorized and an outline of a systems network is presented in the central sections of the article. The framework is exemplified first and foremost by means of English-into-Danish translations of LSP texts within the fields of medicine and business, but in order to illustrate the appliability of the framework to the retrospective analysis of any kind of derivational text generation, whether inter- or intralingual, the example material also includes the monolingual rewriting of a specialized source text into a lay-oriented version, and the registerial adaptation (also monolingual) of formal, standard documents from public-sector authorities into more accessible, modernized versions