Semantic construction in feature-based TAG

We propose a semantic construction method for Feature-Based Tree Adjoining Grammar which is based on the derived tree, compare it with related proposals and briefly discuss some implementation possibilities

LTAG semantics with semantic unification

This paper sets up a framework for LTAG (Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammar) semantics that brings together ideas from different recent approaches addressing some shortcomings of TAG semantics based on the derivation tree. Within this framework, several sample analyses are proposed, and it is shown that the framework allows to analyze data that have been claimed to be problematic for derivation tree based LTAG semantics approaches

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

Simpler TAG semantics through synchronization

In recent years Laura Kallmeyer, Maribel Romero, and their collaborators have led research on TAG semantics through a series of papers refining a system of TAG semantics computation. Kallmeyer and Romero bring together the lessons of these attempts with a set of desirable properties that such a system should have. First, computation of the semantics of a sentence should rely only on the relationships expressed in the TAG derivation tree. Second, the generated semantics should compactly represent all valid interpretations of the input sentence, in particular with respect to quantifier scope. Third, the formalism should not, if possible, increase the expressivity of the TAG formalism. We revive the proposal of using synchronous TAG (STAG) to simultaneously generate syntactic and semantic representations for an input sentence. Although STAG meets the three requirements above, no serious attempt had previously been made to determine whether it can model the semantic constructions that have proved difficult for other approaches. In this paper we begin exploration of this question by proposing STAG analyses of many of the hard cases that have spurred the research in this area. We reframe the TAG semantics problem in the context of the STAG formalism and in the process present a simple, intuitive base for further exploration of TAG semantics. We provide analyses that demonstrate how STAG can handle quantifier scope, long-distance WH-movement, interaction of raising verbs and adverbs, attitude verbs and quantifiers, relative clauses, and quantifiers within prepositional phrases.Engineering and Applied Science

Using genetic algorithms to create meaningful poetic text

Work carried out when all authors were at the University of Edinburgh.Peer reviewedPostprin

A formal support to business and architectural design for service-oriented systems

Architectural Design Rewriting (ADR) is an approach for the design of software architectures developed within Sensoria by reconciling graph transformation and process calculi techniques. The key feature that makes ADR a suitable and expressive framework is the algebraic handling of structured graphs, which improves the support for specification, analysis and verification of service-oriented architectures and applications. We show how ADR is used as a formal ground for high-level modelling languages and approaches developed within Sensoria

Linear logic-based semantics construction for LTAG

In this paper we review existing appoaches to semantics construction in LTAG (Lexicalised Tree Adjoining Grammar) which are all based on the notion of derivation (tree)s. We argue that derivation structures in LTAG are not appropriate to guide semantic composition, due to a non-isomorphism, in LTAG, between the syntactic operation of adjunction on the one hand, and the semantic operations of complementation and modification, on the other. Linear Logic based “glue” semantics, by now the classical approach to semantics construction within the LFG framework (cf. Dalrymple (1999)) allows for flexible coupling of syntactic and semantic structure. We investigate application of “glue semantics” to LTAG syntax, using as underlying structure the derived tree, which is more appropriate for principle-based semantics construction. We show how linear logic semantics construction helps to bridge the non-isomorphism between syntactic and semantic operations in LTAG. The glue approach allows to capture non-tree local dependencies in control and modification structures, and extends to the treatment of scope ambiguity with quantified NPs and VP adverbials. Finally, glue semantics applies successfully to the adjunction-based analysis of long-distance dependencies in LTAG, which differs significantly from the f-structure based analysis in LFG

Tree Adjoining Grammar at the Interfaces

This thesis constitutes an exploration of the applications of tree adjoining grammar (TAG) to natural language syntax. Perhaps more than any of its major competitors such as HPSG and LFG, however, TAG has never strayed too far from the guiding principles of generative syntax. Indeed, following the pioneering work of Frank (2004), TAG has been successfully incorporated into Chomsky’s (1995) Minimalist Program (MP). In large part, however, Frank (2004) leaves unexplored the issue of how TAG applies at the PF and LF interfaces. Given the fundamental importance of interfaces within the MP, no minimalist syntactic theory is complete without at least some notion of the means by which syntactic structure relates to pronunciation and interpretation. In this thesis we attempt to provide insight on this very issue: we address how TAG interfaces with the articulatory and interpretive components of the language faculty, and what insights it provides to minimalist conceptions of these interfaces. Ultimately, our aim is both to reaffirm the viability of TAG as a minimalist syntactic theory as well as to demonstrate that TAG makes clear otherwise arcane facts in natural language syntax. The central proposal of this thesis is twofold. First, TAG may be naturally extended to interface with the articulatory and interpretive components of the language faculty by making recourse to synchronous TAG (STAG). Second, once such a framework has been adopted, minimalist ideas regarding the interaction between syntax and linear order can be applied to deal with certain problematic examples in the TAG framework. TAG thus offers confirmation that in at least some cases, certain aspects of linear order are dependent on post-syntactic operations, so that syntax does not always wholly determine linear order. As a corollary of our proposal, we also demonstrate, through a case study in Niuean raising, that the TAG system makes clear predictions on phenomena that are difficult to describe in mainstream minimalist theories. Our argumentation for these proposals proceeds in three major stages. First, we formalize the synchronous TAG system that has to date been applied in a mostly piecemeal way by various researchers (see Shieber & Nesson 2006, Frank & Storoshenko 2012 for some examples). As a part of this formalization, we argue that the derivation of the LF object, but not the PF object, should make recourse to a more expressive version of the TAG system: multicomponent TAG, a variant that relaxes some constraints on the primitive units in the TAG system to yield greater expressive power. Second, we argue that the STAG system lends credence to the view that at least some word order is determined post-syntactically. In the past, researchers have presented ad hoc extensions of the expressive power of TAG to handle various difficult examples such as subject-to-subject raising in English questions and Irish and Welsh main clauses. We demonstrate that these extensions are both theoretically suspect and ultimately unnecessary given minimalist notions of the derivation: for many of the data motivating these extensions, there is independent evidence that their derivation in fact relies on post-syntactic rearrangements of certain verbal heads. Such examples are therefore well within the generative capacity of a framework with a TAG-based syntactic component that allows certain specific and well motivated post-syntactic rearrangements. Third, we demonstrate that not only is our particular system well motivated within the theoretical bounds of the MP, but also that it makes surprising and accurate empirical predications in cases that have otherwise defied analysis. Specifically, the Austronesian language Niuean features a peculiar instance of raising that has defied a satisfactory analysis since its discovery by Seiter (1980, 1983). We show that TAG makes the clear prediction that there is no raising in Niuean, then argue that this prediction is borne out under a careful examination of the facts. Given that the framework was developed almost exclusively based on the Indo-European language family, its ability to capture confounding behavior in a typologically dissimilar Austronesian language is a strong confirmation of its status as a reasonable alternative to mainstream minimalist syntactic theories