On the Nature of Syntax

oai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/9There is a tendency in science to proceed from descriptive methods towards an adequate explanatory theory and then move beyond its conclusions. Our purpose is to discover the concepts of computational efficiency in natural language that exclude redundancy, and to investigate how these relate to more general principles. By developing the idea that linguistic structures possess the features of other biological systems this article focuses on the third factor that enters into the growth of language in the individual. It is suggested that the core principles of grammar can be observed in nature itself. The Faculty of Language is an efficient mechanism designed for the continuation of movement in compliance with optimization requirements. To illustrate that, a functional explanation of syntactic Merge is offered in this work, and an attempt is made to identify some criteria that single out this particular computational system as species-specific

Experimental Support of Argument-based Syntactic Computation

Linguistic theory, cognitive, information, and mathematical modeling are all useful while we attempt to achieve a better understanding of the Language Faculty (LF). This cross-disciplinary approach will eventually lead to the identification of the key principles applicable in the systems of Natural Language Processing. The present work concentrates on the syntax-semantics interface. We start from recursive definitions and application of optimization principles, and gradually develop a formal model of syntactic operations. The result – a Fibonacci- like syntactic tree – is in fact an argument-based variant of the natural language syntax. This representation (argument-centered model, ACM) is derived by a recursive calculus that generates a mode which connects arguments and expresses relations between them. The reiterative operation assigns primary role to entities as the key components of syntactic structure. We provide experimental evidence in support of the argument-based model. We also show that mental computation of syntax is influenced by the inter-conceptual relations between the images of entities in a semantic space

Information Processing in a Cognitive Model of NLP

A model of the cognitive process of natural language processing has been developed using the formalism of generalized nets. Following this stage-simulating model, the treatment of information inevitably includes phases, which require joint operations in two knowledge spaces – language and semantics. In order to examine and formalize the relations between the language and the semantic levels of treatment, the language is presented as an information system, conceived on the bases of human cognitive resources, semantic primitives, semantic operators and language rules and data. This approach is applied for modeling a specific grammatical rule – the secondary predication in Russian. Grammatical rules of the language space are expressed as operators in the semantic space. Examples from the linguistics domain are treated and several conclusions for the semantics of the modeled rule are made. The results of applying the information system approach to the language turn up to be consistent with the stages of treatment modeled with the generalized net

Text Processing and Cognitive Technologies

ABSTRACT This paper presents a study of possible factors that influence lexicalization of motion in Russian, specifically the choice of a verb from pairs of verbs of motion идти-ходить [ . We restricted the study to cases where a narrator observes the scene of motion s/he describes rather than memorizes or imagines it. The conclusion that at least five factors may influence the verb choice is based on the extracts from literature, and empirical observations. The conditions are defined as follows: motion path, motion space, motion regularity, and targeted vs. random motion. The influence of two factors (motion path and motion target) was tested experimentally, and the results have shown that these two factors represent significant determinants of the verb choice

On the Nature of Syntax

There is a tendency in science to proceed from descriptive methods towards an adequate explanatory theory and then move beyond its conclusions. Our purpose is to discover the concepts of computational efficiency in natural language that exclude redundancy, and to investigate how these relate to more general principles. By developing the idea that linguistic structures possess the features of other biological systems this article focuses on the third factor that enters into the growth of language in the individual. It is suggested that the core principles of grammar can be observed in nature itself. The Faculty of Language is an efficient mechanism designed for the continuation of movement in compliance with optimization requirements. To illustrate that, a functional explanation of syntactic Merge is offered in this work, and an attempt is made to identify some criteria that single out this particular computational system as species-specific

On subjects and predicates in Russian

The present dissertation under the title On Subjects and Predicates in Russian discusses relevant linguistic theories in connection with subject positions and predication relations, and presents some issues that have not, in my view, been addressed in the linguistic literature so far. I offer a new approach to sentential structure in light of the most recent developments within the framework of Chomsky's Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1993, 1995, 2001a, 2001b). The aim of this dissertation is to integrate the cognitively based lexical semantics approach and the formal analyses with relation to philosophy and logic of language. This study employs case theory and predication theory in a way of relating semantic components to formal syntactic descriptions. The thesis has the following structure: Chapter I. Russian Impersonal Sentences; Chapter II. Pron in Russian and Hebrew, and SER/ESTAR in Spanish; Chapter III. On Small Clauses and Predication; Chapter IV. On Reflexivity, Passivization, and Case Assignment; Chapter V. A Minimalist Approach to Subjects and Predicates. (Abstract shortened by UMI.

Using Database Tables and a Non-standard Neural Network Model, for Internal Cognitive Representations 1. Language as an Information System

One of the primary goals of a human language is to assure the information exchange between individuals. Information, residing as internal cognitive representation of the individual H1 is presented as language-coded information, communicated to another individual H2, and interpreted to internal cognitive representation of H2 (figure 1). The ‘internal cognitive representation ’ is considered as related to a semantic description of the world. As the information transmission relates two internal representations, it could be thought that the language communication builds a “semantic channel ” (Figure 1). To conceive an information system (IS), designers use the representation “input- treatment block – output”. On its input, an IS receives data and resources and on its output- obtains informative products. The treatment block functions on the bases of a particular model, which includes a number of rules and operators on data. Data emerge from a data-source, external for the system. For the correct functioning of the IS, it is essential to guarantee a permanent link between data-sources and their data-images on the system’s input. That requires categorization of data and their storage in separate data-containers, in a non-redundant way. IS engineers apply semantic modeling in order to present the data-source as a cybernetic system and, on this bases, to build a structure of data-containers, matching the model of the source. This approach is well-known in the IS domain (see for example Codd, 1979). input Resources – Cognitive resources Data – coded internal representation H1 Treatment block Language Model and method for dataprocessing. Rules and operators. Treatment – uses cognitive resources. categorization of data Organized storage Semantic channel internal representation of Language Information Syste

The Canonical Order of Russian Objects

According to the principles of economy, scrambled orders require an interpretive license. Removal of such a license should result in canonical orders, that is, orders I hypothesize to be determined by a thematic hierarchy. It is traditionally assumed that the interpretive license for scrambling is provided by information-structural interpretations such as focus and background. However, either direct object–indirect object or indirect object–direct object order is possible in Russian all-focus constructions, complicating the choice of order analyzed as canonical. I argue that Russian scrambling can be licensed by a variety of interpretations, focus/background encoding being but one of them. When the construal of objects is neutralized on the basis of all of the relevant interpretations, the direct object–indirect object order surfaces, strongly suggesting that this is the canonical order of Russian objects