The formalism of synchronous tree-adjoining grammars, a variant of standard
tree-adjoining grammars (TAG), was intended to allow the use of TAGs for
language transduction in addition to language specification. In previous work,
the definition of the transduction relation defined by a synchronous TAG was
given by appeal to an iterative rewriting process. The rewriting definition of
derivation is problematic in that it greatly extends the expressivity of the
formalism and makes the design of parsing algorithms difficult if not
impossible. We introduce a simple, natural definition of synchronous
tree-adjoining derivation, based on isomorphisms between standard
tree-adjoining derivations, that avoids the expressivity and implementability
problems of the original rewriting definition. The decrease in expressivity,
which would otherwise make the method unusable, is offset by the incorporation
of an alternative definition of standard tree-adjoining derivation, previously
proposed for completely separate reasons, thereby making it practical to
entertain using the natural definition of synchronous derivation. Nonetheless,
some remaining problematic cases call for yet more flexibility in the
definition; the isomorphism requirement may have to be relaxed. It remains for
future research to tune the exact requirements on the allowable mappings.Comment: 21 pages, uses lingmacros.sty, psfig.sty, fullname.sty; minor
typographical changes onl
