SYNTAX WITHOUT TRANSFORMATIONS
Some linguistic theories describe languages declaratively, without
transformations or movements.
This makes the tasks of grammar formalization and implementation easier.
We shall explore the features of a formalism designed for the theory HPSG, using
sample solutions to some phenomena (valency, agreement, word order) and compare
them to solutions available in other theories. An important component
of the course is a practical task to
implement and test a grammar describing selected phenomena in a grammar-writing
environment.
PREREQUISITES:
Deklarativní popis
češtiny I (Declarative description of Czech) or Deklarativní popis
češtiny II (1st semester in parallel, an informal introduction to HPSG)
or some awareness of non-transformational linguistic theories
SYLLABUS:
- Introduction: the merits of constraint-based grammar formalisms for
theoretical linguistics and natural language processing, an overview of
assumptions
- Foundations of HPSG and its formal properties
- Formalisms for HPSG and their possibilities
- Solutions proposed within HPSG to some linguistic phenomena: valence,
agreement, modification by adjuncts, function words, syntactic control,
unbounded
dependencies, inflection and derivation, word order, topic-focus articulation,
binding, semantic interpretation; comparison to solutions proposed within
alternative theories
- Methods of implementation, grammar writing in system
TRALE
(more documentation on TRALE and ALE at ALE Documentation)
Alexandr Rosen
2007-09-12