Syntactic Conditions Research Articles

Preserving consistency in geometric modeling with graph transformations

AbstractLabeled graphs are particularly well adapted to represent objects in the context of topology-based geometric modeling. Thus, graph transformation theory is used to implement modeling operations and check their consistency. This article defines a class of graph transformation rules dedicated to embedding computations. Objects are here defined as a particular subclass of labeled graphs in which arc labels encode their topological structure (i.e., cell subdivision: vertex, edge, face) and node labels encode their embedding (i.e., relevant data: vertex positions, face colors, volume density). Object consistency is defined by labeling constraints which must be preserved by modeling operations that modify topology and/or embedding. Dedicated graph transformation variables allow us to access the existing embedding from the underlying topological structure (e.g., collecting all the points of a face) in order to compute the new embedding using user-provided functions (e.g., compute the barycenter of several points). To ensure the safety of the defined operations, we provide syntactic conditions on rules that preserve the object consistency constraints.

Topological consistency preservation with graph transformation schemes

Topology-based geometric modeling tackles the issue of representing objects with data structures that encode the topological subdivision of modeled objects in vertices, edges, faces, and volumes. Such subdivisions can be represented with graphs labeled by dimensions on arcs, while modeling operations used to edit the objects can be formalized as graph transformations. Among the existing topological models, we consider generalized and oriented maps, defined as constrained labeled graphs, to ensure the well-formedness of the represented objects. Since a modeling operation should provide a correct object when applied to a correct object, graph transformations are provided with conditions to ensure the model consistency. Our approach exploits the firmly established framework of DPO graph transformations to implement modeling operations. We enrich standard DPO graph transformations with a product construction to ease the operation design, enabling generic modeling operations as rule schemes. We lift conditions from DPO rules to this enriched framework, ensuring the preservation of the topological consistency via static analysis of syntactic conditions on rule schemes. • Double-pushout graph transformations. • Topology-based geometric modeling. • Unified approach for generalized and oriented maps. • Consistency preservation via static analysis. • Generalization of graph transformations using functors and categorical products.

The Grammaticalization of Causative Verbs in Chinese Dialects

The current study investigates the syncretism of causative verbs in 257 Chinese dialects and the following arguments are made. (i) All major lexical items of causative verbs (han, huan, huang, jiao and eu) collected in our database follow the same implicational relationship, and all of them originate from two sources, “to call” and “to teach”. (ii) According to our reconstructed grammaticalization path, it is observed that causative verbs in Chinese dialects undergo polygrammaticalization. A causative verb can directly grammaticalize into a comitative preposition and/or an ablative preposition. (iii) Once a causative verb acquires the function of a comitative preposition, it can further grammaticalize into a coordinating conjunction and/or an allative preposition. (vi) Our reconstructed pathway is supported by the parallel development in non-Sinitic languages. The semantic motivation and syntactic condition for the aforementioned grammaticalization are also provided in this paper.

An Analysis on Newly Introduced English Verb in Oxford English Dictionary in 2016-2018: Levin’s Taxonomy of Verb Classification and Verbnet

Levin (1993) argues that the behaviour of verbs is determined by word meaning which is directly linked to the expression and interpretation of its argument. Based on this statement, Levin classified verbs into 48 classes and VerbNet, an English verb lexicon was created based on the extension of Levin’s taxonomy of verb classification (VC). Therefore, this study presents the classification of the updated English verbs of 2016 to 2018 in the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) to examine the relevance of Levin’s VC and VerbNet in the recently added repertoire of verbs. In Addition, the study seeks to find out the new verb classes introduced in this study. This study uses a mixed-method to identify and classify the verbs. To conclude, this study found that both classifications were applicable and relevant in 14 new main verb classes introduced to classify the verbs that did not belong to Levin’s VC and VerbNet. Hence, this contributes to the body of knowledge as the newly introduced verb classes could be used based on the given semantic and syntactic conditions.

Strength and Weakness of the Old English Adjective

AbstractAs regards Old English, the inflectional strength and weakness are characterised by a kind of inconsistency. In the case of Old English adjectives these two inflectional properties appear to be different from those associated with nouns and verbs. In the case of the latter the two properties seem to be lexically determined while in the case of adjectives they appear to be determined by syntactic conditions. The traditional accounts of the Old English grammar attribute two paradigms to one adjectival lexical item. The analysis presented in this article postulates that one can actually speak about one adjectival inflection and what is traditionally presented as strong and weak adjectival inflections is actually the result of two different syntactic derivations.

Decomposing and deducing the Coordinate Structure Constraint

AbstractThe article shows that the Coordinate Structure Constraint (CSC) can be violated in a number of languages and establishes a novel cross-linguistic generalization regarding languages that allow violations of the CSC. A phase-based deduction of this generalization is then provided under a particular contextual approach to phases. In addition, based on the cross-linguistic data regarding violations of the CSC, it is argued that the CSC should be separated into two conditions: (i) the ban on extractionofa conjunct, and (ii) the ban on extractionout ofa conjunct. This means that the whole coordinate structure (ConjP) as well as individual conjuncts are islands independently of each other. The article also addresses the long-standing debate regarding where in the grammar the CSC applies, arguing that the two different conditions that result from the separation of the traditional CSC ((i) and (ii) above) are deduced from different mechanisms in the architecture of the grammar: one is a purely syntactic condition, and the other is an interface condition.

The Spurious Path Problem in Abstraction

Abstraction is a powerful technique in search and planning. A fundamental problem of abstraction is that it can create spurious paths, i.e., abstract paths that do not correspond to valid concrete paths. In this paper, we define spurious paths as a generalization of spurious states. We show that spurious paths can be categorized into two types: state-independent spurious paths and state-specific spurious paths. We present a practical method that eliminates state-independent spurious paths, as well as state-specific spurious paths when integrated with mutex detection methods. We provide syntactical conditions under which our method can remove state-independent spurious paths completely. We demonstrate that eliminating spurious paths can improve a heuristic substantially, even in abstract spaces that are free of spurious states.

Syntactic conditions on accusative to ergative alignment change in Austronesian languages

AbstractThis paper develops the proposal put forth by Aldridge (2015, 2016) for the emergence of ergative alignment in a first-order subgroup of the Austronesian family. I first provide new evidence for reconstructing Proto-Austronesian (PAn) as accusative rather than ergative. I then propose a significantly revised approach to Aldridge’s proposed reanalysis. On the basis of evidence from Tsou, I propose that the reanalysis took place in biclausal constructions embedded under motion or locative verbs. Since such biclausal constructions are contexts for restructuring, no accusative case is available for an object. This forced objects which needed structural licensing to value nominative case with T. I additionally show that subjects were assigned inherent non-nominative case in PAn when objects needed to enter into Agree with T, as when valuing nominative case. These conditions yielded a new ergative clause type in a daughter of PAn, which Aldridge (2015,2016) calls “Proto-Ergative Austronesian”. No change took place in clauses lacking an object needing structural licensing. Consequently, subjects in intransitive clauses and transitive clauses with indefinite objects continued to surface with nominative case, yielding the type of ergative alignment prevalent in Formosan and Philippine languages today.

Two types of alignment change in nominalizations

AbstractThis paper investigates two instances of alignment change, both of which resulted from reanalysis of a nominalized embedded clause type, in which the external argument was marked with genitive case and the internal argument was focused. We show that a subject marked with genitive case in the early development of Austronesian languages became ergative-marked when object relative clauses in cleft constructions were reanalyzed as transitive root clauses. In contrast to this, the genitive case in Old Japanese nominalized clauses, marking an external argument, was extended to mark all subjects. This occurred after adnominal clauses were reanalyzed as root clauses. Japanese underwent one more step in order for genitive to be reanalyzed as nominative: the reanalysis of impersonal psych transitive constructions as intransitives.With these two case studies of Austronesian and Japanese, we show that reanalysis of nominalization goes in either direction, ergative or accusative, depending on the syntactic conditions involved in the reanalysis.

On the interpretation of possessives in Czech: An experimental approach

This paper presents first findings from an offline study of Czech native speakers’ use and interpretation of reflexive and non-reflexive possessive pronouns. The study is part of a larger possessive project outlined by Fabricius-Hansen et al. (2017), leaning on the comprehension experiment presented in Pitz et al. (2017). The study encompasses questionnaire data collected from 259 informants who were tested under four different conditions on two competing pronouns: the reflexive possessive (svůj) and the 3rd person non-reflexive possessive (jeho). The results revealed that Czech native speakers show a strong uncertainty when interpreting constructions with a cataphoric non-reflexive possessive. This shows that even for native speakers, the establishment of the anaphoric and cataphoric relations under certain syntactic conditions is a challenging and highly complex task. With these results, several hypotheses are formulated in various target-source-language pairs concerning the processing of reflexive and non-reflexive possessives in L2.

Clitics are not enough: on agreement and null subjects in Brazilian Venetan

This paper presents some facts about the syntax of subject pronouns in contact. We investigate agreement and EPP-checking in Brazilian Venetan, a heritage northern Italo-Romance variety spoken in southern Brazil in contact with Brazilian Portuguese. Central Venetan, the northern Italo-Romance variety that constitutes the basis of Brazilian Venetan, is a null-subject language presenting agreement-like subject clitics; Brazilian Portuguese is a partial pro-drop language, in which null subjects are allowed only in precise syntactic conditions and it is developing reduced pronominal subjects. We will address two changes we detected in Brazilian Venetan with respect to the syntax of subject pronouns: the non-contrastive realisation of the first person singular tonic pronoun, and the change in the syntax of subject clitics, which seem to be used as weak pronouns rather than agreement items. We will claim that the first change has to be connected to the simplification of interface conditions between syntax and discourse, a pattern which is commonly attested in bilingual speakers, while the second can be quite safely ascribed to the contact with a partially overlapping structure, namely the reduced pronominal subjects in spoken Brazilian Portuguese. We analyse the two phenomena, trying to find possible links between them in order to develop an analysis of subject clitics in contact and the conditions in which we may most probably find an effect of contact.

An Efficient Subjective Sentiment Classification of Hate Speech Using Tri-Model Approach

Arrangement highlights were gotten from the substance of each tweet, including syntactic conditions between words to perceive "othering" phrases, actuation to react with adversarial activity, and cases of very much established or legitimized oppression social gatherings. The consequences of the classifier were ideal utilizing a blend of probabilistic, rule-based, and spatial-based classifiers with a casted a ballot group meta-classifier. We show how the consequences of the classifier can be powerfully used in a factual model used to figure the probably spread of digital scorn in an example of Twitter information. The applications to strategy and dynamic are examined. We propose a cooperative multi-space assessment arrangement way to deal with train supposition classifiers for numerous areas at the same time. In our methodology, the supposition data in various spaces is shared to prepare more precise and vigorous notion classifiers for every area when named information is scant. In particular, we decay the slant classifier of every space into two segments, a worldwide one and an area explicit one. The area explicit model can catch the particular feeling articulations in every space. Moreover, we extricate Tri_Model (Naive Bayes IBK, SVM) sentiment information from both marked and unlabelled examples in every area and use it to upgrade the learning of Tri_Model (Naive Bayes IBK, SVM) sentiment classifiers.

Ellipsis requires syntactic and semantic identity. Evidence from Fragment Questions in Spanish

Based on novel data from an understudied type of ellipsis in Spanish-which I refer to as Fragment Questions-I argue for the need of both semantic and syntactic identity conditions to license ellipsis. In particular the TP is subject to syntactic identity, and the domain above that is subject to semantic identity. Fragment Questions are elliptical sentences interpreted as wh-questions. They have a follow-up meaning and, unlike other types of sentential ellipsis, they require a wh-phrase to go unpronounced, although there's no explicit wh-question or wh-phrase in the antecedent. In this paper, I analyze Fragment Questions as the result of ellipsis of a wh-question from which a Contrastive Topic has moved.

On the interpretation of tense in temporal adverbial clauses

Tenses in English temporal adjunct clauses seem to show properties of both matrix and embedded tenses. On the one hand, they are often argued to be interpreted with respect to the time of utterance (Stump 1985; Arregui & Kusumoto 1998; Kubota et al. 2011). On the other hand, they are more constrained than matrix tenses, claimed to be limited to past tense when the matrix tense is past, and present when the matrix tense is future. I present evidence from the English perfect that adjunct clauses are always interpreted relative to the nearest c-commanding temporal operator, which can in principle give rise to both types of behaviors: adjunct tenses are interpreted relative to some temporal operator if within the scope of matrix tense, or they are interpreted relative to the time of utterance if they are outside the scope of matrix tense. What decides between these possibilities in a given clause are syntactic and pragmatic conditions on adjunction and the resulting interaction between the presuppositions introduced by the adjunct clause and the meanings of the temporal connectives. The result is that when the matrix clause is a non-perfect, adjunct tenses are always interpreted relative to the utterance time. When the matrix clause contains a perfect, however, adjunct tenses may be interpreted relative to the matrix tense operator.

Topological Characterisation of Multi-Buffer Simulation

Multi-buffer simulation is an extension of simulation preorder that can be used to approximate inclusion of languages recognised by Büchi automata up to their trace closures. DUPLICATOR can use some bounded or unbounded buffers to simulate SPOILER’s move. It has been shown that multi-buffer simulation can be characterised with the existence of a continuous function. In this paper, we show that such a characterisation can be refined to a more restricted case, that is, to the one where DUPLICATOR only uses bounded buffers, by requiring the function to be Lipschitz continuous instead of only continuous. This characterisation however only holds for some restricted classes of automata. One of the automata should only produce words where each letter cannot commute unboundedly. We show that this property can be syntactically characterised with cyclic-path-connectedness, a refinement of syntactic condition on automata that have regular trace closure. We further show that checking cyclic-path-connectedness is indeed co-NP-complete.

Syntactic and semantic overlay in processing disfluent sentences in Brazilian Portuguese

We evaluate, through an online self-paced listening experiment, the processing of disfluent sentences in Brazilian Portuguese such as I want you to put uhh drop the ball. Ferreira et al. (2004) presents a model for such sentences, by which the verbs before and after the disfluency are structurally overlaid, which results in a complex mental structure with properties inherited from both verbs, which, in that case, differ in number of arguments. Based on this model, we extended the experiment for verbs that differ in categorial selection, such as to love (o) /to sympathize (with), and prepositional lexical selection, such as to trust (in)/to sympathize (with). Also, for each of these two syntactic conditions, we evaluated two semantic conditions: consonant and dissonant meanings. By that, we meant to analyze the processing of the disfluency when the two overlaid verbs had the same meaning (that is, when the speaker wants to change the form of the sentence but not its content) and when the disfluency implies a complete change of meaning, which, as shown by our results, do not admit the same type of Overlay as it occurs with sentences with semantically consonant verbs. Additionally, both categorial selection and lexical prepositional selection conditions, with semantically consonant verbs, showed the same type of effect as in Ferreira et al (2004). The basic assumption behind the experiment is that if two mental structures are overlaid during the processing of disfluencies, it is possible to ask what exactly is being overlaid, i.e. what is the form of a verbal mental structure.

Об экспансии предлога про в современной русской речи, или Новейшая русская риторика

The article notes the tendency towards the preferred choice of the preposition pro (about) (instead of o) in modern Russian speech. The above said leads to a change in the compatibility of the accusative word form with the explanatory meaning, to an expansion of the range of verbs and nouns that control this form. The use of the word forms in names is updated (in different communicative spheres). Observations on the use of the so-called “The Accusative of theme” in media speech allowed us to identify different communicative intentions of the speaker, which are marked by the word form pro (about) N4: fixation of the topic, announcement, continuation and development, return to the topic, change of topic, forecast, clarification, accentuation. In addition, as part of the predicate, the word form with the preposition pro (about) is used as a means of the object of speech / thought characterization. In these syntactic conditions, a new way of defining the concept is formed: X eto pro (is about) N4, as well as a new question: What is X about? They are actively used in speech by adherents of the newest rhetorical canon – as opposed to the traditional one.

Пунктуация в предложениях с союзом то есть как отражение развития дискурсивных функций

The paper deals with punctuation features in sentences with the connective to est’. The data of the Russian National Corpus shows an increase in the frequency of using the connective at the beginning of an independent sentence, after a period. The paper discusses the differences between to est’ in the middle and at the beginning of sentences: the ability to express certain relationships between text fragments, syntactic conditions of the use, the conditions under which the fragment introduced by to est’ cannot be formed as part of the preceding sentence and follow after a comma.

Discourse-related V1 declaratives in Dutch

Abstract This paper discusses two types of discourse-related V1 declaratives in Dutch. The first type involves a missing argument. In the position before the finite verb a referential 3rd person pronoun is deleted. The deletion of the pronoun is constrained by the recoverability condition, which requires that its referential features can be reconstructed from context. I will argue that only the deletion of a d(emonstrative)-pronoun is “topic drop”. Deleted topic d-pronouns are subject to the same syntactic conditions as overt topic d-pronouns. Like the overt d-pronoun, the deleted d-pronoun refers to the focus constituent of the preceding sentence. A deleted p(ersonal)-pronoun, by contrast, does not have a uniquely determined antecedent. The second type of V1 declarative is found in so-called “narrative inversion” in which all arguments are present, and no empty element needs to be postulated. Various types of narrative inversion and the kind of discourse relation they imply are discussed.

Eerstezinsdeeldeletie in het Nederlands

Abstract First-constituent-deletion in Dutch. What topic drop is and what it is not This paper discusses the phenomenon of pronoun deletion in Dutch. In the position before the finite verb a 3rd person pronoun may be deleted. The deletion of the pronoun is constrained by the recoverability condition, which requires that its referential features can be reconstructed from the context. It will be argued that only the deletion of a d(emonstrative)-pronoun is ‘topic drop’, which is typical for spoken Dutch. Deleted topic d-pronouns are subject to the same syntactic conditions as overt topic d-pronouns (Van ). Like the overt topic d-pronoun, the deleted d-pronoun refers to the focus constituent of the preceding sentence. A deleted p(ersonal)-pronoun, by contrast, does not have a uniquely determined antecedent and therefore it cannot be analyzed as discourse topic drop. In written texts, it solely maintains the preceding subject referent. I will further discuss the deletion of 1st person pronouns and the deletion of d-pronouns in imperatives.