Syntactic Grammar Research Articles

Minimalist Program and its fundamental improvements in syntactic theory: evidence from Agreement Asymmetry in Standard Arabic

Normal 0 21 false false false EN-US X-NONE AR-SA /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:Tabla normal; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:auto; mso-para-margin-right:1.0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:auto; mso-para-margin-left:2.0cm; text-align:justify; text-indent:-1.0cm; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} The Minimalist Program is a major line of inquiry that has been developing inside Generative Grammar since the early nineties , when it was proposed by Chomsky (1993, 1995). In that time, Chomsky (1998: 5) presents Minimalist Program as a program, not as a theory, but today, Minimalist Program lays out a very specific view of the basis of syntactic grammar that, when compared to other formalisms, is often taken to look very much like a theory. The prime concern of this paper, however, is to provide a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the art of minimalist approach to the theory of grammar. In this regard, this paper discusses some new ideas articulated recently by Chomsky, and have led to several fundamental improvements in syntactic theory such as changing the function of movement and the Extended Projection Principle (EPP) feature, or proposing new theories such as Phases and Feature Inheritance. In order to evidence the significance of these fundamental improvements, the current paper provides a minimalist analysis to account for agreement and word-order asymmetry in Stranded Arabic. This fresh minimalist account meets the challenges (to the basic tenets of syntactic theory) occurred in pre-minimalist analyses .

Croatian Language Resources for NooJ

This paper presents the Croatian module for NooJ. The module includes the novel 'Posljednji Stipančići' by Vjenceslav Novak as a corpus with fully covered dictionary (i.e. zero unknowns). Examples of morphological and syntactic grammars are presented together with few examples of dictionary entries and their inflectional and derivational paradigms.

Building Language Competence in First Language Acquisition

Most accounts of child language acquisition use as analytic tools adult-like syntactic categories and grammars with little concern for whether they are psychologically real for young children. However, when approached from a cognitive and functional theoretical perspective, recent research has demonstrated that children do not operate initially with such abstract linguistic entities, but instead on the basis of distributional learning and item-based, form-meaning constructions. Children construct more abstract, linguistic representations only gradually on the basis of the language they hear and use and they constrain these constructions to their appropriate ranges of use only gradually as well – again on the basis of linguistic experience in which frequency plays a key role. Results from empirical analyses of children’s early multiword utterances, the development of the transitive construction and certain types of errors are presented to illustrate this approach.

구문 제약으로 문형을 사용하는 CFG기반의 한국어 파싱

Korean language has different structural properties which are controlled by semantic constraints of verbs. Also, most of Korean sentences are complex sentences which consisted of main clause and embedded clause. Therefore it is difficult to describe appropriate syntactic grammar or constraint for the Korean language and the Korean parsing causes various syntactic ambiguities. In this paper, we suggest how to describe CFG-based grammar using sentence patterns as syntactic constraint and solve syntactic ambiguities. To solve this, we classified 44 sentence patterns including complex sentences which have subordinate clause in Korean sentences and used it to reduce syntactic ambiguity. However, it is difficult to solve every syntactic ambiguity using the information of sentence patterns. So, we used semantic markers with semantic constraint. Semantic markers can be used to solve ambiguity by auxiliary particle or comitative case particle.

The Crisis in Democratic Schooling

Balan continuedfrom previous page on a hopeful note, stressing that democracy in the strict sense is fundamentally concerned with the redistribution of social power traditionally based on conceptions ofmerit. Rancière is especially critical of intellectual discourse—from the technocratic Right or the progressive Left—targeting the excess of democracy itself as either anachronistic, untenable, or an obstacle to wider consensus and the subsequent institutionalization of politics. Echoing Rancière, Zizek acknowledges the role of contemporary capitalism as well as the indeterminate will of the merit-less "'surnumerary"' or the social '"part of no-part,'" which becomes determinate precisely when it manifests as a mass refusal to stand as an inert object of rule and begins to dictate events by articulating a universal, general will. Yet, Zizek is most resonant when he is at his most didactic. His explicit warning—and the basic fact to be accepted—is that there can be no guarantees when one undertakes a "divine" decision to act—divine not because it is supernatural but because it is a decisively sovereign act. A movement possessing any fidelity to the intrusion that is democratic politics can never be undertaken with guarantees. It is always risky, always tiedto theportentofpotentialoutcomes that cannot be predicted. It must become a kind of unknown quantity. And to those wondering ifZizek is seriously inciting bloody revolt and terror, he would likely defer but would waste no time in pointing out the commencement ofapologies for inaction and the a priori domestication of politics itself. Notably, both essays intersect with trajectories regarding the concept of bare life, biopolitics, and the state ofexception as articulated most recently by Giorgio Agamben in Homo Sacer (1998) and State of Exception (2005). Yet, instead of aligning and concurring with Agamben, both books assume the form ofAgamben's analysis but suggest the inverse ofhis assessment: democratic politics, as a practice, is itself a state of exception. It is indistinguishable because it has no basis or foundation beyond its own event. In fact, Rancière posits democracy as a method "to 'indistinguish' things," to wilfully problematize the straight lines and to render illegitimate all forms ofnaturalized—hence, social and cultural—power. Further, Zizek and Rancière together acknowledge the "democratic paradox": if democracy is in fact an exceptional and "paradoxical condition of politics" (Rancière) undermining the legitimacy to govern, what follows is the unavoidable problem of incorporating and integrating the excessive contents of democratic acts and social insurrection, of translating the "democratic explosion" and remaking society through the "brutal imposition of a new order" (Zizek). The paradox, then, is produced by the anxious recourse to explicitly antidemocratic politics: the threat ofdepoliticization, ofharmonizing, and of "things returning to normal." Thus, democracy itself takes on a particular and problematic temporal character . It tends to become a kind of syntactic element ofpolitical grammar, one momentintegratedinto the well-intended new regime (Georges Jacques Danton: "Let us be terrible so that the people will not have to be") or the malignant remnants, lurking, of the old State. Hinting towards Michel Foucault's analysis, Zizek and Rancière remind us of the basis of the injunction, "Society must be defended." In this context, and pointing toward current anti-political discourses in North America and Europe , Zizek makes direct reference to Robespierre's famous speech, "On the War," where Robespierre argues against his political colleagues regarding the persecution offoreign wars orchestrated in the name ofthe revolution. Robespierre's concern is the shift of focus and attention from the process of insurrection and revolution inside the State—redirecting efforts to an external place only takes the edge off of the democratic movement, obscures social issues, and suppresses politics itself. The connection here to societies structured on cycles of externally oriented primitive accumulation and a permanent and perpetual war footing are obvious. These are ominous suggestions: complacent citizens in State-managed societies who have neither the capacity to diagnose either local or global inequities, nor possess the political literacy or lexicon required to adequately challenge militarism and foreign wars conducted in the name oftheir own democracy. As we continue to cultivate rich discourse and revel in elegantly worded solutions, to where are we directing our political capacities, energies? Detailfrom...

Demencia semántica, una enfermedad de muchas palabras

Semantic dementia is a progressive, relatively selective disorder affecting the semantic system with involvement of the verbal and non-verbal functions. The clinical picture is well characterised despite the confusion that may be generated by the different ways of classifying it. AIM. To determine the clinical, neurolinguistic, imaging and pathological features of this progressive language disorder. Evaluation of language reveals above all the existence of semantic paraphasias, disorders affecting the comprehension of isolated words and surface dyslexia. Flow of speech, complex syntactic comprehension and grammar are preserved. Both episodic and autobiographic memory are close to normality. Both the clinical signs and symptoms and imaging studies agree on the fact that the most heavily affected area is the anteroinferomedial region of the temporal lobe on a bilateral scale but with predominance of the left-hand side. Pathologically, in most cases positive intraneuronal ubiquitin inclusions are observed like those described in motor neuron diseases. Semantic dementia constitutes a diagnosis challenge, mainly from the neuropsychological point of view. Further advances towards reaching a diagnosis would allow us to determine which area is mainly affected and, in the future, to find an effective treatment for this progressive, degenerative disorder.

The Use of Non-Prepositional Case in the Old Russian NP: Structure and Changes by Hanne Martine Eckhoff (review)

Reviews Eckhoff,Hanne Martine. 7The Use ofNfon-Prepositional Casein theOldRussianNP. Structure and Changes.Meddelelser, 85. Slavisk-BaltiskAvdeling, Universitetet i Oslo, Oslo, 200I. I48 pp. Tables. Notes. References. Index. Price unknown. THE aims of this work, the author tells us, are: to provide a synchronic descriptionof the syntaxof the Old Russian noun phrase (NP) at three stages of development; to undertakea diachronic analysis of the role of case in the Old Russian NP; to explore the roots and progress of change. The texts surveyed are a varied and valid sample from I000-I200 (the Kiev period), I 200- I400 (periodof decay duringthe Mongolian invasions),and I400- I630 (period of unification under Moscow). Genres represented include legal, hagiographic,homiletic and narrativetexts. Eckhoff's analysis of the material employs a model devised by M. A. K. Halliday as part of a total syntactic frameworkcalled functional grammar. The noun phrase is treated as having a simple logical structure,consisting of head and modifier; its experiental structure, we are told, is linear, and is divided into six different types of elements: Deictic, Numerative, Epithet, Classifier,Thing and Qualifier,with the Thing as the semanticcore of the NP. These are notional categories with no perceptible grounding in phonology or morphology, which the traditional philologist may suspect of doubtful analyticalvalidityand dubiousinferentialvalue. The subtlety required in applying the system is illustrated by 'materne mleko' (example no. 2.17), 'mother's milk', where the adjective is to be classifiedas Deictic if referringto an identifiablemother but Classifierif used in a general sense; the answer depends on the researcher's reading of the context. Each numbered example is given the same three-line layout: phrase quoted, explanatoryparsing,editorialinterpretation.The latteris exemplified by 'sosudy zelejnyja' (3.I 25), rendered by the functional 'vessels with gunpowder', in preference to the literal 'gunpowder vessels' or the free idiomatic 'powder barrels'.To justify classificationas metaphoricallypossessiveDeictic , the phrase 'gnevnyjtvojplamen"isrenderedas 'theflameof your wrath'(2.9); without re-readingIlarion'sSermon onLaw andGrace,one feelsthat 'thy wrathful flame' would be an adequate, if not preferable alternative. However, function must overrideother considerationsin thiswork. One is grateful to the author for the collation and classification of this material, with its strikingrevelation of the multiple semantic functions of the denominal adjective: 'zertvena krov' (2. I), 'zavist' Ijudejska'(2. I), 'gnevnyj plamen" (2.9), 'svjascenniceskijcin' (2.20), and its competition with genitive and dative constructions. Many of the examples have, in form and content, the flavourof Church Slavonic devotional literature.Whether these are to be regarded as authentic representativesof the Old Russian state of affairsis a difficultproblem, beyond the reasonable scope of this work. Eckhoffadmits the possible role of language contact, in particularof Greek and Old Church Slavonic, but also of Uralic. It will be interesting to see the results of any furtherresearchshe undertakesin thisfield. REVIEWS 303 Most of the material used has come from fairly recent twentieth-century editions. Among the few nineteenth-century sources cited is Archimandrit Leonid, Povest'o Cargrade(jegoosnovanii i vzjatiiTurkami v 1453 godu),Saint Petersburg, i886. This is the source of a quotation referring to Mefodij Patoromskj (2.28) here rendered as 'Methodius of Patorom'. Sreznevskij, Gudzijand othershave the more orthodox formPatarskij, denoting the fourthcentury bishop Methodius of Patara in Lycia, who wrote a work called The Banquet, modelled on Plato's Symposium, extolling Christian virginity. Archimandrite Leonid or his informant may have deformed the surname by the ingestion of an alien morpheme, namely the genitive plural inflection-on in GreekPataron. London H. LEEMING Smyth, Sarah and Crosbie, Elena V. RUS'. A Comprehensive Course in Russian. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002. xvii + 697 pp. Figures. Tables. Illustrations.Indexes. ?95.oo; ?34.95. Accompanying cassette, ? i6.95. IT is a truism of foreign language teaching that there is no such thing as the perfect textbook. Teachers of all languages are accustomed to skip or adapt the contents of their course manuals and supplement them with their own materials. For a less commonly taught language such as Russian where the choice of textbooks is comparatively limited, these practices are routine, especially for the university language tutor, for whom materials aimed at GCSE learners or business travellersare not suitable. It is surelywith this in mind that Sarah Smyth and...

Application of finite-state transducers to the acquisition of verb subcategorization information

This paper presents the design and implementation of a finite-state syntactic grammar of Basque that has been used with the objective of extracting information about verb subcategorization instances from newspaper texts. After a partial parser has built basic syntactic units such as noun phrases, prepositional phrases, and sentential complements, a finite-state parser performs syntactic disambiguation, determination of clause boundaries and filtering of the results, in order to obtain a verb occurrence together with its associated syntactic components, either complements or adjuncts. The set of occurrences for each verb is then filtered by statistical measures that distinguish arguments from adjuncts.

THE UNACCUSATIVE TRAP IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

The distinction of two types of intransitive verbs—unergatives (with underlying subjects) and unaccusatives (with underlying objects)—may not exist at early stages of L2 acquisition, both being syntactically represented as unergatives. This idea, referred to here as the Unaccusative Trap Hypothesis, provides an elegant developmental account for a variety of seemingly unrelated syntactic phenomena in L2 English, Japanese, and Chinese. Target language input, structural constraints on natural language linking rules, and linguistic properties of a learner's L1s shape stages in the reorganization of the lexical and syntactic components of interlanguage grammars. Although nonnative grammars may initially override the structural constraints postulated as the Unaccusative Hypothesis (Burzio, 1986; Perlmutter, 1978) and the Uniformity of Theta Assignment Hypothesis (Baker, 1988), at later developmental stages some may still achieve conformity with the norms of natural languages.

Text Indexation with INTEX

INTEX is a linguistic development environment that includes large-coverage dictionaries and grammars, and parses texts of several million words in real time. INTEX has tools to create and maintain large-coverage lexical resources as well as morphological and syntactic grammars. Dictionaries and grammars are applied to texts in order to locate morphological, lexical and syntactic patterns, remove ambiguities, and tag simple and compound words. INTEX can build lemmatized concordances and indices of large texts with respect to all types of Finite State patterns. INTEX is used as a corpus processor, to analyze literary, journalistic and technical texts. I describe here the subset of tools used to perform advanced search requests on large texts.

A grammar describing 'biological binding operators' to model gene regulation.

The study of the mechanisms involved in the regulation of protein synthesis has become sufficiently advanced that it is appropriate to think about a knowledge formalism. The objective of the syntactic grammar which we present in this article is a representation of these phenomena which take place in the context of the cell. The proposed model considers two types of objects: transcriptional units on DNA and regulatory or structural proteins which are synthesised, and which are, in the case of regulatory proteins, themselves destined to activate or repress other transcriptional units in a later phase. A transcriptional unit is described by the list of its active sites (operator, promoter, binding sites for transcription factors). A regulatory protein is described by the list of its active sites (binding domain, activation domain, binding domain for ligand). The DNA sites and the protein domains are the terminal symbols of the proposed grammar. The interaction of these proteins with the DNA, and in certain cases preliminary interactions between proteins, leads to one of two antagonistic actions: expression or repression of the transcriptional unit. These protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions are grouped into syntactic categories (induction, inhibition, initiation complex, repressor complex, activation complex) which are called biological binding operators. The expression/repression action are described by grammar rules which provide the chain of execution by biological binding operators for the four activable/repressible regulatory systems modulated by positive/negative co-factors. The object of this modelization is the observation of a cell in a given state for a given process which involves a cascade of genes. This grammar is implemented by a simulation program which allows the user to vary the initial state of the cell and also to change parameters related to time and quantity. This syntactic and generative grammar is independent of the specificity of each transcriptional unit. The simulation uses examples which may combine several regulatory systems: the lac operon, regulation of metallothionein, galactose catabolism in yeast, the tryptophan operon, and phage lysogenic/lytic cascades.

GRAMOL

A language for defining the lexical and syntactic grammars of languages is presented. The same notation is used for the two grammar descriptions. We will show that the language is unstratified, that is it can be used as its own metalanguage. Automatic generation of lexical analysers and syntactic parsers has been achieved by means of Ada packages.

Task grammar and attitude

This paper investigates the ability of perceivers to form impressions of tasks as part of the process of forming a task attitude. This ability is described as being partly given by a syntactic grammar that specifies both the primitive elements of tasks and the rules that structure these elements to form meaningful task impressions. The proposed grammar is shown to generate representations of task structure that can be mapped readily onto task attitudes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of task grammar for research on task attitudes.

A Pattern Description and Generation Method of Structural Characters

We report a pattern description and generation method of structural characters, and show some examples of Chinese and Korean character patterns actually generated. We also consider its educational and graphical applications. In this method, any character is regarded as a composite pattern constructed by several simpler subpatterns, and is described in terms of them by introducing three kinds of positional relationships among them. A composite pattern can become a subpattern, too. We call these patterns blocks. Syntactic grammar is defined to encode a pattern expression by two code strings, that is, a string of blocks and a string of production rules. They are used in generating patterns, namely, derivation of pattern expression from the code strings is defined as a process of pattern generation. By this description and generation method, we can encode structural characters without much memory, and generate natural shapes of patterns.

Interpretation of Natural Language Database Queries Using Optimization Methods

The automatic interpretation of natural language (English) database questions formulated by a user untrained in the technical aspects of database querying is an established problem in the field of artificial intelligence. State-of-the-art approaches involve the analysis of queries with syntactic and semantic grammars expressed in phrase structure grammer or transition network formalisms. With such methods difficulties exist with the detection and resolution of ambiguity, with the misinterpretation possibilities inherent with finite length look-ahead, and with the modification and extension of a mechanism for other sources of semantic knowledge. The potential of optimization techniques to solve these problems and interpret natural language database queries is examined.

Studies in Syntactic Typology and Contrastive Grammar

Studies in Syntactic Typology and Contrastive Grammar

English passives: A study in syntactic change and relational grammar

Middle English allows new passive types not found in Old English: personal passives of former dative-governing verbs, prepositional passives and indirect object passives. We seek to show that these innovations are not due to changes in the Passive rule, which has always related a direct object to a subject, but to the creation in ME of new classes of direct object, which automatically come within the scope of Passive. It is proposed that this may be a paradigm of syntactic change within the framework of relational grammar. It is further suggested that relational grammar needs to distinguish between lexical and transformational rules, and that current versions of autonomous syntax make crucial appeal to grammatical relations and are therefore closer to relational grammar than their proponents believe.