Anti-Ikonizität an der Syntax-Semantik-Schnittstelle

2006 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Egg
Keyword(s):  
Expressive Power ◽  
Semantic Representations ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Semantic Scope

AbstractThe syntax-semantics interface is iconic in that it maps syntactic asymmetries (in particular, unilateral c-command) onto semantic asymmetries (scope relations). But many modification structures seem to violate this iconicity: here the modifier has (optionally or obligatorily) semantic scope over only a part of the expression that it modifies syntactically.First I will show that some well-known cases of syntax-semantics mismatch are instances of this phenomenon. Then I will specify an extremely flexible syntax-semantics interface to handle the apparent anti-iconicity. This interface crucially relies on the expressive power of a suitable underspecification formalism.With the interface one can derive the semantic representations of the problematic examples from surface-oriented syntactic structures without giving up the iconicity between syntax and semantics.Apparent anti-iconicity eventually emerges as scope underspecification between a modifier and part of the expression that it modifies. The analysis is applied to German and Turkish data.

scholarly journals syntax-semantics interface for tense and aspect in French

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Bonami
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Representation ◽  
Wide Scope ◽  
Semantic Representations ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Tense And Aspect

This paper proposes an HPSG account of the French tense and aspect system, focussing on the analysis of the passé simple (simple past) and imparfait (imperfective) tenses and their interaction with aspectually sensitive adjuncts. Starting from de Swart's (1998) analysis of the semantics of tense and aspect, I show that while the proposed semantic representations are appropriate,  the analysis of implicit aspectual operators as coercion operators is inadequate. The proposed HPSG analysis relies on Minimal Recursion Semantics to relate standard syntactic structures with de Swart-style semantic representations. The analysis has two crucial features: first, it assumes that the semantic contribution of tense  originates in the verb's semantic representation, despite the fact that tense can get wide scope over other semantic elements. Second, it allows the occurrence of implicit aspectual operators to be controlled by the verb's inflectional class, which accounts for their peculiar distribution.

scholarly journals Dynamic Compositional Neural Networks over Tree Structure

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pengfei Liu ◽  
Xipeng Qiu ◽  
Xuanjing Huang
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
Expressive Power ◽  
Tree Structure ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Semantic Representations ◽  
Compositional Process

Tree-structured neural networks have proven to be effective in learning semantic representations by exploitingsyntactic information. In spite of their success, most existing models suffer from the underfitting problem: they recursively use the same shared compositional function throughout the whole compositional process and lack expressive power due to inability to capture the richness of compositionality.In this paper, we address this issue by introducing the dynamic compositional neural networks over tree structure (DC-TreeNN), in which the compositional function is dynamically generated by a meta network.The role of meta-network is to capture the metaknowledge across the different compositional rules and formulate them. Experimental results on two typical tasks show the effectiveness of the proposed models.

scholarly journals Structures à subordonnée comparative en français

2008 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-61
Author(s):  
Catherine Fuchs ◽  
Nathalie Fournier ◽  
Pierre Le Goffic
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Representation ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Semantic Representations ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Qualitative Comparison ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
The Matrix

This article deals with syntactic and semantic representation of comparative structures in French. We propose an analysis of quantitative comparatives (plus, moins, aussi … que) and qualitative comparatives (comme) which highlights their common properties as well as their specificities. The first section (§ 1) offers a syntactic typology of matrix clause structures and (comparative) subordinate clause structures. The following sections consider the various aspects of semantic representations, as related to syntactic structures : we successively deal with (§ 2.) the type of parameter, (§ 3.) the type of differential constituant in the subordinate clause, (§ 4.) the type of parallel constituant in the matrix clause (with restitution of ellipses and anaphora), (§ 5.) the type of compared terms, by contrasting quantitative comparisons and qualitative comparison, and (§ 6.) the type of comparison, accounting for prototypical structures as well as for pragmatic effects induced by certain configurations.

The Combinatory Morphemic Lexicon

2002 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cem Bozsahin
Keyword(s):  
Expressive Power ◽  
Categorial Grammar ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Computational System ◽  
Combinatory Categorial Grammar ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Semantic Scope

Grammars that expect words from the lexicon may be at odds with the transparent projection of syntactic and semantic scope relations of smaller units. We propose a morphosyntactic framework based on Combinatory Categorial Grammar that provides flexible constituency, flexible category consistency, and lexical projection of morphosyntactic properties and attachment to grammar in order to establish a morphemic grammar-lexicon. These mechanisms provide enough expressive power in the lexicon to formulate semantically transparent specifications without the necessity to confine structure forming to words and phrases. For instance, bound morphemes as lexical items can have phrasal scope or word scope, independent of their attachment characteristics but consistent with their semantics. The controls can be attuned in the lexicon to language-particular properties. The result is a transparent interface of inflectional morphology, syntax, and semantics. We present a computational system and show the application of the framework to English and Turkish.

scholarly journals Derived verbs with suffix -ang in Balinese: syntactic and semantic analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nyoman Sujaya ◽  
Ni Ketut Sukiani
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Semantic Representation ◽  
Semantic Representations ◽  
Syntactic Structures

This paper accounts for the suffix -ang in Balinese and it focuses on its syntactic and semantic representation. Using I Madé’s Sugianto’s Ki Bari Gajah, a one hundred fifty-page Balinese novel and informants as the data, and applying the RRG theory by Van Valin and Randy (1999) other thoughts of the experts of Balinese, it was found out that -ang functioning as a transitivizing suffix can attach to noun, adjective, adverbs and verbs and imply various syntactic structures and semantic representations. Suffix -ang attached to the base in imperative sentences express no meaning. In this case, it is just used to imply that the sentence is in the form of imperative. Like other languages, English for example, one derived verb with -ang may be used transitively or intransitively.

From the autonomy of syntax to the autonomy of linguistic semantics

2000 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 325-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Dor
Keyword(s):  
Expressive Power ◽  
Functional System ◽  
The Other ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
System A ◽  
Linguistic Level ◽  
The One ◽  
Meaning Representation ◽  
Conceptual Meaning

Current research on the syntax-semantics interface demonstrates the dramatic extent to which syntactic structures constitute transparent reflections of well-defined semantic regularities. As this paper shows, the empirical results accumulated within this framework strongly suggest that a theoretical distinction should be made between two distinct levels of meaning representation: A level of conceptual meaning on the one hand, and a uniquely linguistic level of meaning — Linguistic Semantics — on the other. The semantic notions and regularities which turn out to determine major syntactic phenomena are best interpreted as belonging to the level of Linguistic Semantics, rather than to the level of conceptual meaning. This view helps characterize language as a unique and functional system — a cognitive system whose function is defined at the level of Linguistic Semantics. It explains the fact, most recently highlighted by Levinson (1997), that the expressive power of language, as a tool for the communication of meanings, is constrained in non-trivial ways.

Acquiring Syntactic Structures

1984 ◽  
Vol 29 (7) ◽  
pp. 551-551
Author(s):  
Rosemary J. Stevenson
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structures
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document