Towards a typology of agreement phenomena (original) (raw)
Related papers
2008
Sharing portions of grammars across languages greatly reduces the costs of multilingual grammar engineering. Related languages share a much wider range of linguistic information than typically assumed in standard multilingual grammar architectures. Taking grammatical relatedness seriously, we are particularly interested in designing linguistically motivated grammatical resources for Slavic languages to be used in applied and theoretical computational linguistics. In order to gain the perspective of a language-family oriented grammar design, we consider an array of systematic relations that can hold between syntactical units. While the categorisation of primitive linguistic entities tends to be language-specific or even construction-specific, the relations holding between them allow various degrees of abstraction. On the basis of Slavic data, we show how a domain ontology conceptualising morphosyntactic "building blocks " can serve as a basis of a shared grammar of Slavic.
An ontology of systematic relations for a shared grammar of Slavic
Proceedings of the 18th conference on …, 2000
Sharing portions of grammars across languages greatly reduces the costs of multilingual grammar engineering. Related languages share a much wider range of linguistic information than typically assumed in standard multilingual grammar architectures. Taking grammatical relatedness seriously, we are particularly interested in designing linguistically motivated grammatical resources for Slavic languages to be used in applied and theoretical computational linguistics. In order to gain the perspective of a language-family oriented grammar design, we consider an array of systematic relations that can hold between syntactical units. While the categorisation of primitive linguistic entities tends to be language-specific or even construction-specific, the relations holding between them allow various degrees of abstraction. On the basis of Slavic data, we show how a domain ontology conceptualising morphosyntactic "building blocks" can serve as a basis of a shared grammar of Slavic.
A Taxonomic Dictionary of Relations - The core of the definition of a formal language
Expressions in natural language, especially in technical texts, can be regarded as expressions of relations between related things. Each related thing plays a role of a particular kind in such as relation, whereas also the relations can be classified by kinds of relations. By formally defining such kinds of relations as part of the definition of a formal language it becomes possible to create a formal language that is suitable for expressing information in databases, data exchange messages as well as queries on such data and responses of found expressions. The kinds of relations can be arranged in a strict subtype-supertype hierarchy, also called a taxonomy. That hierarchy enables application of logic and reasoning for finding answers on queries. This paper describes the taxonomic dictionary of relations in Gellish Formal English and its variants in other languages. The dictionary of (kinds of) relations itself is published in book form [Ref. 6], the more extensive formal definition and ontology in database form is available only in electronic form via Gellish.net.
To appear in J. Miller (ed.): The Language of Ontology. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Two levels of ontology are commonly distinguished in metaphysics: the ontology of ordinary objects and the ontology of what there really or fundamentally is. This paper argues that natural language reflects not only the ontology of ordinary objects, but also a language-driven ontology, which is involved in the mass-count distinction and part-structure-sensitive semantic selection (as well as perhaps the light ontology of pleonastic entities in the sense of Schiffer). The language-driven ontology does not constitute another level of representation, but is taken to be a (selective) ontology of the real, given a plenitudinous or maximalist conception of reality. The language-driven ontology aligns closely with the functional part of grammar and a commitment to it is mandatory with the use of language. This gives rise to a novel view according to which part of ontology should be considered part of universal grammar on a broadened understanding.The paper recasts my older theory of situated part structures without situations, in purely ontological terms, making use of a primitive notion of unity.
Cambridge University Press eBooks, 2014
(11) a. lí=chap ole í? AUX-2PL PRT be.here 'You folks are here, eh?' Galloway 2009: 100 b li í the-l tàl? AUX be.here DET.FEM-1SG.POSS mother 'Is my mother in?' Galloway 2009: 100 (12) a. í:-lh=tsel lí. AUX-PST-1SG.S be.there 'I was there.' Galloway 2009: 103 b. lí-lh=a=chxw lí. AUX-PST-Q-2SG.S be.there 'Were you there?' Galloway 2009: 217 Thus, the Halkomelem auxiliaries show the same pattern of multi-functionality as those of English, as illustrated in (13)-(14). (27) a. Nitsikannistsikssimmstaawa nitssisstsiikoohsi. nit-iik-annist-ikssimmstaa-wa nit-sistsikoo-hsi 1-INT-MANNER-think.AI-PROX 1-tired.AI-CONJ 'I think I am tired.' b. Aniiwa otaissistsikoohsi. wanii-wa ot-a-sistsikoo-hsi say.AI-PROX 3-IMPF-tired.AI-CONJ 'He said he was tired now.' c. Nitsíksstaa nááhksoy'ssi. nit-iik-sst-aa n-ááhk-ooyi-hsi 1-INT-want-AI 1-NONFACT-eat.AI-CONJ 'I want to eat.' d. Nitaanistaa oomaahkootooyakstsissi. nit-waanist-a-wa ot-m-ááhk-go-yáakihtsiiyi-hsi 1-say.TA-DIR-PROX 3-3-NONFACT-go-go.to.bed.AI-CONJ 'I told him to go to bed.' e. Nitsítssáyoyihtopi nitáaksoyi ánnohka. nit-it-say-Ioyi-htopi nit-yáak-Ioyi annohka 1-then-NEG-eat-UNREAL 1-FUT-eat.AI now 'If I hadn't eaten then, I'd eat now.' adapted from Frantz 1991:115, ex. x Similarly, not all languages have dedicated UoLs to introduce nominal phrases (e.g., determiners). This is illustrated in (28) for Polish where word order determines definiteness. (28) a. Student lubi Marie. student likes Mary 'The student likes Mary.' b. Marie lubi student. Mary likes student 'A student likes Mary.' Zlatic, to appear (2) And finally, not all languages have categories defined based on morphological type such as inflection or clitic. That is, among the hypothesized categories of UG we often find a category labeled INFL (for inflection, see 2.2). Not all languages have inflectional morphology however. For example isolating languages such as Mandarin are languages with no inflectional categories. It follows that morphological type such as inflection cannot identify universal categories. 5 Anchoring categories in dependent clauses You can't believe a word he says since he invented the subjunctive. Baloo Rex May 5.1 7 Categories that introduce a point of view Man is pre-eminently endowed with the power of voluntarily and consciously determining his own point of view.