Related papers: A Grammar Formalism and Cross-Serial Dependencies
Grammar refers to the system of rules that governs the structural organization and the semantic relations among linguistic units such as sentences, phrases, and words within a given language. In natural language processing, there remains a…
Recently researchers working in the LFG framework have proposed algorithms for taking advantage of the implicit context-free components of a unification grammar [Maxwell 96]. This paper clarifies the mathematical foundations of these…
I introduce a formalism for representing the syntax of recursively structured graph-like patterns. It does not use production rules, like a conventional graph grammar, but represents the syntactic structure in a more direct and declarative…
We examine the class of languages that can be defined entirely in terms of provability in an extension of the sorted type theory (Ty_n) by embedding the logic of phonologies, without introduction of special types for syntactic entities.…
This paper describes a computational framework for a grammar architecture in which different linguistic domains such as morphology, syntax, and semantics are treated not as separate components but compositional domains. Word and phrase…
This paper defines multiset-valued linear index grammar and unordered vector grammar with dominance links. The former models certain uses of multiset-valued feature structures in unification-based formalisms, while the latter is motivated…
Log-linear models provide a statistically sound framework for Stochastic ``Unification-Based'' Grammars (SUBGs) and stochastic versions of other kinds of grammars. We describe two computationally-tractable ways of estimating the parameters…
In a lexicalized grammar formalism such as Lexicalized Tree-Adjoining Grammar (LTAG), each lexical item is associated with at least one elementary structure (supertag) that localizes syntactic and semantic dependencies. Thus a parser for a…
This paper proposes decoupling the dependency tree from word order, such that surface ordering is not determined by traversing the dependency tree. We develop the notion of a \emph{word order domain structure}, which is linked but…
This paper explores commonalities and differences between \dachs, a variant of Dependency Grammar, and Lexical-Functional Grammar. \dachs\ is based on traditional linguistic insights, but on modern mathematical tools, aiming to integrate…
Tree-controlled grammars are context-free grammars where the derivation process is controlled in such a way that every word on a level of the derivation tree must belong to a certain control language. We investigate the generative capacity…
Dependency Grammar has been used by linguists as the basis of the syntactic components of their grammar formalisms. It has also been used in natural language parsing. In China, attempts have been made to use this grammar formalism to parse…
Dependency syntax represents the structure of a sentence as a tree composed of dependencies, i.e., directed relations between lexical units. While in its more general form any such tree is allowed, in practice many are not plausible or are…
In this article, we present a fresh perspective on language, combining ideas from various sources, but mixed in a new synthesis. As in the minimalist program, the question is whether we can formulate an elegant formalism, a universal…
Semantic theories of natural language associate meanings with utterances by providing meanings for lexical items and rules for determining the meaning of larger units given the meanings of their parts. Meanings are often assumed to combine…
This paper defines unification based ID/LP grammars based on typed feature structures as nonterminals and proposes a variant of Earley's algorithm to decide whether a given input sentence is a member of the language generated by a…
Typed feature structures are used extensively for the specification of linguistic information in many formalisms. The subsumption relation orders TFSs by their information content. We prove that subsumption of acyclic TFSs is well-founded,…
Futrell and Mahowald (2025) frame the success of neural language models (LMs) as supporting gradient, usage-based linguistic theories. I argue that LMs can also instantiate theories based on formal structures - the types of theories seen in…
A natural next step in the evolution of constraint-based grammar formalisms from rewriting formalisms is to abstract fully away from the details of the grammar mechanism---to express syntactic theories purely in terms of the properties of…
This paper describes an abstract machine for linguistic formalisms that are based on typed feature structures, such as HPSG. The core design of the abstract machine is given in detail, including the compilation process from a high-level…