A Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammar for English

1998

2008

1985

Adjunction is a powerful operation that makes Tree Adjoining Grammar (TAG) useful for describing the syntactic structure of natural languages. In practice, a large part of wide coverage grammars written following the TAG formalism is formed by trees that can be combined by means of the simpler kind of adjunction defined for Tree Insertion Grammar. In this paper, we describe a parsing algorithm that makes use of this characteristic to reduce the practical complexity of TAG parsing: the expensive standard adjunction operation is only considered in those cases in which the simpler cubic-time adjunction cannot be applied.

Computational Linguistics, 2015

In parsing with Tree Adjoining Grammar (TAG), independent derivations have been shown by Schabes and Shieber (1994) to be essential for correctly supporting syntactic analysis, semantic interpretation, and statistical language modeling. However, the parsing algorithm they propose is not directly applicable to Feature-Based TAGs (FB-TAG). We provide a recognition algorithm for FB-TAG that supports both dependent and independent derivations. The resulting algorithm combines the benefits of independent derivations with those of Feature-Based grammars. In particular, we show that it accounts for a range of interactions between dependent vs. independent derivation on the one hand, and syntactic constraints, linear ordering, and scopal vs. nonscopal semantic dependencies on the other hand.

2005

Although Tree Adjoining Grammars (TAG) are widely used for syntactic processing, there is to date no large scale TAG available which also supports semantic construction. In this paper, we present a highly factorised way of implementing a syntax/semantic interface in TAG. We then show how the resulting resource can be used to perform semantic construction either during or after derivation.

1998

We here explore a "fully" lexicalized Tree-Adjoining Grammar for discourse that takes the basic elements of a (monologic) discourse to be not simply clauses, but larger structures that are anchored on variously realized discourse cues. This link with intra-sentential grammar suggests an account for different patterns of discourse cues, while the different structures and operations suggest three separate sources for elements of discourse meaning: (1) a compositional semantics tied to the basic trees and operations; (2) a presuppositional semantics carried by cue phrases that freely adjoin to trees; and (3) general inference, that draws additional, defeasible conclusions that flesh out what is conveyed compositionally.

A large part of wide coverage Tree Adjoining Grammars (TAG) is formed by trees that satisfy the restrictions imposed by Tree Insertion Grammars (TIG). This characteristic can be used to reduce the practical complexity of TAG parsing, applying the standard adjunction operation only in those cases in which the simpler cubic-time TIG adjunction cannot be applied. In this paper, we describe a parsing algorithm managing simultaneous adjunctions in TAG and TIG.

Philosophies, 2021

Contemporary generative grammar assumes that syntactic structure is best described in terms of sets, and that locality conditions, as well as cross-linguistic variation, is determined at the level of designated functional heads. Syntactic operations (merge, MERGE, etc.) build a structure by deriving sets from lexical atoms and recursively (and monotonically) yielding sets of sets. Additional restrictions over the format of structural descriptions limit the number of elements involved in each operation to two at each derivational step, a head and a non-head. In this paper, we will explore an alternative direction for minimalist inquiry based on previous work, e.g., Frank (2002, 2006), albeit under novel assumptions. We propose a view of syntactic structure as a specification of relations in graphs, which correspond to the extended projection of lexical heads; these are elementary trees in Tree Adjoining Grammars. We present empirical motivation for a lexicalised approach to structure building, where the units of the grammar are elementary trees. Our proposal will be based on cross-linguistic evidence; we will consider the structure of elementary trees in Spanish, English and German. We will also explore the consequences of assuming that nodes in elementary trees are addresses for purposes of tree composition operations, substitution and adjunction.