Unification Grammars / Nissim Francez, Shuly Wintner.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Francez, Nissim.

Wintner, Shuly, 1963-

Series:

Cambridge books online.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Grammar, Comparative and general--Mathematical models.

Grammar, Comparative and general.

Unification grammar.

Lexical-functional grammar.

Head-driven phrase structure grammar.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (324 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2011.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

text file

PDF

Summary:

Like computer programs, the grammars of natural languages can be expressed as mathematical objects. Such a formal presentation of grammars facilitates mathematical reasoning with grammars (and the languages they denote), on one hand, and the computational implementation of grammar processors, on the other hand. This book presents one of the most commonly used grammatical formalisms, unification grammars, which underlies such contemporary linguistic theories as lexical-functional grammar (LFG) and head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG). The book provides a robust and rigorous exposition of the formalism that is both mathematically well founded and linguistically motivated. Although the material is presented formally, and much of the text is mathematically oriented, a core chapter of the book addresses linguistic applications and the implementation of several linguistic insights in unification grammars.

The authors provide dozens of examples and numerous exercises (many with solutions) to illustrate key points. Graduate students and researchers in both computer science and linguistics will find this book a valuable resource. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Syntax: the structure of natural languages 3

1.2 Linguistic formalisms 4

1.3 A gradual description of language fragments 6

1.4 Formal languages 12

1.5 Context-free grammars 14

1.6 CFGs and natural languages 22

1.7 Mildly context-sensitive languages 29

1.8 Motivating an extended formalism 30

2 Feature structures 34

2.1 Motivation 35

2.2 Feature graphs 37

2.3 Feature structures 52

2.4 Abstract feature structures 54

2.5 Attribute-value matrices 64

2.6 The correspondence between feature graphs and AVMs 74

2.7 Feature structures in a broader context 83

3 Unification 85

3.1 Feature structure unification 85

3.2 Feature-graph unification 86

3.3 Feature structure unification revisited 93

3.4 Unification as a computational process 94

3.5 AFS unification 99

3.6 Generalization 108

4 Unification grammars 115

4.1 Motivation 116

4.2 Multirooted feature graphs 118

4.3 Abstract multirooted structures 125

4.4 Multi-AVMs 130

4.5 Unification revisited 137

4.6 Rules and grammars 146

4.7 Derivations 151

4.8 Derivation trees 157

5 Linguistic applications 165

5.1 A basic grammar 166

5.2 Imposing agreement 167

5.3 Imposing case control 172

5.4 Imposing subcategorization constraints 174

5.5 Subcategorization lists 178

5.6 Long-distance dependencies 185

5.7 Relative clauses 191

5.8 Subject and object control 197

5.9 Constituent coordination 201

5.10 Unification grammars and linguistic generalizations 208

5.11 Unification-based linguistic formalisms 209

6 Computational aspects of unification grammars 213

6.1 Expressiveness of unification grammars 214

6.2 Unification grammars and Turing machines 226

6.3 Off-line parsability 233

6.4 Branching unification grammars 239

6.5 Polynomially parsable unification grammars 244

6.6 Unification grammars for natural languages 251

6.7 Parsing with unification grammars 253

7 Conclusion 275.

Notes:

Title from publishers bibliographic system (viewed on 02 Mar 2012).

Other Format:

Print version:

ISBN:

9781139013574

9781107014176

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.