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 suppor...

This paper deals with alternative questions in English, and proposes an analysis employing an alternative operator. I claim that the alternative question interpretation is not obtained by such syntactic processes as movement or gapping, but by scoping of an alternative operator that originates from the conjunction or. Accordingly, while the syntactic forms of alternative questions contain nothi...

We discuss the use of logic for natural language (NL) processing, both as an internal query language and as a programming tool. Some extensions of standard predicate calculus are motivated by the first of these roles. A logical system including these extensions is informally described. It incorporates semantic as well as syntactic NL features, and its semantics in a given interpretation (or dat...

The study investigates the relationship between input, UG parameter values, and the native language in the acquisition of a purely semantic property that is superficially unrelated to its syntactic trigger, The Bare Noun/Proper Name parameter. A bidirectional study of the two properties was conducted. In the English Italian direction, the lack of one native interpretation in the target language...

In this chapter we explore the possibility that within Optimality Theory, a single syntactic grammar directly yields not only competence theoretic results on the grammatical distributions of elements, but also performance theoretic results on relative preferences when processing sentences with various syntactic ambiguities. Whereas the competence theory applies the grammar at the level of an en...

Two event-related brain potential experiments were conducted to investigate whether there is a functional primacy of syntactic structure building over semantic processes during Chinese sentence reading. In both experiments, we found that semantic interpretation proceeded despite the impossibility of a well-formed syntactic analysis. In Experiment 1, we found an N400 difference between combined ...

In response to Panagiotidis’ objections (Panagiotidis, 2005) to Barner and Bale (2002), we review the questions of overgeneration and predictability of meaning with regards to narrow syntactic explanations of noun-verb innovation (and specifically the case of non-lexicalist theories of grammar). Regarding overgeneration, it is argued that syntactic proposals, whether lexicalist or non-lexicalis...

The term Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) first appeared in print in the 1982 volume edited by Joan Bresnan: The Mental Representation of Grammatical Relations, the culmination of many years of research. LFG differs from both transformational grammar and relational grammar in assuming a single level of syntactic structure. LFG rejects syntactic movement of constituents as the mechanism by which...

Determining source location could potentially allow more fine-grained distinctions between functional interpretations of ERP components, but the problem remains difficult. Methodologies which provide more localization information (fMRI, intracranial recordings, MEG, patient studies) give results which often seem incommensurate. In this study we combine two of these methodologies, fMRI and MEG, ...

Syntactic networks are window to the overall organization and structure of language. Its growing through language acquisition process could reveal interesting features. Here, the network view to language is briefly discussed as well as practical set of criteria to describe syntactic networks of child language. Notions such structure or full interpretation are subtle or non-existing in child lan...