This paper reports further progress into a computational implementation of a new formalism for construction grammar, known as Fluid Construction Grammar (FCG). We focus in particular on how hierarchy can be implemented. The paper analyses the requirements for a proper treatment of hierarchy in grammar and then proposes a particular solution based on a new operator, known as the J-operator. The ...

Fluid Construction Grammar (FCG) is a formalism for defining the inventory of lexical and grammatical conventions that language processing requires and the operations with which this inventory is used to parse and produce sentences. This chapter introduces some of the key ideas and basic design principles behind the development of Fluid Construction Grammar.

German case syncretism is often assumed to be the accidental by-product of historical development. This paper contradicts this claim and argues that the evolution of German case is driven by the need to optimize the cognitive effort and memory required for processing and interpretation. This hypothesis is supported by a novel kind of computational experiments that reconstruct and compare attest...

Cognitive linguistics has reached a stage of maturity where many researchers are looking for an explicit formal grounding of their work. Unfortunately, most current models of deep language processing incorporate assumptions from generative grammar that are at odds with the cognitive movement in linguistics. This demonstration shows how Fluid Construction Grammar (FCG), a fully operational and b...

This paper brings together the theoretical framework of construction grammar and studies of verbs in Modern Hebrew to furnish an analysis integrating the form and meaning components of morphological structure. In doing so, this work employs and extends Embodied Construction Grammar (ECG; Bergen and Chang 2005), a computational formalism developed to study grammar from a cognitive linguistic per...

This article reviews the impact of modern theoretical views on our understanding of the nature and purpose of the grammar of Pāṇini (ca. 350 BCE), and argues that new possibilities for progress open up for our understanding of this ancient grammar by confronting it not with the presuppositions of generative grammar as has been done – with undeniable but limited theoretical profit -in the last f...

Developing technologies that support collaboration requires understanding how knowledge and expertise are shared and distributed among community members. We explore two forms of knowledge distribution structures, coordination and cooperation, that are central to successful collaboration. We propose a novel method for detecting the coordination of strategic communication among members of politic...

RÉSUMÉ. Cet article présente une description des constructions antithétiques, que l’on a intégrée à une grammaire formelle du français spontané dont l’objectif est d’être finalement utilisée pour le TAL. Ces constructions ont pour caractéristique d’être soumises à des contraintes provenant simultanément de domaines divers (lexique, syntaxe, sémantique et pragmatique). Nous présentons ici une de...

1 The talk will describe an ongoing project (modestly named the Neural Theory of Language) that is attempting to model language behavior in a way that is both neurally plausible and computationally practical. The cornerstone of the effort is a formalism called Embodied Construction Grammar (ECG). I will describe the formalism, a robust semantic parser based on it, and a variety of applications ...