+612 9045 4394
Paperback
Published: 27th July 2001
ISBN: 9780262692687
Number Of Pages: 344
For Ages: 18+ years old
In this book Mark Steedman argues that the surface syntax of natural languages maps spoken and written forms directly to a compositional semantic representation that includes predicate-argument structure, quantification, and information structure without constructing any intervening structural representation. His purpose is to construct a principled theory of natural grammar that is directly compatible with both explanatory linguistic accounts of a number of problematic syntactic phenomena and a straightforward computational account of the way sentences are mapped onto representations of meaning. The radical nature of Steedman's proposal stems from his claim that much of the apparent complexity of syntax, prosody, and processing follows from the lexical specification of the grammar and from the involvement of a small number of universal rule-types for combining predicates and arguments. These syntactic operations are related to the combinators of Combinatory Logic, engendering a much freer definition of derivational constituency than is traditionally assumed. This property allows Combinatory Categorial Grammar to capture elegantly the structure and interpretation of coordination and intonation contour in English as well as some well-known interactions between word order, coordination, and relativization across a number of other languages. It also allows more direct compatibility with incremental semantic interpretation during parsing.The book covers topics in formal linguistics, intonational phonology, computational linguistics, and experimental psycholinguistics, presenting them as an integrated theory of the language faculty in a form accessible to readers from any of those fields.
"Steedman has deftly woven two decades of seminal work on human language understanding into this accessible and engaging volume." - Bob Carpenter, Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs
| Preface | p. xi |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| Grammar and Information Structure | |
| Rules, Constituents, and Fragments | p. 11 |
| Constituents | p. 12 |
| Fragments | p. 14 |
| Issues of Power and Explanation | p. 22 |
| Grammar as an Applicative System | p. 27 |
| Intuitive Basis of Combinatory Categorial Grammars | p. 31 |
| Pure Categorial Grammar | p. 31 |
| Interpretation and Predicate-Argument Structure | p. 35 |
| Coordination | p. 39 |
| The Bluebird | p. 40 |
| The Thrush | p. 43 |
| The Starling | p. 49 |
| Explaining Constraints on Natural Grammar | p. 53 |
| Intrinsic Constraints Limiting the Set of Possible Rules | p. 53 |
| Linguistic Constraints on Unbounded Dependencies | p. 59 |
| Linguistic Constraints on Bounded Dependencies | p. 64 |
| Quantification in CCG | p. 70 |
| Summary: Surface Structure and Interpretation | p. 85 |
| Structure and Intonation | p. 89 |
| Surface Structure and Intonation Structure | p. 92 |
| Two Intonation Contours and Their Functions | p. 95 |
| Theme and Rheme | p. 99 |
| Focus and Background | p. 106 |
| Grammar and Information Structure | p. 109 |
| Intonation and the Simplex Clause | p. 119 |
| Intonation in Complex Constructions | p. 122 |
| Conclusion | p. 124 |
| Coordination and Word Order | |
| Cross-Serial Dependencies in Dutch | p. 133 |
| Word Order in Dutch | p. 136 |
| Verb Raising as Composition | p. 138 |
| Equi Verbs | p. 144 |
| Argument Cluster Composition | p. 146 |
| Relative Clauses | p. 155 |
| Subject and Object Extraction from Embedded Clauses | p. 158 |
| Dutch Main-clause Order | p. 159 |
| Interaction of Word order and Quantifier Scope | p. 164 |
| On the Rarity of Crossing Dependencies | p. 166 |
| Summary of the Dutch Fragment | p. 167 |
| Gapping and the Order of Constituents | p. 171 |
| Gapping and SOV Word Order | p. 172 |
| Gapping and VSO Word Order | p. 176 |
| Gapping and SVO Word Order | p. 179 |
| Other Elliptical Phenomena | p. 195 |
| A Cautious Conclusion | p. 197 |
| Computation and Performance | |
| Combinators and Grammars | p. 201 |
| Why Categories and Combinators? | p. 201 |
| Why Bluebirds, Thrushes, and Starlings? | p. 203 |
| Expressive Power | p. 207 |
| Formalizing Directionality in Categorial Grammars | p. 213 |
| Directionality as a Feature | p. 216 |
| Processing in Context | p. 225 |
| Anatomy of a Processor | p. 226 |
| Toward Psychologically Realistic Parsers | p. 246 |
| CCG Parsing for Practical Applications | p. 251 |
| The Syntactic Interface | p. 255 |
| Competence | p. 255 |
| Acquisition | p. 258 |
| Performance | p. 259 |
| Notes | p. 263 |
| References | p. 283 |
| Index | p. 321 |
| Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved. |
ISBN: 9780262692687
ISBN-10: 0262692686
Series: Language, Speech, and Communication
Audience:
Professional
For Ages: 18+ years old
Format:
Paperback
Language:
English
Number Of Pages: 344
Published: 27th July 2001
Publisher: MIT Press Ltd
Country of Publication: US
Dimensions (cm): 22.9 x 15.2
x 1.9
Weight (kg): 0.42
