Levels and Empty Categories in a Principles and Parameters Approach to Parsing

Abstract

This paper' discusses some basic problema of the implementation of a principles and par rameter based linguistic theory. In the first part it outlines the distinguishing features of such a model, ezemplified by ita best known variety, Government and Binding (G~B) Theory (cf. Chomsky 1981, 1982, 1986a-b). Part 2 discusses some implications of preserving these properties for the design of a parser. Part 3 goes into several relevant issues in linguistic theory ut more detail. 'To appear in Repre~entationa! and Deri~ationat Approache~to Cenerati~e Grammar, Netter, K. ed. Dordrecht: Reidel. 1 (2) a. (John said that) Jill kisaed Jack. b. (John said that) Jack was kiased by Jill.

Comments on Pullum

“…The structure builder will be able to generate a very large number of structures, the vast majority of which will have to be rejected. The effort required to deal with these ill‐formed structures will quickly overwhelm the parsing process (for relevant discussion, see Marcus, ; Berwick and Weinberg, ; Abney, ; and Kolb and Thiersch, ). Here's a toy example from Neeleman and Van de Koot, which illustrates the growth of candidate structures for a given input depending on how many grammatical constraints are incorporated in the structure builder: A B C D E Men (1 word)11121Men slept (2 words)22141The man slept (3 words)128281Men bought a book (4 words)112405161A man bought a book (5 words)136022414321Men said men bought a book (6 words)19872134442641Men said a man bought a book (7 words)?84481321281A: merge with weak inclusiveness and binary branching built in B: merge with strong inclusiveness and binary branching built in C: merge with strong inclusiveness, binary branching and label assignment under directionality built in D: 2 n E: merge with strong inclusiveness, binary branching, label assignment under directionality and selection built in It is not important to know the nature of the grammatical constraints referred to (‘weak inclusiveness’, ‘binary branching’, etc.).…”

Theoretical validity and psychological reality of the grammatical code

“…The transfer of principles from grammar to parser can only be beneficial if the computational problems of the original generate-and-test design are not replicated internally to the parser. That is to say, this module should not itself consist of an unconstrained structure assigner plus a set of filters (for discussion of this point in the context of Government and Binding Theory, see Kolb and Thiersch 1991). Therefore, many researchers adopt an approach in which inputs are pre-parsed using a set of context-free rewrite rules derived from various principles of the competence grammar.…”

Rezensionen

“…dazu z.B. Berwick/Weinberg, 1984;Berwick u.a., 1991;Kolb/Thiersch, 1990). Nun bedingt zwar grammatische Modularität nicht notwendig eine entsprechende funktionale oder architektonische Modularisierung der Verarbeitung, dennoch scheinen manche Ergebnisse empirischer Untersuchungen indirekt auf arbeitsteilige Prozesse bzw.…”