Leonid Iomdin Institute for Information Transmission Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences

Program Overview: p Basic Principles of The Meaning-Text theory by Igor Mel’čuk. Language as a Universal Translator of Senses to Texts and Texts to Senses. Text analysis and text generation. The theory of integral linguistic description by Juri Apresjan. The grammar and the dictionary of language. 2. Two syntactic levels of sentence representation: surface syntax and deep syntax. December 4, Lecture 52

Program Overview: p The dependency tree structure as a syntactic representation of the sentence. Dependency tree vs. Constituent tree: advantages and drawbacks of both types of representation. Limits of the dependency tree. The hypothesis of two syntactic starts. 4. The notions of syntactic relation. Major classes of syntactic relations: actant, attributive, coordinative and auxiliary relation classes. 5. The notion of syntactic feature. Syntactic features vs. Semantic features. December 4, Lecture 53

Program Overview: p Actants and valencies. Active, passive and distant valencies. The government pattern of a dictionary entry. An overview of actant syntactic relations. The predicative relation. The agentive relation. Completive relations. 7. An overview of attributive syntactic relations. Grammatical Agreement. Numerals and Quantitative Constructions. The system of Quantification Syntax of Russian. 8. Grammatical coordination as a type of grammatical subordination. An overview of coordinative syntactic relations. December 4, Lecture 54

Program Overview: p Auxiliary syntactic relations. Analytical grammatical forms as an object of syntax. 10 Microsyntax of Language. Minor Type Sentences. Syntactic Idioms. 11. Lexical Functions in the Dictionary and the Grammar. 12. Syntactic description and syntactic rules. Dependency Syntax in NLP. Dependency Syntax in Machine Translation. Syntactically Tagged Corpus of Texts. December 4, Lecture 55

Surface Syntax is the main linguistic discipline to which this course is devoted: conversion between deep morphological representation and surface syntactic representation December 4, Lecture 56

Classes of Syntactic Relations 1) actant relations; 2) attributive relations; 3) coordinative relations; 4) auxiliary relations December 4, Lecture 57

Syntactic Features MESUR ampere, angstrom, atmosphere, barrel, bushel, centimetre, … Two inches wide Two inches wider An inch wide An inch wider *A table wide *A table wider December 4, Lecture 58

Syntactic Features PREDTO abnormal, absurd, acceptable, aimless, altruistic, difficult, easy, hard…. (700 adjectives) To stay one more day was absurd It was absurd to stay one more day absolute, relative ≠ PREDTO December 4, Lecture 59

Syntactic Features and Valencies ABNORMAL: What valency structure? Abnormal behavior Abnormal child behavior, child are passive actants of abnormal Can these actants be made active? No, they cannot. December 4, Lecture 510

Syntactic Features and Valencies ABNORMAL: What valency structure? However, these actants can be made distant: The behavior is abnormal. The child is abnormal Can we now elaborate on the behavior? What can it be? December 4, Lecture 511

Syntactic Features and Valencies ABNORMAL: What valency structure? Behaviors: Running around Loitering Studying dependency syntax Agreeing to everything December 4, Lecture 512

Syntactic Features and Valencies ABNORMAL: What valency structure? Behaviors: To run To loiter To study dependency syntax To agree to everything December 4, Lecture 513

Syntactic Features and Valencies ABNORMAL: What valency structure? Behaviors: To run To loiter To study dependency syntax To agree to everything December 4, Lecture 514

Syntactic Features and Valencies ABNORMAL: What valency structure? Can we elaborate on the child? What can it be? John Mary My son Your brother Whoever likes ice-cream December 4, Lecture 515

Syntactic Features and Valencies ABNORMAL: What valency structure? It cannot, however, be Liking ice-cream Studying dependency syntax etc. December 4, Lecture 516

Syntactic Features and Valencies ABNORMAL: What valency structure? Behaviors: To run is abnormal To loiter is abnormal To study dependency syntax is abnormal To agree to everything is abnormal December 4, Lecture 517

Syntactic Features and Valencies ABNORMAL: What valency structure? It is abnormal to run It is abnormal to loiter It is abnormal to study dependency syntax It is abnormal to agree to everything December 4, Lecture 518

Syntactic Features and Valencies ABNORMAL: What valency structure? For completeness: is this the only valency of abnormal? Before answering the question, we will consider the noun abnormality. December 4, Lecture 519

Syntactic Features and Valencies ABNORMALITY: What valency structure? Abnormality of his behavior Behavior instantiates an active valency of abnormality Is this the only valency of abnormality? How can we use this noun phrase naturally? We can say e.g. December 4, Lecture 520

Syntactic Features and Valencies ABNORMALITY: What valency structure? The abnormality of his behavior was that he could not concentrate on any subject for more than a few seconds at a time. The abnormality of his behavior consisted in his inability to concentrate on any subject for more than a few seconds at a time. December 4, Lecture 521

Syntactic Features and Valencies ABNORMALITY: What valency structure? The abnormality of his behavior was that he could not concentrate on any subject for more than a few seconds at a time. his behavior instantiates the 1 st valency of abnormality (patient, active valency) that he could not concentrate… instantiates the 2 nd valency of abnormality (content, distant valency) December 4, Lecture 522

Syntactic Features and Valencies ABNORMALITY: What valency structure? The abnormality of his behavior consisted in his inability to concentrate on any subject for more than a few seconds at a time. his behavior instantiates the 1 st valency of abnormality (patient, active valency) his inability to concentrate… instantiates the 2 nd valency of abnormality (content, distant valency) December 4, Lecture 523

Syntactic Features and Valencies ABNORMALITY: What valency structure? NB: this distant valency cannot be made active: * The abnormality that he could not concentrate… * The abnormality of his inability to concentrate… December 4, Lecture 524

Syntactic Features and Valencies ABNORMAL: What valency structure? is patient the only valency of abnormal? No. It also has the 2nd valency of content: His behavior is abnormal in that he cannot concentrate on any subject for more than a few seconds at a time. Note that this valency is active, even though its instantiation is rather exotic. December 4, Lecture 525

Syntactic Features PREDTHAT abnormal, absurd, nice, fine,… (400 adjectives) That he stayed one more day was absurd It was absurd that he stayed one more day difficult, easy ≠ PREDTHAT December 4, Lecture 526

Syntactic Features PREDIF absurd, natural, contranatural, accidental, amiable, smart, spiteful, splendid, …(50 adjectives) It would be absurd if he stayed one more day difficult, easy ≠ PREDIF new = ? old =? December 4, Lecture 527

Syntactic Features PREDTHAT, ^PREDTO (200 adjectives) wrong, right = PREDTHAT and PREDTO It was wrong that he stayed one more day It was wrong to stay one more day false, true = PREDTHAT, not PREDTO It was false that he stayed one more day *It was false to stay one more day December 4, Lecture 528

Syntactic Features remarkable ? PREDTHAT, not PREDTO That John agreed was remarkable *To make John agree is remarkable December 4, Lecture 529

Syntactic Features PREDTO, ^PREDTHAT (500 adjectives) aimless, useless = PREDTO, not PREDTHAT It was useless to plead with him December 4, Lecture 530

Syntactic Features: some training green nice American mathematical comprehensive curious criminal December 4, Lecture 531

Syntactic Features: some training negative prolific acceptable heavy high old similar December 4, Lecture 532

Completive relations The 1 st, 2 nd, 3 rd, 4 th or 5 th completive SSRel (1-compl, 2- compl etc.) links an object or a complement to its governor 1-compl: He idolized [X] the girl [Y]. 1-compl, 2-compl: He gave Mary a piece of advice. Mary was given a piece of advice. A policeman noticed me cross the street. He helped her find the book. December 4, Lecture 533

Completive relations He wanted to help me. He wanted me to help. He considered it remarkable that John agreed. *He considered it remarkable to make John agree. December 4, Lecture 534

He considered it remarkable that… December 4, Lecture 535

He considered it remarkable to… December 4, Lecture 536

Completive relations It is very unlike John to be late. Two things are worth mentioning. This is worth its weight in gold. He is wary of giving evidence. John is reluctant to go. Pressure depends on temperature. Animals are different from us in that they cannot speak December 4, Lecture 537

Completive relations It is easy to forget. ‘To forget is easy’ ‘This thing is easy to forget’. December 4, Lecture 538

Copulative Relation This is Prague He was great. We all are in Prague. The story was about love. The story was by O’Henry. The letter was to Harry. The idea was to attract young researchers It was of huge proportions. He was unlike the others December 4, Lecture 539

Agentive Relation This question was answered [X] by [Y] most of the students. The question [X] by [Y] the commission concerned nuclear disarmament. For [Y] him to agree [X] would require strength. December 4, Lecture 540

Prepositional Relation I brought the book from the library to my brother in the afternoon for no reason at all Give the book to whoever comes first He spoke with as many as ten people December 4, Lecture 541

Prepositional Relation It depends on how you behave in future It depends on whether you behave yourself He put the book on the table *He put the book on whether you behave yourself December 4, Lecture 542

Next lecture The remaining Actant Relations. Attributive Syntactic Relations. Qualificative and Restrictive Modifiers December 4, Lecture 543