Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
NL-KR Digest Volume 07 No. 05
NL-KR Digest (Tue Jan 30 12:36:20 1990) Volume 7 No. 5
Today's Topics:
Special CSLI Issue of NL-KR
New Visitor
New Visitor
Language Acquisition Interest Group Meetings
Abstracts for Workshop on 14 December 1989
Seminar on Computers, Design, and Work - Wed, 31 Jan, 12:15
CSLI Calendar, 25 January, vol. 5:14
Submissions: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
Requests, policy: nl-kr-request@cs.rpi.edu
Back issues are available from host archive.cs.rpi.edu [128.213.7.6] in
the files nl-kr/Vxx/Nyy (ie nl-kr/V01/N01 for V1#1), mail requests will
not be promptly satisfied. If you can't reach `cs.rpi.edu' you may want
to use `turing.cs.rpi.edu' instead.
BITNET subscribers: we now have a LISTSERVer for nl-kr.
You may send submissions to NL-KR@RPIECS
and any listserv-style administrative requests to LISTSERV@RPIECS.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 89 09:51:46 PST
From: ingrid@russell.Stanford.EDU (Ingrid Deiwiks)
Subject: New Visitor
CAROL NEIDLE
BOSTON UNIVERSITY
Carol Neidle is visiting Xerox PARC and CSLI for six months. She is
on sabbatical leave from Boston University, where she is Associate
Professor and Director of the Program in Applied Linguistics. Her
interests include Russian syntax (she is author of _The Role of Case
in Russian Syntax_, D. Reidel, 1988) and computational tools for
linguistic analysis. At Xerox, she will be working on problems related
to machine translation between English and French. She can be reached
at neidle@parc.xerox.com or (415) 494-4726.
------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 90 15:09:33 PST
From: ingrid@russell.Stanford.EDU (Ingrid Deiwiks)
Subject: New Visitor
MICHIO ISODA
Industrial Affiliates Program Visiting Researcher
WACOM Co. Ltd., Japan
Dates of visit: January 1990-December 1990
Michio is interested in machine(-aided) translation (MAT) and lexical
knowledge base (LKB). While at CSLI, he would like to import the
results of contemporary linguistics theories into MAT and LKB in order
to build simpler, more flexible systems. His research interests also
include related topics, such as language-knowledge acquisition and the
application of techniques that have been developed in the context of
research on MAT.
------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 90 11:35:48 PST
From: ingrid@russell.Stanford.EDU (Ingrid Deiwiks)
Subject: Language Acquisition Interest Group Meetings
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION INTEREST GROUP
At noon on the dates below
Building 100, Greenberg Room
Tue, 23 Jan Acquisitional Principles in Lexical Development
Eve Clark
Tue, 6 Feb Workshop on Steve Pinker's Theory of the Acquisition
of Argument Structures
Jess Gropen
Readings:
(1) Pinker, S. 1987. Resolving a Learnability
Paradox in the Acquisition of the Verb Lexicon.
Lexicon Project Working Paper, 17. (Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Center for Cognitive Science.)
(2) Pinker, S. 1989. Learnability and Cognition.
Tue, 20 Feb Temporality in Untutored Adult Second Language
Acquisition: Functional Approach to Data Analysis
Marya Teutsch-Dwyer
Tue, 6 Mar To be announced
EVERYONE IS WELCOME!
If you have any questions or have a paper you'd like to present,
please send email to m.mahout@macbeth.
------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 89 16:07:10 PST
From: ingrid@russell.Stanford.EDU (Ingrid Deiwiks)
Subject: Abstracts for Workshop on 14 December 1989
MINI-WORKSHOP ON "THERE" CONSTRUCTIONS IN GERMANIC LANGUAGES
Thursday, 14 December 1989
9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
CSLI, Cordura 100
ABSTRACTS
The Yiddish Correlate of THERE-Sentences
Ellen Prince
Alongside of canonical sentences like (1), Yiddish has sentences like (2):
(1) oykh di yamen hobn breges
also the seas have shores
(2) es hobn breges oykh di yamen (S. Kaczerginski)
it have shores also the seas
This paper investigates the discourse functions of sentences like (2),
i.e., sentences with postposed subjects and with a dummy in initial
position. The study is based on a corpus of over 9000 naturally
occurring clauses. It is argued that such sentences are used when the
subject does not represent an entity that is already evoked in the
current discourse-stretch. That is, (2) may occur just in case "the
seas" is not a member of the set of Forward-looking centers (Grosz,
Joshi, and Weinstein 1987, Kameyama 1985) of the previous
discourse-segment. Thus, definites may occur, as above, in contrast
to cognate sentences in many other Germanic languages (e.g., Eng.),
where subjects must not represent entities assumed to be known to the
hearer and are therefore indefinite, and where the verb is limited to
existential and presentational types (Milsark 1976, Perlmutter and
Zaenen 1984; pace Safir 1985). Thus we see that the syntactic form of
an utterance can be exploited -- in different ways in different
languages -- to guide the hearer in the referential processing of a
text.
Lexical Restrictions on Existentials
Joan Maling
Brandeis University
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mapping between verbal
arguments and the syntax in existential sentences in Swedish and
Icelandic. The focus is how to characterize the well-known syntactic
restriction barring transitive verbs from existential sentences in
Swedish (and English) but not in Icelandic (or German). This
difference correlates with the syntactic status of the dummy pronoun
(Platzack 1983): since the dummy is a grammatical subject in Swedish,
it blocks the mapping of any verbal argument to the SUBJ function. I
will show that the restriction against transitive verbs cannot be
formulated in terms of the number of NP-arguments per se, since there
exist monadic predicates that are not allowed, and dyadic predicates
that are allowed. The intransitive verb classes that occur in the
existential construction in Swedish are reminiscent of those that
undergo Locative Inversion in Chichewa (Bresnan and Kanerva 1989):
e.g., verbs of motion, unaccusatives, and passives. In essence, the
dummy det is compatible with those verbs containing an argument that
can be mapped onto S/O (typically a theme). In Icelandic, since the
dummy pronoun is not itself a grammatical subject, the SUBJ function
is available; however, the same distinctions are seen in terms of
which arguments must be realized external to the VP. Theme arguments
appear to violate the Subject Condition in Icelandic: they can always
be assigned to OBJ even when they are the highest (or only) thematic
role. The data supports the view that the mapping between thematic
roles and the syntax is mediated by grammatical functions, and bears
on the analysis of double object verbs in Germanic languages.
Noninitial Subject in Dutch
Annie Zaenen
In this talk, I will argue that the agreeing NP is the subject and
that er is a locative dummy stuck in topic position.
------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 90 10:10:20 PST
From: ingrid@russell.Stanford.EDU (Ingrid Deiwiks)
Subject: Seminar on Computers, Design, and Work - Wed, 31 Jan, 12:15
SEMINAR ON COMPUTERS, DESIGN, AND WORK
Embedded Values, Moral Delegates, and Expert Systems:
Toward a Political Anthropology of Computing Technology
Bryan Pfaffenberger
Wednesday, 31 January, 12:15
Ventura 17
Many technical systems incorporate what Bruno Latour calls a delegate:
a technical feature that is intended to force people to conform to
moral norms. Such systems are not merely instrumental. They are also
systems of moral authority, and comprehending their social impact
requires more than a political sociology; it requires a political
anthropology, which is capable of comprehending the social impact and
meaning of an imposed system of moral and judicial authority. This
point is illustrated through an examination of the debate concerning a
recent attempt to capture the rules of the British Nationality Act
(1981) in an expert system.
Bio
Assistant Professor of Humanities, School of Engineering and Applied
Science, University of Virginia. Ph.D.: social and cultural
anthropology, University of California, Berkeley. Current interests:
social history of personal computing, social construction and social
impact of expert system technology, technology transfer to Third World.
**********************************************************************
To the degree that he masters his tools, he can invest the world with
his meaning; to the degree that he is mastered by his tools, the shape
of the tool determines his own self-image. --- Ivan Illich
**********************************************************************
Bryan Pfaffenberger XB.p07@STANFORD
**********************************************************************
------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 90 15:49:06 PST
From: ingrid@russell.Stanford.EDU (Ingrid Deiwiks)
Subject: CSLI Calendar, 25 January, vol. 5:14
C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
25 January 1990 Stanford Vol. 5, No. 14
_____________________________________________________________________________
A weekly publication of the Center for the Study of Language and
Information (CSLI), Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4115
____________
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR THIS THURSDAY, 25 JANUARY 1990
12:00 noon TINLunch
Cordura 100 The Role of Central Conceptual Structures in the
Development of Scientific and Mathematical Thought
Robbie Case
School of Education
Stanford University
(ka.rob@forsythe.stanford.edu)
Abstract in last week's Calendar
2:15 p.m.
Cordura 100 CSLI Seminar
HPSG from Afar
Paul John King
CSLI Postdoctoral Fellow
(pjking@csli.stanford.edu)
Abstract in last week's Calendar
____________
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT THURSDAY, 1 FEBRUARY 1990
12:00 noon TINLunch
Cordura 100 Reading: A Logical Model of Machine Learning:
A Study of Vague Predicates
by Wlodek Zadrozny and Mieczyslaw Kokar
Discussion led by Jerry Hobbs
(hobbs@ai.sri.com)
Abstract below
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Cordura 100 Some Aspects of Word-Retrieval Errors in the
Speech of Aphasic Adults
Audrey Holland
Professor of Otolaryngology and Communication
and Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Director of the Division of Speech, Language,
and Voice Pathology, School of Medicine
University of Pittsburgh
(alh@med.pitt.edu)
Abstract below
____________
NEXT WEEK'S TINLUNCH
A Logical Model of Machine Learning:
A Study of Vague Predicates
by Wlodek Zadrozny and Mieczyslaw Kokar
Discussion led by Jerry Hobbs
In this paper, we apply a logical framework to the problem of
recognizing vague predicates. We formulate a rule of abduction and
apply it in identifying objects; we formally account for the context
sensitivity of recognition observed by W. Labov. We show how multiple
theories of "cup" can be combined in a new theory of the concept.
Finally, we conjecture that operationality in explanation-based
learning is related to the cost of abduction.
The logical theory we use assumes that reasoning and learning take
place in an interaction of theories on three levels: methodological
level, object level, and referential level. An object level theory
describes the current situation; the referential level encodes
background knowledge; while the methodological level is responsible
for choosing methods of reasoning and ways of constructing models.
____________
NEXT WEEK'S CSLI SEMINAR
Some Aspects of Word-Retrieval Errors in the
Speech of Aphasic Adults
Audrey Holland
The talk will include a brief sample of a videotaped interaction with
an aphasic man who has a moderate conduction aphasia, frequent
phonemic paraphasic errors, and word-retrieval deficits. How the
patient's speech production deficits are modified as a result of the
feedback with which he is provided, how such deficits and their
resolutions are classified and coded, and some difficulties in
description of word-retrieval deficits will be the focus of the talk.
I will try to relate some of the realities of speech production
deficits to problems of building computer models of aphasia, at least
briefly.
____________
SEMINAR ON ISSUES IN LOGICAL THEORY
Philosophy 396
Approaches to the Liar Paradox, Part II
John Etchemendy
(etch@csli.stanford.edu)
Thursday, 25 January, 3:45-5:30
Cordura 100
In the logic seminar this week, John Etchemendy will talk about the
treatment of the liar paradox in Barwise and his book {\it The Liar}.
Next week, Bernie Linsky will present material from "General
Intensional Logic" by C. Anthony Anderson (chapter II.7 of the
_Handbook of Philosophical Logic_). Copies will be made available at
this week's meeting.
____________
SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
Conversations with Apes: Reflections on the
Scientific Study of Language
John Dupre
Department of Philosophy
(dupre@csli.stanford.edu)
Thursday, 25 January, 4:15
Building 60, Room 62G
(Please note room change!)
In this talk, John Dupre will look at some of the different attempts
that have been made to teach symbolic systems, including American sign
language, to various apes. He'll also discuss the main criticisms
that have been directed against these attempts. He will argue that
these criticisms reveal serious conflicts between assumptions about
correct scientific methodology and the very possibility of the kind of
research project envisaged by the ape language researchers. Finally,
he will offer a few suggestions about why this research and its
evaluation has seemed so important to some people.
At the next Forum (1 February), Annie Zaenen will talk. Title: Verb
Varieties: Syntax or Semantics?
____________
LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM
Dependency Relations and Syntactic Functions:
Heads and Bases
Arnold M. Zwicky
Ohio State University and Stanford University
Friday, 26 January, 3:30
Cordura 100
A particularly simple approach to syntactic functions/relations would
treat them as located within a hierarchy (or perhaps within several
overlapping hierarchies) arising from the split between the dependency
relations HEAD-OF and DEPENDENT-OF, from the split of DEPENDENT-OF
into ARGUMENT-OF and MODIFIER-OF (and the corresponding split of
HEAD-OF into the converse relations OPERATOR-ON and MODIFIED-BY,
respectively), and from the split of ARGUMENT-OF into syntactic
functions like Subject and Direct-Object and of MODIFIER-OF into
syntactic functions like Adjectival and Adverbial.
There are well-known problems with one part of this view, involving
arguments that clearly have the syntactic functions (and sometimes the
syntactic categories as well) normally associated with modifiers: for
example, the locational dependent of the verb PUT in I PUT THE BOX ON
THE TABLE and the manner dependent of the verb WORD in WE WORDED OUR
RESPONSE CAUTIOUSLY. Phenomena like these argue for a dissociation of
the dependency relations from syntactic functions; an Adverbial is
standardly a MODIFIER-OF a nonnominal head, and the standard
non-Subject ARGUMENT-OF a verb head is a Direct-Object or an
Indirect-Object NP, but these are merely the default alignments, not
invariable associations. On the one hand, then, we have dependency
relations like ARGUMENT-OF and MODIFIER-OF, while on the other hand we
have an inventory (perhaps very large, and perhaps very complexly
organized) of syntactic functions like Subject, Adverbial, Predicator,
and so on, each with its own default associations with syntactic
categories (NP for Subject, AdvP and PP for Adverbial, V for
Predicator, and so on).
Granting dissociations that will allow (for instance) an Adverbial PP
to serve as an ARGUMENT-OF a Predicator V, we should also expect
nonstandard pairings of OPERATOR-ON and MODIFIER-OF with syntactic
functions. I propose that one of these dissociations is in fact
abundantly exemplified, when an Adverbial or Adjectival constituent C1
serves as OPERATOR-ON another constituent C2. In such a construct C0,
we would expect C1 to exhibit some of the properties of the "head"
within C0; as an OPERATOR-ON C2, C1 should be expected (following
Keenan-style generalizations) to act as agreement target with respect
to the agreement trigger C2, and as government trigger with respect to
the government target C2, and it should be expected (following the
default inheritance generalizations in most current approaches to
phrase structure) to be the locus of morphosyntactic marking for
properties belonging to C0 as a whole (unless the rule for this
construction specifically stipulates that these are marked elsewhere,
for instance on an edge of C0). But we should also expect C2 to
exhibit some of the properties of the "head" of C0; as an Adverbial or
Adjectival, C1 should be expected to be optional, and C2 should be
expected to be the "syntactic determinant," the constituent that
predicts the external distribution type of C0.
This is the split of properties that often occurs for combinations of
an auxiliary verb with its complement; for combinations of a
complementizer with a clause; for combinations of a "grammatically
used" adposition with its object NP; and for combinations of a
determiner with a nominal constituent. The syntactic literature on
these matters -- as in the _Journal of Linguistics_ exchange between
Zwicky and Hudson, or in Abney's dissertation -- is largely taken up
with attempting to argue that one or the other of the two constituents
involved *really* is the head, though there are those (Warner in
Linguistics, Fenchel in WCCFL) who propose to side-step the problem by
declaring *both* constituents to be heads. I maintain that there is
no problem, since there are two conceptually distinct entities here,
for one of which I reserve the label "head," for the other of which I
suggest the label "base."
This is not yet a theoretical proposal. Rather, I am elucidating a
distinction that I believe will have a reflex in any adequate theory
of syntax, without at the moment taking a stand on how the distinction
should be realized in a particular theory.
____________
COMMONSENSE AND NONMONOTONIC REASONING SEMINAR
Formalizing Various Intuitions About Inheritance
in Logic Programs
Fangzhen Lin
Stanford University
Monday, 29 January, 2:30
Margaret Jacks Hall 301
(Please note room change for this meeting only!)
Reasoning about inheritance is one of the earliest applications of
nonmonotonic logics. It is also one of the motivations for developing
such logics. Unfortunately, so far attempts at formalizing
inheritance hierarchies using general purpose nonmonotonic logics,
like default logic and circumscription, seem not as successful as the
ones using ad hoc methods, like the ones used by Touretzky and the
Horty trio. This raises an important question: Are these nonmonotonic
logics appropriate for the job? In this paper, we'll show that for
default and autoepistemic logics, the answer is positive.
Specifically, we'll propose a methodology for formalizing various
intuitions about inheritance in logic programs with negation as
failure (a subclass of default and autoepistemic theories). We'll
prove that one of our formalizations includes Horty's skeptical theory
as a special case. Among other things, the methodology is remarkably
simple and very similar to the ones used by McCarthy and others.
____________
SEMINAR ON COMPUTERS, DESIGN, AND WORK
Social Aspects of Expert Systems
Bryan Pfaffenberger
Wednesday, 31 January, 12:15
Ventura 17
No abstract available.
____________
NEW CSLI POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW
Paul John King
(pjking@csli.stanford.edu)
Manchester University, England
Dates of visit: January 1990-January 1991
Graduating from London University with a mathematics degree, Paul
studied for a mathematical logic Ph.D. under Peter Aczel at Manchester
University. Drawn to him for his work on nonwellfounded sets, Aczel
soon introduced him to Barwise and Etchemendy's _The Liar_, helping
him to write a dissertation that simplified some of the maths behind
their work. Fueled by this and other dealings with situation
semantics, Aczel encouraged Paul to learn a little about linguistics.
This culminated in his Ph.D. dissertation, which dealt with the
mathematical foundations of Pollard and Sag's _Information-based
Syntax and Semantics_. Having, seemingly, developed a habit for
putting mathematical "meat" on CSLI "bones," Paul hopes to deepen this
habit while here by working alongside the situationists and/or
unification-based grammarians (whoever wants him most!) as a sort of
mathematical "janitor"!
____________
NEW CSLI VISITOR
Hiroshi Nakagawa
(nakagawa@csli.stanford.edu)
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Yokohama National University, Japan
Dates of visit: January 1990-January 1991
Hiroshi is interested in commonsense-knowledge representation and
situation theory. While at CSLI, he would like to represent
commonsense knowledge using situation theory. In trying to do this,
he also hopes to find out which parts of situation theory are useful
and/or what kinds of logical devices we should add to situation
theory. He thinks there are at least two ways in situation theory
that will allow him to do this. One is the "situation first" way,
i.e., defining operations on situations or situation types. The other
is the "infon first" way, i.e., defining operations on infons or
so-called infon algebra. Hiroshi feels he is now wandering between
these two ways.
____________
------------------------------
End of NL-KR Digest
*******************
