Language and Computation
UNIFICATION-BASED LINGUISTIC FORMALISMS
Foundational course

SHULY WINTNER

Seminar fuer Sprachwissenschaft, University of Tuebingen
Both weeks
shuly@sfs.nphil.uni-tuebingen.de
Course description

The course aims at introducing some of the major formalisms used in computational linguistics nowadays, providing both the necessary mathematical background and the linguistic motivation.

Contents:

  • Introduction
    • Context-Free Grammars
    • Their inadequacy for describing natural languages
    • Informal survey of feature structures (Shieber 86)
    • PATR
  • A theory of feature structures (rigorously formulated)
    • Feature structures
    • Subsumption and unification
    • Multi-rooted structures
  • Survey of Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) (Dalrymple et. al. 95)
    • The general framework
    • Functional control
    • Long-distance dependencies
    • Functional uncertainty
  • Typed feature structures (Carpenter 92)
    • Type hierarchies, inheritance and appropriateness
    • Typed feature structures, subsumption, unification
  • Survey of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) (Pollard&Sag 1994).
    • The general architecture
    • Principles
  • Additional issues as time permits:
    • Description logics for linguistic formalisms
    • Implementations
Prerequisites
Acquaintance with formal languages, as well as formal treatment of natural languages, is necessary. General background in syntax and semantics can help but is not mandatory.
Literature
No specific recommendation

 

 

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