Word order phenomena in grammar development
Speaker: Antske Fokkens
Institution: Saarland University
Abstract:
The Grammar Matrix (Bender et al. 2002) is a tool helping grammar developers start building a deep grammar of a natural language. Recently, Matrix developers have been working on interfaces (called libraries) between linguistic descriptions and grammar implementations. The idea is that grammar writers can get a basic implementation of their grammar by filing out a questionnaire defining the typological properties of the language. Our research attempts at designing a library that can handle word order order phenomena. The first step for developing this library involves typological research in order to know what phenomena occur, and how they can be described adequately. The challenge is to find a format that on the one hand allows the linguist the necessary freedom to describe word order in the particular language, and on the other hand can be mapped to an implementation of the grammar in a deterministic way.
