A Linguistic Comparison of Constituency, Dependency and Link Grammar

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A Linguistic Comparison of Constituency, Dependency and Link Grammar Institut für Informatik Sommer 1998 der Universität Zürich - Summer 1998 Lizentiatsarbeit - Diploma Paper Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Michael Hess ExtrAns Research Report: Dependency vs. Constituency A Linguistic Comparison of Constituency, Dependency and Link Grammar Gerold Schneider Büro 27-K-46 Institut für Informatik Lerchenhalde 43 Winterthurerstr. 190 CH - 8046 Zürich CH - 8057 Zürich +41 1 / 371 85 06 +41 1 / 635 67 24 [email protected] Version 1.1 Juli – July 1998 Notes on the Present Version 1.1 The revisions between version 1.0 and 1.1 of this paper were based on the supervisor’s comments. They consist in the correction of about two dozen small errors, some printing mistakes, some stylistic improvements and the addition of some explanatory footnotes. No fundamental changes were made. It has to be pointed out, however, that chapter 6 is not well enough researched and contains a fundamental mistake, which would necessitate a major revision. The supervisor, however, preferred to accept the paper without such a revision. The fundamental mistake I have made is that the topic-focus articulation (TFA) dependency structures presented there have nothing to do with a logical representation and are not suitable as an intermediate step towards them, either. TFA dependency structures should rather be treated and therefore also presented and defended as a discourse representation structure (DRS). Please bear this in mind when reading chapter 6 and section 2.3.2.2, which introduces the same mistake. Comments and criticisms are always welcome, although I will no longer be able to integrate any of them into this paper. I hope, nevertheless, that it will be possible for me to come back to some of the topics dealt with at a later stage. I hope that you will enjoy reading this paper Gerold Schneider *HUROG6FKQHLGHU &RPSDULVRQRI&RQVWLWXHQF\'HSHQGHQF\DQG/LQN*UDPPDUV 27DEOHRIFRQWHQWV 2YHUYLHZ 1. INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................................1 1.1 Link Grammar and Its Linguistic Background ..........................................................................1 1.2 Relations and Questions............................................................................................................2 1.3 The Scientific Status of Linguistics............................................................................................3 1.4 Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................6 2. CONSTITUENCY VERSUS DEPENDENCY...........................................................................................7 2.1 Tesnière.....................................................................................................................................7 2.2 Advocates of Dependency after Tesnière.................................................................................18 2.3 Basic Concepts of Dependency in GB and PSG terms ............................................................37 2.4 Equivalence of Dependency and Constituency ........................................................................76 2.5 Parsing Efficiency ...................................................................................................................88 2.6 Conclusions: Remaining Differences ......................................................................................89 3. TOY DEPENDENCY PARSERS.........................................................................................................91 3.1 A Toy Parser for German in Perl............................................................................................91 3.2 Dependency Unification Grammar (DUG) .............................................................................97 3.3 Dependency Existence Prolog Parser (DEPP) .......................................................................98 3.4 The Real Challenge: Constraining Non-Projectivity.............................................................119 3.5 Outlook..................................................................................................................................122 3.6 Conclusions...........................................................................................................................123 4. LINK GRAMMAR VS. DEPENDENCY GRAMMARS ........................................................................125 4.1 Differences between Link Grammar and Classical Dependency...........................................125 4.2 Differences between Link Grammar and Dependency-Related Grammars...........................130 4.3 Link Grammar’s Post-Processing .........................................................................................139 5. A CLOSER LOOK AT LINK GRAMMAR LINK TYPES.....................................................................141 5.1 Comparing Link to A Standard English Grammar ................................................................141 5.2 Different Kinds Of Link Types...............................................................................................167 5.3 Semantic Dependencies.........................................................................................................167 5.4 Converting Linkages to Constituency....................................................................................168 6. SYNTACTIC VS. SEMANTIC: THE SEMANTIC INTERFACE ............................................................175 6.1 Truth Theory..........................................................................................................................175 6.2 Topic-Focus Articulation (TFA)............................................................................................177 6.3 Semantic Heads.....................................................................................................................183 6.4 Functionalism and Semantics in Link Grammar ...................................................................186 7. CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................................................................187 8. BIBLIOGRAPHY ...........................................................................................................................191 The detailed table of contents follows on the next page: D *HUROG6FKQHLGHU &RPSDULVRQRI&RQVWLWXHQF\'HSHQGHQF\DQG/LQN*UDPPDUV 'HWDLOHG&RQWHQWV 1. INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................................1 1.1 Link Grammar and Its Linguistic Background ..........................................................................1 1.2 Relations and Questions............................................................................................................2 1.3 The Scientific Status of Linguistics............................................................................................3 1.3.1 To Speak or to Silence, That Is the Question ..................................................................................3 1.3.2 There Is no Linguistic Structure......................................................................................................4 1.3.3 Arbitrary Grammatical Decisions ...................................................................................................5 1.4 Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................6 2. CONSTITUENCY VERSUS DEPENDENCY...........................................................................................7 2.1 Tesnière.....................................................................................................................................7 2.1.1 Connection......................................................................................................................................8 2.1.1.1 Syntax and Semantics................................................................................................................9 2.1.1.2 Dependency .............................................................................................................................11 2.1.2 Complements (actants) and adjuncts (circonstants)......................................................................12 2.1.3 Junction.........................................................................................................................................12 2.1.4 Translation....................................................................................................................................13 2.1.4.1 A Functional Concept of Word Classes...................................................................................14 2.1.4.2 Open Valencies........................................................................................................................16 2.1.4.3 Parsing Efficiency....................................................................................................................16 2.1.5 Conclusions...................................................................................................................................17 2.2 Advocates of Dependency after Tesnière.................................................................................18 2.2.1 Hays and Gaifman.........................................................................................................................18
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