Delimitation of information between grammatical rules and lexicon Jarmila Panevova,´ Magda Sevˇ cˇ´ıkova´ Charles University in Prague Faculty of Mathematics and Physics Institute of Formal and Applied Linguistics fpanevova|[email protected] Abstract is not given by the language itself, the “balance” be- tween the modules is “entirely an empirical issue” The present paper contributes to the long-term (Chomsky, 1970). There are core grammatical and linguistic discussion on the boundaries be- lexical topics, such as agreement or lexical meaning, tween grammar and lexicon by analyzing four respectively, whose classification as belonging to the related issues from Czech. The analysis is grammar on the one hand and to the lexicon on the based on the theoretical framework of Func- other is shared across languages and linguistic theo- tional Generative Description (FGD), which has been elaborated in Prague since 1960’s. ries, while classification of borderline cases as either First, the approach of FGD to the valency of grammatical or lexical ones is strongly theory-de- verbs is summarized. The second topic, con- pendent. cerning dependent content clauses, is closely A brief overview of selected approaches laying related to the valency issue. We propose to more stress either on the lexical or on the grammat- encode the information on the conjunction of ical module is given in Sect. 2 of the present paper; the dependent content clause as a grammati- the approach of Functional Generative Description, cal feature of the verb governing the respec- used as the theoretical framework of our analysis, is tive clause. Thirdly, passive, resultative and some other constructions are suggested to be briefly presented. In Sect. 3 to 6, the delimitation of understood as grammatical diatheses of Czech information between the two modules is exemplified verbs and thus to be a part of the grammati- by four topics, which have been studied for Czech. cal module of FGD. The fourth topic concerns the study of Czech nouns denoting pair body 2 Grammar vs. lexicon in selected parts, clothes and accessories related to these theoretical approaches body parts and similar nouns. Plural forms of these nouns prototypically refer to a pair or The interplay between grammar and lexicon has typical group of entities, not just to many of been discussed for decades in linguistics. Although them. Since under specific contextual condi- the former or the latter module plays a predominant tions the pair/group meaning can be expressed role in particular frameworks, the preference of one by most Czech concrete nouns, it is to be de- of the modules does not mean to exclude the other scribed as a grammaticalized feature. one from the description, they are both acknowl- edged as indispensable. According to Bloomfield (1933), the lexicon has 1 Introduction a subordinated position.1 The grammatical rules are Theoretical approaches to natural languages, regard- the main component either within Chomskyan gen- less of which particular theory they subscribe to, erative (transformational) grammar, though the im- usually work with grammar and lexicon as two basic 1“The lexicon is really an appendix of the grammar, a list of modules. The delimitation between these modules basic irregularities.” (Bloomfield, 1933) 173 portance of the lexical component was strengthen by case, number etc. for nouns). At the analytical layer, the decision to treat certain types of nominalizations the surface-syntactic structure of the sentence is rep- within the lexicon rather than within the transforma- resented as a dependency tree, each of the tree nodes tional (grammatical) component (Chomsky, 1970). corresponds exactly to one morphological token and On the other side of the scale of grammatically is labeled as a subject or object etc. At the tec- vs. lexically oriented approaches,2 there is the lexi- togrammatical layer, the linguistic meaning of the calist approach of Meaning-Text Theory by Mel’cukˇ sentence is captured as a dependency tree, whose et al. Within this framework, a richly structured nodes correspond to auto-semantic words only.4 The lexicon, so-called Explanatory Combinatorial Dic- nodes are labeled with a tectogrammatical lemma tionary, has been systematically compiled for indi- (which is often different from the morphological vidual languages; the Dictionary is considered as a one), functor (semantic role, label; e.g. Actor ACT) central component of description of language, cf. and a set of grammatemes, which are node attributes (Mel’cuk,ˇ 1988; Mel’cuk,ˇ 2006). Lexicon plays a capturing the meanings of morphological categories crucial role in categorial grammars (Ajdukiewicz, which are indispensable for the meaning of the sen- 1935) as well as in the lexicalized tree adjoining tence.5 The tectogrammatical representation is fur- grammar, see Abeille´ – Rambow (2000), just to give ther enriched with valency annotation, topic-focus two further (chronologically distant) examples. articulation and coreference. Functional Generative Description (FGD) works The lexical issues have been becoming more cen- with both grammatical and lexical modules since the tral in the FGD framework for the recent ten years original proposal of this framework in 1960’s (Sgall, as two valency lexicons of Czech verbs based on the 1967); nevertheless, the main focus has been laid on valency theory of FGD (Panevova,´ 1974/75) have grammatical, in particular syntactic, issues (Sgall et been built; cf. the VALLEX lexicon (Lopatkova´ et al., 1986). FGD has been proposed as a dependency- al., 2008) and the PDT-VALLEX(Hajicˇ et al., 2003), based description of natural language (esp. Czech). which is directly interconnected with the tectogram- The meaning–expression relation is articulated here matical annotation of PDT 2.0. into several steps: the representations of the sen- The approach of FGD to valency is summarized tence at two neighboring levels are understood as the in Sect. 3 of the present paper. The delimitation of relation between form and function. The “highest” information between grammar and lexicon in FGD level (tectogrammatics) is a disambiguated repre- is further illustrated by the description of depen- sentation of the sentence meaning, having the coun- dent content clauses in Czech (Sect. 4), grammatical terparts at lower levels. On the FGD framework the diatheses of Czech verbs (Sect. 5) and representa- multi-layered annotation scenario of Prague Depen- tion of a particular meaning of plural forms of Czech dency Treebank 2.0 (PDT 2.0) has been built. nouns (Sect. 6). PDT 2.0 is a collection of Czech newspaper texts from 1990’s to which annotation at the morpholog- 3 Valency ical layer and at two syntactic layers was added, namely at the layer of surface syntax (so-called an- The problem of valency is one of most evident phe- alytical layer) and of deep syntax (layer of linguis- nomenon illustrating the interplay of lexical and tic meaning, tectogrammatical layer) (Hajicˇ et al., grammatical information in the language descrip- 2006).3 At the morphological layer each token is as- tion. Lexical units are the bearers of the valency signed a lemma (e.g. nominative singular for nouns) information in any known theoretical framework. and a positional tag, in which the part of speech and The form of this information is of course theory- formal-morphological categories are specified (e.g. dependent in many aspects, first of all in (i) to (iii): 2For this opposition, the terms ‘transformationalist’ vs. ‘lex- 4There are certain, rather technical exceptions, e.g. coor- icalist’ approaches are used, the former ones are called also dinating conjunctions used for representation of coordination ‘syntactic’ or simply ‘non-lexicalist’ approaches, depending on constructions are present in the tree structure. the theoretical background. 5Compare the related term ‘grammems’ in Meaning-Text 3See also http://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/pdt2.0 Theory (Mel’cuk,ˇ 1988). 174 (i) how the criteria for distinguishing of valency Any grammatical module, whatever its aim is (be and non-valency complementations are deter- it analysis, or generation, or having determinative mined, or declarative character) is based on the combinato- rial nature of the verb (as a center of the sentence) (ii) how the taxonomy of valency members looks with its obligatory valency slots. If the valency re- like, quirements are not fulfilled, the sentence is in some sense wrong (either as to its grammaticality or as (iii) how the relation between the deep valency la- to its semantic acceptability). The surface deletions bels (arguments in some frameworks, inner are checked by the dialogue test or by the contextual participants in FGD) are reflected (see also conditions. Sect. 4). 4 Dependent content clauses in Czech 3.1 Valency approach of FGD The next topic concerns the description of depen- In FGD we use the valency theory presented in dent content clauses in Czech. Dependent content Panevova´ (1974/75; 1994) and Sgall (1998) and in clauses are object, subject and attributive clauses its application in valency dictionaries (VALLEX, that express a semantic complementation of the par- PDT-VALLEX). Valency complementations enter ticular governing verb (or noun, these cases are not the valency frame as an obligatory part of lexical addressed in the paper). information. The empirically determined set of in- ner participants (Actor ACT, Patient PAT, Addressee 4.1 Dependent content clauses in FGD ADDR, Origin ORIG and Effect EFF) and those free Within the valency approach of FGD, dependent modification which were determined as semantically content clauses are inner participants of a verb, they obligatory with the respective verb (by the criterion (more precisely, main verbs of these clauses) are of grammaticality or by the so-called dialogue test classified as PAT and EFF with most verbs, less of- see (Panevova,´ 1974/75)) are included in the valency ten as ACT and rarely as ADDR or ORIG in the tec- frame. togrammatical structure of the sentence according to FGD avoids the concept of a wide number of the PDT 2.0 data.