Questions tagged [grammar-formalism]
The grammar-formalism tag has no usage guidance.
41 questions
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Why isn’t it obvious that the grammars of natural languages cannot be context-free?
I've read that a context-free grammar is one in which every production rule is written in the way V -> a, where V is a non-terminal symbol and a is a chain of non-terminal and terminal symbols.
In ...
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What is the “Chomsky hierarchy”?
What truly is the Chomsky hierarchy?
I know it aims to categorize core features of “languages”.
But what essential properties does each type have? Why are they so distinctive? Why are there four? And ...
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Is there a formal system in Linguistics like Boolean algebra to reduce the grammar rules of a language to minimum items ignoring semantics? [closed]
To get the grammar rules down to the minimum necessary for teaching. Semantics not included.
This is example what what I am thinking about.
Grammar with all the semantics cut out, means it is easy to ...
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Turing-completeness of Minimalism and HPSG
I read several times that HPSG and Minimalism are Turing-complete. Could someone explain (or tell me some references) why this is the case? And does this constitute a major problem since natural ...
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Is there any connection between formalism and generativism [closed]
Is generativism originated from formalism? How formalism is related to linguistics
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Does simple type theory distinguish between those common nouns that are used as arguments and those that are used as predicates?
Kearns (2011: 58-61) views the common noun dog to be of type <e, t>. This makes sense based upon the predicate use of such a noun, e.g. Those animals are dogs. What happens, though, when the ...
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Combinatory categorial grammar for English
I am working on theoretical NLP things, in particular to do with combinatory categorial grammar (CCG). I don't have much knowledge of CCG, or of grammar in general.
I was wondering how much of English ...
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What is terminology for the difference between, for instance, "see" and "sees"?
To clarify, I'm referring to the terminology for the difference between just a the word "see" as a verb, and the word in a statement like "Alice sees Bob". What is the correct ...
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*Compact* Context-Free Grammar for English
I have seen that similar questions have been asked here, but the common answer is to look at Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar. Then, on the internet I just find slides from computational ...
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Interleaving (Cross serial dependency) using context sensitive grammars
I saw from different sources that Context Free Grammars are insufficient to generate cross serial dependencies (interleaving) in languages and it would require mildly context sensitive grammars to do ...
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Can formal linguistics help language learning?
I am interested in the intersection between abstract, formal grammars/semantics of human language and the very concrete task of learning a new language. Are there any books whose presentation assumes ...
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Is English modeled as a deterministic CFL or a CFL?
Books on linguistics and NLP often mention that English is modeled by context free grammars, but also is parsed by LR(k) parsers.
LR(k) parsers are for parsing deterministic CFLs, while CFLs are ...
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Is language a formal system?
Towards the end of this essay on formal systems and human language the author states:
Chomsky and Halle and many other linguists assume that language IS such a [formal] system... These are powerful ...
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All the strings X2Y where X and Y are composed of 0s and 1s, X ≠ Y [closed]
This problem was taken from A. Shen's book "Algorithms and Programming. Problems and Solutions". The problem itself was communicated by M. Sipser.
The author asks the reader to define a context-free ...
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Can anyone explain me the structure of the FCFG grammar
I was not able to understand the grammar rules explain in discourse.fcfg file.
Can any one help me understanding SEM means in S[SEM = <app(?subj,?vp)>] -> NP[NUM=?n,SEM=?subj] VP[NUM=?n,SEM=...
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Examples of languages with complex "formules de politesse"
French uses complex word arrangements to say "best regards" and "yours sincerely" to finish well written letters, i.e.:
Nous vous prions d’agréer, Monsieur, l’expression de nos sentiments respectueux ...
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Complete NL formalisms w/out syntax
What are the natural language formalisms that, roughly speaking, do away w/ syntax as a separate level of description? Cf. Steedman's "The Syntactic Process" (2000):
"...syntactic structure is ...
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"in relation to which" - what type of subordinated clause and is this conjunction somehow distinct?
I am trying to analyse the sentence:
Building land is a plot of land in relation to which a construction permit has been issued.
and my question is - what type of subordinated clause is introduced ...
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What does it mean for a grammar to be linear?
What is the definition of a ''linear'' grammar. For instance, there is a class of grammars called ``linear indexed grammars'' which is different from plain ''indexed grammars.'' What does ''linear'' ...
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Intuitive English example of why linguists think natural language grammar is stronger than CFL?
I have a decent understanding of regular languages, CFLs and r.e. sets from a course in computer science theory. I'm just learning about the Chomsky hierarchy.
As an English speaker, I have a ...
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Can we build semantic mappings for CFG same as we do in CCG?
In CFG we "simply" have production rules. Whereas in Combinatory Categorial Grammar (CCG) on the other hand, we have both composition rules over categories, and a mapping from syntax to semantics (...
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How to diagram a sentence containing a sentence adverb? [closed]
There is a traditional representation of a sentence's parts and it's relation called Kellogs-Reeds diagramming method,which is not used in linguistics.
There are also linguistic representations like ...
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Are all grammar formalisms either dependency or constituency grammars?
Can a grammar formalism be something that's neither a dependency grammar nor a constituency grammar?
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How can PSG describe the vertical dimension of sentence structure? [closed]
PSG (phrase structure grammar) describes the horizontal dimension of sentence structure with strings, sequences of sentence parts, in a way we are all familiar with. We know that nominal expressions, ...
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Syntax presupposed by Heim and Kratzer
Heim and Kratzer's "Semantics in Generative Grammar", bases its semantics on some version of transformational syntax. However, it is remarkably inexplicit about formalising the syntax it presupposes ...
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Analogs of Lambek grammar that can encode structural ambiguity?
My understanding (mistaken, see below) is that in basic lambek/categorial grammar, the basic objects are strings. Does anyone know of variants where one can have multiple trees for the same string?
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Functionalism vs Formalism?
I'm trying to really understand the difference between linguistic functionalism and formalism, but I can't find any good concrete examples of either.
From what I can tell, functionalism is a sort of ...
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What is the most comprehensive context-free grammar for English?
I realize how hard it is to develop a CFG to model an arbitrary English sentence. Some valid discussion points for this topic can be found here:
Is there an EBNF that covers all of English?
However, ...
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Formal definition of English grammar
I saw on a related question some mentions of a formal grammar definition for English. It is mentioning there a definition called English Resource Grammar. Perhaps anyone here would know about loosely ...
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Van Wijngaarden grammar - concrete examples?
I stumbled across this Wikipedia article on Van Wijngaarden grammar.
This cut-down quote of the intro paragraph picks out the elements that I found tantalizingly interesting:
... Van Wijngaarden ...
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Is there a paradigmatic formalism for dependency grammars?
When looking on the web, wikipedia for example, at the concept of
constituent, it is associated with the concept of phrase structure,
and rather quickly with context-free languages (as the ...
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Are Backus–Naur Form (BNF) and Extended Backus–Naur Form metalanguages or metasyntax?
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Backus–Naur_Form
Extended Backus–Naur Form (EBNF) is a family of metasyntax notations,
any of which can be used to express a context-free grammar.
Does ...
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Is a formal grammar of a formal language a formal language?
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta
In linguistics, a grammar is considered as being expressed in a metalanguage, language that operates on a higher level in order to describe properties of the ...
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Is there any phrase where common syntax fails?
Are there any phrases were a conventional grammar gives multiple syntactic analysis for the same phrase (without changing the meaning) or even fails to give a consistent structure?
I thought about ...
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How does a dependency grammar generate strings?
Theoretically speaking, if I were to use a rule-based approach to generate grammatically correct strings for a language L, I would implement a phrase structure grammar G = (V, T, R, S) consisting of ...
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Application of Regular grammar in English Language
Am doing a practical application of formal languages to English Language. Am able to understand the CF grammars with respect to english very easily. (i.e.), for example, CF's are used to ensure ...
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Grammar for language L = {ww ∣ w ∈ {a,b,c} * }
I am new to linguistics and trying to understand how to construct a grammar. I am however having issues on this.
L= {ww ∣ w ∈ {a,b,c} ∗ }
is a linear indexed language, how can I construct the ...
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Could anyone give examples of context-sensitive sentences that cannot be generated by context-free rules?
Could anyone give examples of context-sensitive sentences that cannot be generated by context-free rules?
To clarify, they are generated by rules including at least one that is in the form αβγ→αψγ, α,...
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Is the commutative CFG in the mathematical linguistics literature?
I am shocked that Linguists have not given a reasonably small canonical computationally precise representation of any natural language yet, so I wrote a recent EL&U post to explain how one does ...
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Semantic head vs Syntactic head parsing
I've run into "semantic head parsing" and "syntactic head parsing" and while I think I have a feel for the difference, I was wondering if anyone could give a more concrete definition or reference to ...
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What are some alternatives to Chomskian generative grammar?
What are the other common approaches to study syntax?
Note: the source is an example question from the on-topic question list in Area51.
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