Dependency Syntax. An Introduction

1. Dependency Syntax. An Introduction Leonid Iomdin Institute for Information Transmission Problems,Russian Academy of Sciences iomdin@iitp.ru, iomdin@gmail.com

2. Program Overview: p. 1 • 1. Basic Principles of The Meaning-Text theory by Igor Mel’čuk. Language as a Universal Translator of Senses to Texts and Texts to Senses. Text analysis and text generation. The theory of integral linguistic description by Juri Apresjan. The grammar and the dictionary of language. • 2. Two syntactic levels of sentence representation: surface syntax and deep syntax. December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

3. Program Overview: p. 2 • 3. The dependency tree structure as a syntactic representation of the sentence. Dependency tree vs. Constituent tree: advantages and drawbacks of both types of representation. Limits of the dependency tree. The hypothesis of two syntactic starts. • 4. The notions of syntactic relation. Major classes of syntactic relations: actant, attributive, coordinative and auxiliary relation classes. • 5. The notion of syntactic feature. Syntactic features vs. Semantic features. December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

4. Program Overview: p. 3 • 6. Actants and valencies. Active, passive and distant valencies. The government pattern of a dictionary entry. An overview of actant syntactic relations. The predicative relation. The agentive relation. Completive relations. • 7. An overview of attributive syntactic relations. Grammatical Agreement. Numerals and Quantitative Constructions. The system of Quantification Syntax of Russian. • 8. Grammatical coordination as a type of grammatical subordination. An overview of coordinative syntactic relations. December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

5. Program Overview: p. 4 • 9. Auxiliary syntactic relations. Analytical grammatical forms as an object of syntax. • 10 Microsyntax of Language. Minor Type Sentences. Syntactic Idioms. • 11. Lexical Functions in the Dictionary and the Grammar. • 12. Syntactic description and syntactic rules. Dependency Syntax in NLP. Dependency Syntax in Machine Translation. Syntactically Tagged Corpus of Texts. December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

6. Classes of Syntactic Relations • 1) actant relations; • 2) attributive relations; • 3) coordinative relations; • 4) auxiliary relations December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

7. Completive relations • The 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th completive SSRel (1-compl, 2-compl etc.) links an object or a complement to its governor 1-compl: He idolized [X] the girl [Y]. 1-compl, 2-compl: He gave Mary a piece of advice. Mary was given a piece of advice. A policeman noticed me cross the street. He helped her find the book. December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

8. Completive relations • He wanted to help me. • He wanted me to help. • He considered it remarkable that John agreed. • *He considered it remarkable to make John agree. December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

9. Completive relations • It is very unlike John to be late. • Two things are worth mentioning. • This is worth its weight in gold. • He is wary of giving evidence. • John is reluctant to go. • Pressure depends on temperature. • Animals are different from us in that they cannot speak December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

10. Completive relations • It is easy to forget. • ‘To forget is easy’ no completive relation! • ‘This thing is easy to forget’. 1-compl. easy=X, to =Y December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

11. Copulative Relation • This is [X] Prague [Y]. • He was [X] great [Y]. • We all are [X] in [Y] Prague. • The story was [X] about [Y] love. • The story was [X] by [Y] O’Henry. • The letter was [X] to [Y] Harry. • The idea was [X] to [Y] attract young researchers • It was [X] of [Y] huge proportions. • He has been [X] unlike [Y] the others December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

12. Agentive Relation • This question was answered [X] by [Y] most of the students. • The question [X] by [Y] the commission concerned nuclear disarmament. • For [Y] him to agree [X] would require strength. December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

13. Agentive Relation • She could not bear for Tom and Mary not to be friends. • I’d give anything for that not to have happened. • It is too late for there to be any business now December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

14. Agentive Relation: not in this case! I’d give anything for that not to have happened. December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

15. Agentive Relation Controversial Issues • The sky was covered with clouds. • Agentive or completive? • The sky was covered with clouds …The clouds covered the sky … The storm covered the sky with clouds • I was preoccupied with this idea… The idea preoccupied me... That was what preoccupied me with this idea December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

16. Quasiagentive Relation • The decision [X] of [Y] the whole group • The appearance [X] of [Y] his mother was unexpected. • A piece [X] of [Y] chalk. • That silly behavior [X] of [Y] theirs (of his, of John’s) December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

17. Absolute-Predicative Relation • The man laughed, his voice [X] unnatural [Y] • Do you mind him [X] speaking [Y] to you father? • Without me [X] knowing [Y] the answer… • He came in, a stick [X] in [Y] his hand December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

18. Absolute-Predicative Relation • There [X] being [Y] nobody else to answer, she went out. • The robber was found dead on the floor, his gun [X] nearby[Y] NB: two opposite ways to treat the head and the daughter of the relation December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

19. Subjective-Copredicative Relation • Mr. White saw the birds first [Y] • The flags hung wet from the white poles. • He resigned his office and died an old man. • My students all passed this exam December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

20. Objective-Copredicative Relation • They burned [X] her alive [Y]. • Ma Blum hates [X] gin diluted [Y] . • Ma Blum hates gin to be diluted. • They showed it cracked. • They showed it to be cracked December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

21. Comparative Relation • The decision is easier [X] than [Y] I thought. • It is as good [X] as [Y] mine. • It is not so good [X] as [Y] mine. December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

22. Comparative Relation • They have no way out other than to give up. • Her temperature was the same as the day before. • Things will definitely be very different than they used to be. December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

23. Prepositional Relation • In Prague • At noon • About my friends • Between us • Between you and me December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

24. Prepositional Relation • I brought the book from the library to my brother in the afternoon for no reason at all • Give the book to whoever comes first • He spoke with as many as ten people December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

25. Prepositional Relation • It depends on how you behave in future • It depends on whether you behave yourself • He put the book on the table • *He put the book on whether you behave yourself December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

26. Prepositional Relation • He will come in [X1] about [Y1,X2] two hours [Y2], i.e. at [X3] about [Y3,X4] 3 [Y4] o’clock. • In the coastal regions, the temperatures will go from above zero to -40 Celsius. • It came from within my heart. December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

27. Prepositional Relation • He came three years ago <back> - postpositive preposition • I want to [X] ask [Y] you a favor December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

28. Prepositional Relation • I hardly remember what I did besides read • She had nothing to do except go to parties • She had nothing to do except to go to parties December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

29. Prepositional Relation • I go in for sports. • They were planning something, but they wouldn't let me in on it. • The bed has not been slept in . December 7, 2009. Lecture 6

30. Next lectures • The remaining actant relations. Attributive Syntactic Relations. Coordinative Syntactic Relations. Auxiliary Syntactic Relations December 7, 2009. Lecture 6