The New Grammar Formalisms - A Tutorial Survey (Abstract)

Take two or th ree upper case l e t t e r s and g lan them together w i t h a "G" on t he end, and, p r e s t o , you have the name f o r a new grammar formalism. Or, at l e a s t , so i t must seem in a decade t h a t has seen the a r r i v a l of COG, CUG, DOG, COG, FUG, GPsG, HPSG, JPSG, LFG, MOG, MLS, RGPSG, UOG, and XG. But the p le tho ra of acronyms (and nonacronyms PATR H ) , d isgu ises much commonali t y , shared p rope r t i es which se t them apar t from the mainstream l i n g u i s t i c and computat ional l i n g u i s t i c a c t i v i t y o f t he 1970s. The key c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s of t he new grammar formalisms, c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s exh ib i t ed by most of them, are ( i ) t he a v a i l a b i l i t y , a t l e a s t i n p r i n c i p l e and sometimes in p r a c t i c e , of a d e c l a r a t i v e semant i c s f o r t he n o t a t i o n used, ( i i ) t he use o f a b a s i c a l l y type 2 r u l e format ( s ing le mother, unordered, no e x p l i c i t contex t s e n s i t i v i t y ) under ( i i i ) a node a d m i s s i b i l i t y r a the r than a s t r i n g r e w r i t i n g i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , w i t h ( i v ) a r e c u r s i v e l y de f ined t r e e o r d i r e c t e d a c y c l i c graph based category s e t , and (v) u n i f i c a t i o n as the pr imary opera t ion f o r combining s y n t a c t i c i n f o r mat ion. I t i s p r i m a r i l y t he shared p r o p e r t i e s , r a the r than t he myriad d i f f e rences o f n o t a t i o n , t h a t t h i s survey focusses on, a l though some of the more i n t e r e s t i n g d i f f e rences between them emerge from the h i s t o r i c a l account of cxnceptual l i n k s and antecedents.