This article studies the function of Copular Predicate Constructions in everyday English conversation. We compare predicate adjective constructions (PA) and with a nominal containing an (PAN). ask whether attributive or presence noun PAN leads to difference two constructions. propose that most cases determines construction, leading many parallels usage between PA A comparison (PN), contrast, sh...

In this poster, we present how different types of MWEs can be identified by dependency parsers in different languages. In our investigations, we focus on English verb-particle constructions (VPCs), Hungarian light verb constructions (LVCs) and German light verb constructions. In our experiments, we exploit the fact that some treebanks contain MWE-aware annotations, i.e. there are MWE-specific m...

This paper is concerned with the possibility of quantifying and comparing the productivity of similar yet distinct syntactic constructions, predicting the likelihood of encountering unseen lexemes in their unfilled slots. Two examples are explored: variants of comparative correlative constructions (CCs, e.g. the faster the better), which are potentially very productive but in practice lexically...

Levin and Prince (1982) note that gapped sentences do not give rise to causal implicatures often associated with their nongapped counterparts. For instance, while (a) can have both a symmetric and asymmetric (causal) reading, the gapped version in (b) can only have the symmetric reading. (a) Sue became upset and Nan became downright angry. (b) Sue became upset and Nan ; downright angry. We show...

A concept can be linguistically expressed in various syntactic constructions. Such syntactic variations spoil the effectiveness of incorporating dependencies between words into information retrieval systems. This paper presents an information retrieval method for normalizing syntactic variations via predicate-argument structures. We conduct experiments on standard test collections and show the ...

Syntactic priming effects, modelled as increase in repetition probability shortly after a use of a syntactic rule, have the potential to improve language processing components. We model priming of syntactic rules in annotated corpora of spoken dialogue, extending previous work that was confined to selected constructions. We find that speakers are more receptive to priming from their interlocuto...

In this paper I examine what have often been considered the syntactic properties of Gapping constructions (Ross, 1970) and show that they are in fact discourse-pragmatic in nature. I offer a novel analysis of Gapping constructions by extending recent Question Under Discussion (QUD)-based accounts in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (Ginzburg and Sag, 2000; Ginzburg, 2012).

This paper offers a metalanguage to describe the nature of choosing the syntactic position of a causee in causative constructions, focusing on transitive constructions in nominative-accusative languages, with some comments on ergative languages. The generalization of Comrie's hypothesis about the causee's position is also given in terms of this metalanguage. Several statements pretending to be ...

We present an algorithm for simultaneously constructing both the syntax and semantics of a sentence using a Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammar (LTAG). This approach captures naturally and elegantly the interaction between pragmatic and syntactic constraints on descriptions in a sentence, and the inferential interactions between multiple descriptions in a sentence. At the same time, it exploits ...

Abstract. The syntactic and semantic complexity of the so-called numeral classifier (Num-Cl) constructions in Korean challenges theoretical as well as computational linguists. We provide a constraint-based analysis of these constructions within the framework of HPSG with the semantic representations of MRS (Minimal Recursion Semantics) and reports its implementation in the LKB (Linguistic Knowl...