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Non-canonical Coordination in the Transformational Approach

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New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence (JSAI-isAI 2016)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 10247))

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Abstract

Recently introduced Transformational Semantics (TS) formalizes, restraints and makes rigorous the transformational approach epitomized by QR and Transformational Grammars: deriving a meaning (in the form of a logical formula or a logical form) by a series of transformations from a suitably abstract (tecto-) form of a sentence. TS generalizes various ‘monad’ or ‘continuation-based’ computational approaches, abstracting away irrelevant details (such as monads, etc.) while overcoming their rigidity and brittleness. Unlike QR, each transformation in TS is rigorously and precisely defined, typed, and deterministic. The restraints of TS and the sparsity of the choice points (in the order of applying the deterministic transformation steps) make it easier to derive negative predictions and control over-generation.

We apply TS to right-node raising (RNR), gapping and other instances of non-constituent coordination. Our analyses straightforwardly represent the intuition that coordinated phrases must in some sense be ‘parallel’, with a matching structure. Coordinated material is not necessarily constituent – even ‘below the surface’ – and we do not pretend it is. We answer the Kubota, Levine and Moot challenge (the KLM problem) of analyzing RNR and gapping without directional types, yet avoiding massive over-generation. We thus formalize the old idea of ‘coordination reduction’ and show how to make it work for generalized quantifiers.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We may even analyze NP coordination as a sort of RNR: after all, “John and Mary left” can have the meaning of the conjunction of truth conditions of “John left” and “Mary left”. Certainly, “John and Mary left” may also mean that “John and Mary”, taken as a group, left. In the later case, the group can be referred as “they”. Our analysis applies to the former (conjunction) case but not the latter. Hence we posit that ‘and’ is not only polytypic but also polysemic.

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Acknowledgments

I am very grateful to Leo Tingchen Hsu for numerous perceptive and stimulating discussions. I thank an anonymous reviewer for many very insightful and helpful comments. Numerous discussions with Yusuke Kubota, Bob Levine, Alastair Butler, Greg Kobele and the participants of the workshop “New Landscapes in Theoretical Computational Linguistics” (Ohio State University, October 14–16, 2016) are gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan

    Oleg Kiselyov

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  1. Oleg Kiselyov
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Correspondence to Oleg Kiselyov .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Business Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tokyo, Japan

    Setsuya Kurahashi

  2. Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd., Kanagawa, Japan

    Yuiko Ohta

  3. Chiba University, Chiba, Japan

    Sachiyo Arai

  4. National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo, Japan

    Ken Satoh

  5. Ochanomizu University, Tokyo, Japan

    Daisuke Bekki

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Kiselyov, O. (2017). Non-canonical Coordination in the Transformational Approach. In: Kurahashi, S., Ohta, Y., Arai, S., Satoh, K., Bekki, D. (eds) New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence. JSAI-isAI 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10247. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61572-1_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61572-1_3

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-61572-1

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