Jarmila Panevová

Random generation of Czech sentences

The experiments testing the theoretical adequacy and the practical usefulness of the Functional Generative Description (FGD) are described. The FGD consists of a generative component, which, in the experimental version, has the shape of a context-free grammar combined with elements of dependency approach, and the other components having the form of pushdown store automata. The latter components have a transductive role, transducing the semantic (tectogrammatical) representations of sentences to the lower levels of the language system. The transduction is articulated into several steps corresponding more or less to the levels of language system (surface syntax, morphemics, morphophonemics, phonemics, or, as the case may be, graphemics) postulated in European structural linguistics. The theoretical and practical qualities of the system are evaluated.

Two Languages - One Annotation Scenario? Experience from the Prague Dependency Treebank

Two Languages - One Annotation Scenario? Experience from the Prague Dependency Treebank This paper compares the two FGD-based annotation scenarios for Czech and for English, with the Czech as the basis. We discuss the secondary predication expressed by infinitive and its functions in Czech and English, respectively. We give a few examples of English constructions that do not have direct counterparts in Czech (e.g., tough movement and causative constructions with make, get, and have), as well as some phenomena central in English but much less employed in Czech (object raising or control in adjectives as nominal predicates), and, last, structures more or less parallel both in their function and distribution, whose respective annotation differs due to significant differences in the respective linguistic traditions (verbs of perception).

Syntactic Tagging: Procedure for the Transition from the Analytic to the Tectogrammatical Tree Structures

The syntactic tagging of the Prague Dependency Treebank (PDT) is divide into two steps, the first resulting in analytic tree structures (ATS) and the second in tectogrammatical tree structures (TGTS). The present paper describes the transition procedures, automatic and manual, from ATS to TGTS and illustrates these procedures on two Czech sentences.

Some problems of machine translation between closely related languages

We describe the linguistic background of a Czech-to-Russian MT system, stressing its features resulting from the closed relatedness of the two languages, above all the possibility of a minimization of the transfer. Related linguistic problems are analyzed within the MT project, as well as in the perspective of contrastive linguistics.

In favour of the Argument-Adjunct Distinction (from the Perspective of FGD)

Abstract In this article, the critical remarks of Adam Przepiórkowski concerning the Argument- Adjunct distinction in Functional Generative Description printed in this issue are discussed and some counterarguments are given.

Linguistically Annotated Corpus as an Invaluable Resource for Advancements in Linguistic Research: A Case Study

Abstract A case study based on experience in linguistic investigations using annotated monolingual and multilingual text corpora; the “cases” include a description of language phenomena belonging to different layers of the language system: morphology, surface and underlying syntax, and discourse. The analysis is based on a complex annotation of syntax, semantic functions, information structure and discourse relations of the Prague Dependency Treebank, a collection of annotated Czech texts. We want to demonstrate that annotation of corpus is not a self-contained goal: in order to be consistent, it should be based on some linguistic theory, and, at the same time, it should serve as a test bed for the given linguistic theory in particular and for linguistic research in general.

Deletions and Node Reconstructions in a Dependency-Based Multilevel Annotation Scheme

The aim of the present contribution is to put under scrutiny the ways in which the so-called deletions of elements in the surface shape of the sentence are treated in syntactically annotated corpora and to attempt at a categorization of deletions within a multilevel annotation scheme. We explain first (Sect. 1) the motivations of our research into this matter and in Sect. 2 we briefly overview how deletions are treated in some of the advanced annotation schemes for different languages. The core of the paper is Sect. 3, which is devoted to the treatment of deletions and node reconstructions on the two syntactic levels of annotation of the annotation scheme of the Prague Dependency Treebank (PDT). After a short account of PDT relevant for the issue under discussion (Sect. 3.1) and of the treatment of deletions at the level of surface structure of sentences (Sect. 3.2), we concentrate on selected types of reconstructions of the deleted items on the underlying (tectogrammatical) level of PDT (Sect. 3.3). In Section 3.4 we present some statistical data that offer a stimulating and encouraging ground for further investigations, both for linguistic theory and annotation practice. The results and the advantages of the approach applied and further perspectives are summarized in Sect. 4.

Specificity of the number of nouns in Czech and its annotation in Prague Dependency Treebank

Specificity of the number of nouns in Czech and its annotation in Prague Dependency Treebank The paper focuses on the way how the grammatical category of number of nouns will be annotated in the forthcoming version of Prague Dependency Treebank (PDT 3.0), concentrating on the peculiarities beyond the regular opposition of singular and plural. A new semantic feature closely related to the category of number (so-called pair/group meaning) was introduced. Nouns such as ruce ‘hands’ or klíče ‘keys’ refer with their plural forms to a pair or to a typical group even more often than to a larger amount of single entities. Since pairs or groups can be referred to with most Czech concrete nouns, the pair/group meaning is considered as a grammaticalized meaning of nouns in Czech. In the present paper, manual annotation of the pair/group meaning is described, which was carried out on the data of Prague Dependency Treebank. A comparison with a sample annotation of data from Prague Dependency Treebank of Spoken Czech has demonstrated that the pair/group meaning is both more frequent and more easily distinguishable in the spoken than in the written data.

Machine translation, linguistics, and interlingua

An adequate, complete, and economical linguistic theory is necessary for MT and the question is whether a consistent use of the often unduly neglected dependency syntax, including a systematic description of topic and focus, cannot serve as a reliable base for the grammar of an interlingua, or of a set of interrelated interface structures.

Search for the Relation of Form and Function Using the ForFun Database

Abstract The aim of the contribution is to introduce a database of linguistic forms and their functions built with the use of the multi-layer annotated corpora of Czech, the Prague Dependency Treebanks. The purpose of the Prague Database of Forms and Functions (ForFun) is to help the linguists to study the form-function relation, which we assume to be one of the principal tasks of both theoretical linguistics and natural language processing. We demonstrate possibilities of the exploitation of the ForFun database. This article is largely based on a paper presented at the 16th International Workshop on Treebanks and Linguistic Theories in Prague (Bejček et al., 2017).