Rainer Osswald

Syntax-driven semantic frame composition in Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammars

The grammar framework presented in this paper combines Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammar (LTAG) with a (de)compositional frame semantics. We introduce elementary constructions as pairs of elementary LTAG trees and decompositional frames. The linking between syntax and semantics can largely be captured by such constructions since in LTAG, elementary trees represent full argument projections. Substitution and adjunction in the syntax then trigger the unification of the associated semantic frames, which are formally defined as base-labelled feature structures. Moreover, the system of elementary constructions is specified in a metagrammar by means of tree and frame descriptions. This metagrammatical factorization gives rise to a fine-grained decomposition of the semantic contributions of syntactic building blocks, and it allows us to separate lexical from constructional contributions and to carve out generalizations across constructions. In the second half of the paper, we apply the framework to the analysis of directed motion expressions and of the dative alternation in English, two well-known examples of the interaction between lexical and constructional meaning.

FrameNet, frame structure and the syntax-semantics interface

The Berkeley FrameNet project aims at implementing Fillmore’s Frame Semantics program on a broad empirical basis. The syntactic environments of words in corpora are systematically aligned with the semantic frames evoked by the words. It is Fillmore’s vision that such a collection of valency data can pave the way for an empirically grounded theory of the syntax-semantics interface. In this article, we examine to what extent this goal can be achieved by the FrameNet approach in its present form. We take a close look at verbs of cutting and separation and at the representation of events and results in the latest FrameNet version. Our investigation reveals a certain lack of systematicity in the definition of frames and frame relations, which may hinder the derivation of linking generalizations. This situation seems to be partly due to the expectation that a system of frames can be developed on a data-driven, purely bottom-up account. As a possible solution, we argue for a richer frame representation which systematically takes into account the inner structure of an event and thereby inherently captures structural relations between frames.

Tree wrapping for Role and Reference Grammar

We present a tree rewriting system that aims at formalizing the composition of syntactic templates in Role and Reference Grammar, a linguistic grammar developed mainly for typological analysis. Building on ideas from Tree Adjoining Grammar, we devise two basic operations for syntactic composition: (wrapping) substitution and sister adjunction. The first operation models plain argument insertion as well as the construction of long distance dependencies. The second operation implements adjunction to non-binary trees. We complement the definition of this tree rewriting system, called Tree Wrapping Grammar, by giving a CYK parser for grammars of this type.

An Analysis of Directed Motion Expressions with Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammars and Frame Semantics

We present an analysis of directed motion expressions in the framework of Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammars (LTAG) enriched with a decompositional frame semantics. This approach to the syntax-semantics interface allows us to combine a detailed decomposition and composition of syntactic building blocks with a parallel decomposition and composition of meaning components. In LTAG, lexical anchors can be distinguished from unanchored elementary trees which allows for the description of the meaning contributions of constructions. Furthermore, due to the metagrammatical factorization of the descriptions of unanchored elementary trees, the meaning contributions of single argument realizations and of their combinations can be described in a principle way.

Quantification in Frame Semantics with Binders and Nominals of Hybrid Logic

This paper aims at integrating logical operators into frame-based semantics. Frames are semantic graphs that allow to capture lexical meaning in a fine-grained way but that do not come with a natural way to integrate logical operators such as quantifiers. The approach we propose starts from the observation that modal logic is a powerful tool for describing relational structures, hence frames. We use its hybrid logic extension in order to incorporate quantification and thereby allow for inference and reasoning. We integrate our approach to a type theoretic compositional semantics, formulated within Abstract Categorial Grammars. We also show how the key ingredients of hybrid logic, nominals and binders, can be used to model semantic coercion, such as the one induced by the begin predicate. In order to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed syntax-semantics interface, all the examples can be run and tested with the Abstract Categorial Grammar development toolkit.

Polysemy and Coercion --- A Frame-Based Approach Using LTAG and Hybrid Logic

In this article, we propose an analysis of polysemy and coercion phenomena using a syntax-semantics interface which combines Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammar with frame semantics and Hybrid Logic. We show that this framework allows a straightforward and explicit description of selectional mechanisms as well as coercion processes. We illustrate our approach by applying it to examples discussed in Generative Lexicon Theory [23, 25]. This includes the modeling of dot objects and associated coercion phenomena in our framework, as well as cases of functional coercion triggered by transitive verbs and adjectives.