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Referent grammar (RG) in computer comprehension, generation and translation of text (SWETRA)

Sigurd, Bengt LU (1987) In Working papers / Lund University, Department of Linguistics, General Linguistics, Phonetics 31. p.137-167
Abstract
ABSTRACT AND INTRODUCTION
Theories of text and discourse have long assumed the existence of semantic objects called discourse referents, "things being talked about and referred to by pronouns and definite noun phrases"(cf. e.g. Karttunen (1976), Sigurd (1982), Sidner (1983)). Such referents are also often alluded to in sentence grammars, above all in theories of pronominalization and control -often in terms of antecedents -hut the place of the referents in grammar is not clear, and referents are not to be found in textbook generative rules. The type of grammar to be described in this paper, named Referent Grammar (RG), presumes that referents are of crucial importance and places them directly into the syntactico-semantic... (More)
ABSTRACT AND INTRODUCTION
Theories of text and discourse have long assumed the existence of semantic objects called discourse referents, "things being talked about and referred to by pronouns and definite noun phrases"(cf. e.g. Karttunen (1976), Sigurd (1982), Sidner (1983)). Such referents are also often alluded to in sentence grammars, above all in theories of pronominalization and control -often in terms of antecedents -hut the place of the referents in grammar is not clear, and referents are not to be found in textbook generative rules. The type of grammar to be described in this paper, named Referent Grammar (RG), presumes that referents are of crucial importance and places them directly into the syntactico-semantic representation of a sentence. The referents are introduced as variables in the noun phrase rules, carried into the sentence representation and identified on the basis of the syntactic patterns and markers of the language. The referents of sentence grammar can also be related to the referents of discourse, if rules for the text grammaticality of definite noun phrases and pronouns are included. We call that version of referent grammar Text Referent Grammar (TRG). The referents are assumed to have psychological reality. Referent grammars have so far been written and implemented in Prolog for fragments of Swedish, English, French and Georgian (in decreasing order of detail; Georgian has been included in order to test referent grammar on a typologically very different language). The grammars have been used in analysing and generating sentences and text and generating answers to questions. 137
The grammars have also been used in a small-scale experiment translating between Swedish, English, French and Georgian (SWETRA). The programs have been developed and run on a VAX 11/730 using a Prolog version, which the Department of Linguistics has obtained by courtesy of the Department of Cognitive Science, Sussex University (Sussex POPLOG Prolog, version 10,1985). Referent grammar has been inspired by the potentials of the Definite Clause Grammar (DCG) formalism supported by many Prolog programs. It has also been influenced by ideas put forward in papers by Robin Cooper, e.g. Cooper(1985) and by comments from colleagues. (Less)
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Working paper/Preprint
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published
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in
Working papers / Lund University, Department of Linguistics, General Linguistics, Phonetics
volume
31
pages
137 - 167
publisher
Department of Linguistics, Lund University
ISSN
0280-526X
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
d6f52d11-cc66-44db-90b4-7ae39314fd86
alternative location
https://journals.lub.lu.se/LWPL/article/view/17107
date added to LUP
2021-07-01 13:19:52
date last changed
2021-07-01 13:19:52
@misc{d6f52d11-cc66-44db-90b4-7ae39314fd86,
  abstract     = {{ABSTRACT AND INTRODUCTION <br/>Theories of text and discourse have long assumed the existence of semantic objects called discourse referents, "things being talked about and referred to by pronouns and definite noun phrases"(cf. e.g. Karttunen (1976), Sigurd (1982), Sidner (1983)). Such referents are also often alluded to in sentence grammars, above all in theories of pronominalization and control -often in terms of antecedents -hut the place of the referents in grammar is not clear, and referents are not to be found in textbook generative rules. The type of grammar to be described in this paper, named Referent Grammar (RG), presumes that referents are of crucial importance and places them directly into the syntactico-semantic representation of a sentence. The referents are introduced as variables in the noun phrase rules, carried into the sentence representation and identified on the basis of the syntactic patterns and markers of the language. The referents of sentence grammar can also be related to the referents of discourse, if rules for the text grammaticality of definite noun phrases and pronouns are included. We call that version of referent grammar Text Referent Grammar (TRG). The referents are assumed to have psychological reality. Referent grammars have so far been written and implemented in Prolog for fragments of Swedish, English, French and Georgian (in decreasing order of detail; Georgian has been included in order to test referent grammar on a typologically very different language). The grammars have been used in analysing and generating sentences and text and generating answers to questions. 137 <br/>The grammars have also been used in a small-scale experiment translating between Swedish, English, French and Georgian (SWETRA). The programs have been developed and run on a VAX 11/730 using a Prolog version, which the Department of Linguistics has obtained by courtesy of the Department of Cognitive Science, Sussex University (Sussex POPLOG Prolog, version 10,1985). Referent grammar has been inspired by the potentials of the Definite Clause Grammar (DCG) formalism supported by many Prolog programs. It has also been influenced by ideas put forward in papers by Robin Cooper, e.g. Cooper(1985) and by comments from colleagues.}},
  author       = {{Sigurd, Bengt}},
  issn         = {{0280-526X}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  pages        = {{137--167}},
  publisher    = {{Department of Linguistics, Lund University}},
  series       = {{Working papers / Lund University, Department of Linguistics, General Linguistics, Phonetics}},
  title        = {{Referent grammar (RG) in computer comprehension, generation and translation of text (SWETRA)}},
  url          = {{https://journals.lub.lu.se/LWPL/article/view/17107}},
  volume       = {{31}},
  year         = {{1987}},
}