LING 819, Seminar in Syntactic Theory
The theory and practice of Categorial and Tree Adjoining Grammars

Wednesdays 2-5, 1401G MMH

Alexander Williams
(alxndrw)

Course description

We will examine the theory and application of two grammatical formalisms, Tree Adjoining Grammars and extended Categorial Grammars, especially Steedman's CCG. Both formalisms are formally explicit, mathematically well understood, analytically parsimonious, and (in their canonical versions) generatively restrictive, producing only mildly context sensitive languages. They also suggest - and importantly, sometimes require - interestingly different analyses of basic linguistic phenomena, including Raising, Wh-movement, Coordination, Scrambling - and even semantic interpretation.



[5/6] T. Hunter on Chris Baaker's type-loggy approach


[4/30] Jacobson's variable free semantics

Readings
Jacobson 2007, "Direct compositionality and variable free semantics"; Jacobson 1999, "Towards a variable free semantics."


[4/23] Discussion 10: Bounded dependencies

Readings
Steedman 1996 Chapter 2, 1.3-5, Jacobson 1990, "Raising as function composition," Jacobson 2007, "Direct compositionality and variable free semantics."


[4/16] Discussion 9: Extraction in CCG

Readings
Steedman 1996, "Surface Structure and Interpretation": Chapter 3, pt. 1, Chapter 3, pt 2, Chapter 2, 1.3-5


[4/9] Discussion 8: Coordination in (C)CG - the basics

Readings
Dowty 1988 pt.1, pt.2, "Type Raising, Functional Composition, and Non-Constituent Coordination." Steedman 2000: Ch. 2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, "The Syntactic Process." (Historical bonus: Steedman 1985, "Dependency and Coordination in the Grammar of Dutch and English.")


[4/2] Discussion 7: Third wave CG in the New Wave era

Readings
Bach 1979, "Control in Montague Grammar." Ades and Steedman 1982 part 1/part 2, "On the order of words." Dowty 1982, "Grammatical relations in Montague Grammar." Bach 1984, "Some generalizations of Categorial Grammar."

Important background:
Bach 1976, "An extension of classical transformational grammar." Lewis 1972, "General semantics."


[3/26] Discussion 7: Historical introduction to Categorial Grammars

Readings
Bar-Hillel 1953, "A quasi-arithmetical notation for syntactic description." Lambek 1958, "The mathematics of sentence structure." Geach 1972, "A program for syntax." Bach 1988 "Categorial grammars as theories of language". Steedman 2000 31-40, "Pure categorial grammars."

[3/12] Discussion 6: Recent work in STAG semantics

Readings
Nesson and Schieber 2006, "Simpler TAG semantics through synchronization." Han 2006, "Pied-piping in relative clauses." Nesson and Schieber 2007, "Extraction phenomena in synchronous TAG syntax and semantics."

If you're interested in the analysis of It-Clefts: Han & Hedberg 2006, Han & Hedberg MS


[3/5] Discussion 5: Introduction to semantics in TAG

Readings
Kallmeyer and Joshi, 2003 , "Factoring predicate argument and scope semantics: Underspecified semantics with LTAG". Schieber and Schabes, 1990, "Synchronous Tree-Adjoining Grammars," Proceedings of the 13th Annual Conference on Computational Linguistics, COLING'90. Kallmeyer and Romero 2004, "LTAG Semantics with Semantic Unification"


[2/27] - Like school in the summertime.


[2/20], Discussion 4: TAG variants for clitic climbing and scrambling

Readings
Kulick, Frank, Vijay-Shanker 1999, PWPL 6.3, (compare Frank, Kulick, Vijay-Shanker 2000, Grammars 3). Excerpts TBA from Kulick 2000a (precis in Kulick 2000b). For similar conclusions, see also Dras, Schuler & Chiang).



[2/13], Discussion 3: Multicomponent TAGs and the problem of clitic climbing
Special guest: Tonia Bleam. Special time: 3:30-5.

Readings

To be discussed in class:
Reread section 1.4.2 of Abeille & Rambow, and then read Bleam (2000), "Clitic climbing and the power of Tree Adjoining Grammar," from Tree Adjoining Grammars, Abeille and Rambow (eds).

Readings on wh-movement (discussion in subsequent weeks subject to interest):
Kroch (1987), "Unbounded dependencies and subjacency in a Tree Adjoining Grammar," from A. Manaster-Ramer (ed.), Mathematics of Language; Frank (2002: Ch5, part 1, part 2), Chapter 5.



[2/6], Discussion 2: Frank on Raising and the theory of elementary trees

Readings
Frank 2002 (Chapter 2, 53-66), (Chapter 3), (Chapter 4, part 1), (Chapter 4, part 2)


[1/30], Discussion 1: Introduction

Readings
Abeille and Rambow (2000): Tree Adjoining Grammars: An overview. From Abeille and Rambow (ed.), Tree Adjoining Grammars.
Frank (2002, Chapter 1) : Setting the stage. From Frank 2002, Phrase structure and syntactic composition
Supplementary readings
Joshi (1987) : An introduction to Tree Adjoining Grammar. From A. Manaster-Ramer (ed.), Mathematics of Language