Word Grammar in Theory Dick Hudson Cardiff, May 2013
Mar 26, 2015
Word Grammar in Theory
Dick Hudson
Cardiff, May 2013
History
• 1963: PhD on Beja grammar at SOAS• Halliday or Chomsky?
– Halliday was more convincing
• 1964-71: worked with Halliday– 64-67 with Huddleston on a corpus study– 66-67 met Terry Winograd (AI)– read about Lamb's network theory– wrote first generative Systemic Grammar book
Systemic Grammar
Dependency theory
• 1976: why no word-word dependencies?
• Systemic + Dependency = Daughter-Dependency Grammar
Psychological reality
• AI (e.g. Winograd, Schank, Anderson)
• Mental networks (Lamb, Halliday)
• Linguists (Bresnan, Chomsky)
• Sociolinguistics (e.g. Labov, Gumperz)
Word Grammar 1984
• Why recognise phrases?
• Daughter-Dependency Grammar + psychological reality – phrases = WG
What am I?
• a lapsed systemicist• a dependency
grammarian• a cognitive linguist• a sociolinguist• a descriptive linguist• a theoretical linguist• an educational linguist
What do I believe?
• Theory matters and can be improved
• Truth matters and can be aimed at.
• Minds matter and can be modelled
• Texts matter and can be explained
• Education matters and needs linguistics
• Neighbouring disciplines matter, and can be learned from.
A nice quote
Wray 2009
One has to ask … whether a particular claim or assumption in one domain can really be true, given what we know about another domain.
What don't I believe in?
• macrofunctions in structure
• system networks
• the rank scale
• constructions as signs
Macrofunctions in structure
• Many artefacts have multiple functions
• But the functions are all 'realized' by the same structure.– e.g. chair:
• comfortable for sitting
• strong, durable
• good-looking
• affordable
For instance
Hearer is part of the meaning of
'question', but not otherwise.
Why 'interpersonal'?
What does 'theme' mean?
System networksWhy is this the
first choice?
How might we organise
knowledge so tidily? And why?
The rank scale
sentence
clause
group
word
Hurry!
hurry
hurry
hurry
unary branching
Headedness
Classification of mother is always predictable from its head daughter
objections
Constructions
• CxG: a language consists of nothing but constructions.
• A construction is a form-meaning pair.– So: every 'form' has a meaning
• But some forms have no meaning, e.g.– extraposition– (arguably) all of morphology, e.g. {z}, {ing}
What does WG actually claim?
• Language is just ordinary knowledge applied to words. So:
• Language is a mental network.
• The network nodes (concepts) are atoms.
• Concepts are defined solely by their links to other concepts.
• Concepts are organised in 'isa' hierarchies.
For instance …
around
… messing around… looked around
… all around were …
… the soil around the base of the plant …
roundagroundon
{on} {a} {round}
around1 around2
labels are NOT part of the analysis
isa hierarchy
Tokens and types
• Tokens are created ad hoc, types are stored.• The type-token ratio = types/tokens
– e.g. for The cat sat on the mat TTR = 5/6
• Tokens have distinct properties, so they must be distinct concepts.
• Each token isa at least one type. – e.g. He wandered around
• Tokens show modifying effects of context.
isa around1
An utterance as part of the grammar
The cat sat on the mat.
THE CAT SIT past ONMAT
noun verb preposition
word
SIT, past
Tokens and syntax
• Each word token is distinct from its type:
• It shows the effects of its syntactic context.– the/1 means 'the cat'– on means 'on the mat'– sat means 'sat on the mat'– but also 'the cat sat on the mat'
• So phrases aren't needed.
Tokens of tokens …
The1 cat sat on the2 mat.
'mat'
'the mat'
'on the mat'
'sat on the mat'
'the cat sat on the mat'
'cat'
'the cat'
sat1 on1 the21the11
sat2
Usage
• The network is 'usage based'– built out of episodic memories
• It contains 'ex-tokens': words plus context– so formulae– and socially constrained
• So any properties may be generalised– 'linguistic' – relations to other words– 'non-linguistic' – relations to social constructs
Processing
• Node creation: one node per token
• Default inheritance to enrich token nodes
• Binding tokens to existing nodes
• Spreading activation– activation guides inheritance and binding– super-active tokens become permanent types
An utterance as part of the grammar
THE CAT SIT past ONMAT
noun verb preposition
word
SIT, past
?
The cat sat on the mat
Summary
• Mentalist – just cognitive structures• Just a network of atoms
– Declarative network– Organised round an isa hierarchy
• Procedures:– node creation– node enrichment (inheritance, binding)– spreading activation