Eckhard Bick - VISL

disambiguated), same level tags (to be disambiguated) and higher level ”secondary”
tags (not to be disambiguated at the stage in focus). Parsing is here viewed as a
progression through different levels of analysis, with disambiguated morphological
tags allowing syntactic mapping and disambiguation, syntactic tags allowing
instantiation of valency patterns and all three contributing to semantic
disambiguation.
In the illustration below, red upward arrows indicate disambiguation context
provided by lower level ”primary” tags, blue downward arrows indicate
disambiguation context provided by higher level ”secondary” tags.
l
e
x
i
c
o
n
polysemy tags
uninstantiated
valency tags
ambiguous
syntactic tags
Table (1): Parsing level interaction
mapping
ambiguous word
class & inflection
tags
Chapter 4 discusses the target grammar, especially on the syntactic level. The form
and function categories used by the parser are defined and explicated, with special
attention paid to verb chains, subclauses and adverbials. In the process I will sketch
the outlines of a dependency grammar of Portuguese syntax that has been grown
from the iterative interaction of corpus data and a dynamic CG rule system which
structures such data by introducing and removing ambiguity, a process in which my
linguistic perception of the object language (the Beast, so to say) had to reinvent
itself continuously, on the one hand serving as a necessary point of departure for
formulating any rule or ambiguity, on the other hand absorbing and assimilating
corpus evidence of CG-elicited (or CG-disclaimed) distinctions. Finally, I will raise
the question of the transformational potential of the Portuguese CG with regard to
different theories of syntax. In particular I will argue that the traditional flat
dependency syntax of CG can be enriched (by attachment direction markers and tags
for subclause form and function) so as to allow transformation of a CG-parse into
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disambiguated
polysemy
instantiated
valency
unambiguous
syntax
unambiguous
morphology