Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SEMSUBSET (The Grammar of Inclusion: Exploring the Boundaries of Linguistic Competence)
Período documentado: 2019-04-16 hasta 2021-04-15
The combination of phrase-structure syntax and model-theoretic semantics have led to a powerful, general model of language. However, previous research has not sufficiently explained how syntactic structure and structural differences across languages relate to mathematical operations on meaning: some constraints observed in the language implementation of these operations are a consequence of the language form, while others could come from non linguistic cognition. This project investigates this domain from the perspective of natural language partitives and pseudo-partitives and subset and quantity cognition.
Nominal partitives as 'two of the beans' explicitly express the subset relation in English. Other Romance and Germanic languages have similar, but not identical forms: e.g. in German genitive case can be used. Pseudo-partitives like 'two cup of beans' share many of the lexical items of partitives, so if structure and meaning are projected from lexical items, both need to be considered in parallel. Interestingly, partitives are more constrained than the subset relation. For example, they express only proper partitivity: 'Two of her parents' is odd. Also pseudo-partitives show constraints apparently do not follow directly from their linguistic form, for example in the sentence 'MIT hired two thirds women' two thirds does not apply to women but to the set of people hired, contrary to 'MIT hired two thirds of the women'.
The project explores the boundaries between morpho-syntax and non-linguistic cognition, with one leading question: what is the source of these constraints? We adopt the methodology of syntax and semantics, with an experimental component. The issue is addressed pursuing two goals: i) on the basis of syntactic cross-linguistic variation, we build a syntax/semantics for partitives; ii) we establish to what extent the posited format together with standard interpretation rules could predict the attested constraints.
The project contributes to integrate syntax and semantics with cognitive sciences. A better understanding of this issue improves our understanding of the human mind and in particular of the language faculty within the human mind.
Potential users of the project results outside the research community are computational linguists working on AI language comprehension and production and language teachers.
Nominal partitives as 'two of the beans' explicitly express the subset relation in English. Other Romance and Germanic languages have similar, but not identical forms: e.g. in German genitive case can be used. Pseudo-partitives like 'two cup of beans' share many of the lexical items of partitives, so if structure and meaning are projected from lexical items, both need to be considered in parallel. Interestingly, partitives are more constrained than the subset relation. For example, they express only proper partitivity: 'Two of her parents' is odd. Also pseudo-partitives show constraints apparently do not follow directly from their linguistic form, for example in the sentence 'MIT hired two thirds women' two thirds does not apply to women but to the set of people hired, contrary to 'MIT hired two thirds of the women'.
The project explores the boundaries between morpho-syntax and non-linguistic cognition, with one leading question: what is the source of these constraints? We adopt the methodology of syntax and semantics, with an experimental component. The issue is addressed pursuing two goals: i) on the basis of syntactic cross-linguistic variation, we build a syntax/semantics for partitives; ii) we establish to what extent the posited format together with standard interpretation rules could predict the attested constraints.
The project contributes to integrate syntax and semantics with cognitive sciences. A better understanding of this issue improves our understanding of the human mind and in particular of the language faculty within the human mind.
Potential users of the project results outside the research community are computational linguists working on AI language comprehension and production and language teachers.
The project substantially contributed to the description and the theory of partitives, pseudo-partitives and quantifiers grounded on experimental data and corpus studies. The data collection involved experiments on these structures comparing Italian and English, corpus studies on Italian and English, and collection of data from other languages from the relevant literature. The analysis of the structure of partitives, pseudo-partitives and quantifiers was grounded in the systematic statistical analysis and plotting of the collected data.
The project resulted in three double blind peer reviewed publications: one focusing on partitives structures and their classification and analysis, one on the description of Italian pseudo-partitives, and one putting together the two previous results and studying the referential properties of partitives and pseudo-partitives in discourse. In addition, the Action allowed the conclusion of the editorial work on a special issue on partitives. The project scientific communications consisted of two peer-reviewed conference presentations and one workshop presentation dealing with ideas which come together in the publications.
The project resulted in three double blind peer reviewed publications: one focusing on partitives structures and their classification and analysis, one on the description of Italian pseudo-partitives, and one putting together the two previous results and studying the referential properties of partitives and pseudo-partitives in discourse. In addition, the Action allowed the conclusion of the editorial work on a special issue on partitives. The project scientific communications consisted of two peer-reviewed conference presentations and one workshop presentation dealing with ideas which come together in the publications.
The project provided a systematic syntax/semantic account of partitives, proportions and quantifiers structures, crucially involving an enriched format with two NPs, showing at the same time how the format straightforwardly explains the different referential possibilities of different determiners when they occur noun-less.
This overarching result rekindles the interest of the linguistic research community in the syntax/semantics of complex noun phrases and provides the ground for further developments and for explorations in different directions.
The results of the project have the potential to inform applied research in AI language comprehension and production, a field which has become very prominent in recent times, and language teaching techniques, contributing to inclusion and mutual comprehension, while preserving diversity. Therefore, the project contributed to two out of the six Commission priorities for 2019-24: A Europe fit for the digital age, and Promoting our European way of life.
This overarching result rekindles the interest of the linguistic research community in the syntax/semantics of complex noun phrases and provides the ground for further developments and for explorations in different directions.
The results of the project have the potential to inform applied research in AI language comprehension and production, a field which has become very prominent in recent times, and language teaching techniques, contributing to inclusion and mutual comprehension, while preserving diversity. Therefore, the project contributed to two out of the six Commission priorities for 2019-24: A Europe fit for the digital age, and Promoting our European way of life.