{ "paper_id": "P98-1027", "header": { "generated_with": "S2ORC 1.0.0", "date_generated": "2023-01-19T09:16:26.490868Z" }, "title": "The Logical Structure of Binding", "authors": [ { "first": "Ant6nio", "middle": [], "last": "Branco", "suffix": "", "affiliation": {}, "email": "antonio.branco@di.fc.ul.pt" } ], "year": "", "venue": null, "identifiers": {}, "abstract": "A log.ical recasting of B.inding Theory is performed as an enhancing step tor the purpose ot its gull and lean declarative implementation. A new insight on sentential anaptioric processes is presented which may suggestively be c%ptured by the slogan binding conclitions are me effect of phase quantification on the universe of discourse referents.", "pdf_parse": { "paper_id": "P98-1027", "_pdf_hash": "", "abstract": [ { "text": "A log.ical recasting of B.inding Theory is performed as an enhancing step tor the purpose ot its gull and lean declarative implementation. A new insight on sentential anaptioric processes is presented which may suggestively be c%ptured by the slogan binding conclitions are me effect of phase quantification on the universe of discourse referents.", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "Abstract", "sec_num": null } ], "body_text": [ { "text": "Due to its central role in natural language and its intriguing propert.ies, reference and anap'hor resolution has been a central topic for NLP research. Given the intensive attention devoted to this subject, .it can however be said that sentential anaphor orocessmg has been quite overlooked, when compared io the amount of research effort put in tackling non sentential anaphoric dependencies. This tends to be so because there seems to be a more or less implicit assumption that no substantial difference exists between the two ~cesses 1. ile this may be arguably true for. the heuristics involved in picking out a given antecedent from a list of suitable candidates, a more s.ubtle point asks. itself to be made when we focus on the syntactic conditions which sentential anaohoric relations comply with, but from which non senfential ones are exempt. In theoretical linguistics these grammatical conditions are grouped under the hea.ding of BindingTheory.. In computational linguistics however, tlaoug.n there have been a few papers directly concerned with me implementation of this theory, mainstream research tends t 9 disregard its conceptual, grammatical or practical modularity. When it comes to define me algorithm. .for.setting up the list of suitable candidates from which the antecedent should be chosen, binding conditions, holding just at the sentential level, are most otten put on a par with any other kind of conditions, morphological, semantic, pragmatic, etc.~ which hold for anaptioric relations at both sentential and non sentential level. The interesting p.oint to be made in this connection is at, it the modularity ot grammatical knowledge is to be ensured in a sound reference resolution system, more attention should be paid to previous attempts of implementing, Binding Theory.. It would then become ewdent that mis theory, in its current formulation, appears, as ,a , piece of formalised grammatical KnowJe~age wnicn nowever escapes a full and lean declarative implementation. In fact, implementation efforts concerning Binding Theory 2 bring to light what tend to be eE!ipsed by. mainstream clean theoretical formulations ot it. Behind t.he apparent declarative aspect of its definition under the form ot a set of binding principles(plus definitions of associated concepts, e.g. o-command, o-bound, local domain, etc.), there is a set of procedures which turn out to be an essential p.art ot the theory: after parsing being completed, (it in~lexation: assignln.dices to NPs; (ii) filtering: store the indexed tree it the indexation respects binding principles, reject otherwise; (iii) recursion: repeat (i)with a new assignment until all possible assignments are exhausted. T.his sort of resistance to declarative encompassing is also ap.oarent when one considers how Binding Theor Z is hani:lled in grammatical theories developed on top ot constraint based formalisms and particularly concerned with computational implementa'bility, lille LFG or HPSG. As to HPSG, it has passed quite unnoticed that its Binding Theory is the only piece of the grammar fragment not encoded in its own formalism. In the Appendix of the foundational book (Pollard and Sag ~9\"4)), where the fragment of grammar developed along tts 700 pp. is encoded in the adopted formalism, Binding Theory_ escapes such encoding. Bredenkamp (96) and Backot'en et al.. (96) subsequent elaboration on this. is.sue jmplied that som. e. ki.'nd pf essential limitation ot the tormallsm might have been reacnea and that H PSG. Binding Theory is still waiting to be accommpdate~ into HPS.G grammars ...... As tO the UP~ tormulaUon ot t~lndmg lneory, it requires the integration of inside-out equations, a sp6cial purpose extension to the general'declarative fbrmalism. And even though initial scepticism about their tractabili.ty was dissipated by Kaplan and Maxwell [88) , the recent survey, of l~acKoten et al. (96) repo.rts that no implementeH formalism, and no implemented grammar, is known to handle LFG Bin.ding Theory.. . ..... In this connection the central aim ot the research to De pres.ented here is to render possible a lean declarative implementation of Binding Theory in constraint based formalisms without resorting to specific complex mechanisms. This involves two steps. First, as a sort of enhancing step back, a new account, of Binding lheory, is set up. Second, by the exhibition ot aft example~ the new shape of the theory is shown to support full declarative implementation in basic HPSG formalism. Due to sp.ace constraints, this .paper is mostly concerned with the first, while the latter receives just a rough sketch in last section, being develope~l in future papers.", "cite_spans": [ { "start": 3324, "end": 3339, "text": "Bredenkamp (96)", "ref_id": null }, { "start": 3344, "end": 3366, "text": "Backot'en et al.. (96)", "ref_id": null }, { "start": 3835, "end": 3858, "text": "Kaplan and Maxwell [88)", "ref_id": null }, { "start": 3900, "end": 3904, "text": "(96)", "ref_id": null } ], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "Introduction", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "Recent cross linguistic research, e.g. Xue, Pollard and Sag (94) and Branco and Marrafa (97) , ILas shown that the binding ability of long-distance renexives.is not reducible to recursive concatenation of short distance relations, as it has been assumed in GB accounts, but that it is ruled by a fourth binding principle:", "cite_spans": [ { "start": 39, "end": 43, "text": "Xue,", "ref_id": null }, { "start": 44, "end": 64, "text": "Pollard and Sag (94)", "ref_id": null }, { "start": 69, "end": 92, "text": "Branco and Marrafa (97)", "ref_id": null } ], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "The Square of Opposition", "sec_num": "1.1" }, { "text": "(1) Principle Z An o-commanded anaphoric pronoun must be o-bound.", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "The Square of Opposition", "sec_num": "1.1" }, { "text": "(2) Z:", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "The Square of Opposition", "sec_num": "1.1" }, { "text": "x is bound compatible x is locally free .I contradictory 1 implies 1 contradictory C: contrary A: x is free", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "B:", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "x is locally bound This new perspective on long-distance reflexives had an important impact in the whole shape of Binding Theory. Branco and Marrafa noted still that the four principles can be arranged in a classical Aristoteli.an s~uare at oppositions, as in (2). This su~zgests that the Binding Theory may have an unsuspec'(td underlying q uantificational structure. The present paper aims at snowing that there is such structure and at determining its basic lines.", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "B:", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "Barwise and Cooper (81) seminal work gave rise to a uitful research tradition where Generalised Quantiller Theory has been applied to the analysis of natural land e \" \" =uag q.uant~ficanon. These authors suggested that a universal characterisation of NL nominal quantification could be formally given by means of ,formal prop, erties defined in that theory. Th.'e property to live on was postulated as being the most prominent one~ admittedly constituting the common specific nature at all nominal quantifiers. L.ater, Loebner (87)suggested a criterion to ascertain the quantihcat,onal nature at natural language expressions in general. That is the property that, for a one place second order operator Q expressed by a given exc~ression, there be a corresponding dual operator THls'duality-\"\u00a2-based perspective on the essence of natural langua,,. ,.~, e quantificauon permitted to extend quann~fication su orted 19 the determiners all, some. canon well beyond the classic cases of nominal q PP . . most many, etc., namely ~y covering also the realms of tempora'litv and Doss'ibility. Moreover, items like still/ already, , and others (enough~too, scaling adjectives, man)/few, etc.) though they do not lend themselves to be straightforwardly analysed in terms of set .quantification, they can alsob.~ arranged in asquare of duality. The formalization at the semantics at these aspectua] items by Loebner led tq the enlarging of the notion at quantincation through the introduction at the new concept of phase cmantification. He noted that still and alreaclv express duals m2,,d that they are corners,of a square of,d, uality. Let P be she is asleep\" and -P 'she is awake', durative propositions which are the arzuments of the semanuc operators corresponding to aTready and still. Then:", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "Phase Quantification", "sec_num": "1.2" }, { "text": "(3) She is already asleep iff it is not the case that she is still awake. ALREADY P iff -STILL -P Further similar tests can be made in order to show that these aspectual items enter the following square of duality: In order to ~et a formalization of (4), Loebner noted that alreac~,.should be taken as convey.in~ the information that there is a phase of not-P which has st a(ted before a given reference time tO and might be IOllOWeO lay at most one phase P which reaches tall tu. This can be displayed in a time axis by means of the diagram in (5). 5tO tO 1 '\"~'\"'\"'-\" ~ t P -P ~p P still P not yet P tO tO P -P ~p P no longer P already P Similar diagrams for the meaning of the other aspectual phase quantitiers at this square of duality are easily intemretable. Inner negation results in exchanging the positive and the negative semiphases, while outer negati9n c.oncerns the.decision whether the parameter to tails Into the hrst or the second semiphase. Phase quantifiers in general (already, scaling a.djectives, etc.) . were thus characterised as requiring two ingredients: (i) a property P, which defines a positive phase in a sequence of two opposi[e phases; (ii) a p.arameter point. The four types at quantifiers just ~liffer in presupposing that either the positive or the negative semiptiase,co.mes first_and in stating that the parameter point tm~s rata the tirst or into the second semiphase.", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "Phase Quantification", "sec_num": "1.2" }, { "text": ". . . . Next Loebner showed that the semantics of phase ~oUantifiers sketched in the diagrams above can be rmalised in such a way that\" a square of duality formed b~, the generalised q.uanti.fiers XX.some'(D,X~/ XX.every (D,X) turns out to t~e su.bjacent to the square of duality of already~still. In order to do it, he just needed the auxiliary, notion at starting, point at the relevant semiphase. This is rendered as the intimum at the set of the closest predecessors of the parameter po.i.nt pt which, forman unint.errt~pted linear sequence w~th property P, or ~P (.termed Libl(K,pt) lay Loelaner):", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "Phase Quantification", "sec_num": "1.2" }, { "text": "(6) GSI(R,pt) =df inf{x I xor comparalgility with diagrams (3) involving time arrow, Hasse dm~ams for obliqueness are displayed with a turn of 90~right):(8) Kim said Lee saw Max.", "html": null } } } }