Syntax assignments
Simon Dobnik
I received a few queries regarding the last set of syntax assignments. Here is a summary of things agreed.
(a) A few asked to extend the deadline of submission from TOMORROW to THIS FRIDAY to which I agreed - provided that this will help you produce better answers. But please do send them in BY NOON.
(b) The section on analysing data from your language asks you to give analysis of topicalisation, relative clauses and wh-questions. Many of you (who have done syntax courses before) were concerned that a full analysis of the these would be too much for this assignment.
I agree. To answer this section fully you only need to replicate what I did in the lectures for English: give a basic analysis of mono-clausal cases in CFG rules/trees with feature restrictions. For other more complex cases including long distance dependencies provide glossed examples. The analysis need not be in any particular syntactic theory (Chomsky, LFG, HPSG) but it can be if you wish so.
A benefit of working with our own quasi grammar-formalism is that it makes you think what structures and operations are required to represent language computationally. In NLP applications grammars are frequently represented in various unification formalisms that are tailored to a specific task.
(c) For the challenges for NLP you can give an itemised list. It would also be interesting to see some challenging examples from your own language.
Good luck!
Simon