Co-operation of syntax and semantics in flexive languages
Emil Páleš · Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence · 1990
The idiosyncrasies of the fiexic Slavonic languages, such as the rich case system and complex morphology, entail a free word-order and require a specialized approach when parsed. We claim complex morphology is not the only disadvantage of the language. Augmented transition networks for Slovak are introduced, and their adequacy for Slovak and comparison to English networks are discussed. Further, we introduce briefly our concept of semantic analysis, based on a semantic case system, verb and noun valency frames. The phenomenon of nominalization is investigated. The central theme of this paper is the close communication of syntax and semantics. The sequentially working modules shift misinterpretations and ambiguities from one to another. This leads to combinatorial explosions and the loss of effectiveness. The communication between the syntactic and semantic modules enables the exclusion of some syntactically correct, but semantically nonsensical interpretations in early phases of sentence processing. The assignment of semantic roles to the subphrases immediately when found, requires knowledge of the valency of the main verb (or head noun) first. These can be associated in Slovak (unlike English) by a simple precomputation, based on the character of the flexive languages.