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  • From: dwashbur AT nyx.net
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Generation grammar and b-hebrew
  • Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 11:50:19 -0700

I know the sum total of nothing about computational linguistics, but I do
agree with your
assessment that too many approaches go top-down and hence are pretty much
useless for
a language like Hebrew. Just for a single example,

S -> NP VP

clearly can't handle a Hebrew verbless clause, nor can it handle a clause
with a purely
inflectional subject like the typical wayyiqtol clause. So as I see it, we
need to extract the
basal phrase structure rules from the data we have rather than trying to
impose something
from another language onto Hebrew. I would suggest as a starting point

CL -> (P)

That is, a clause is a single predicated unit, whether the predicate (verb,
for most purposes)
is explicit or not.

On 19 Jun 2010 at 20:12, James Christian wrote:

>
> Hi Eric, traditionally in computational linguistics literature a
> distinction is made between deep
> and shallow methods. In general, deep methods are considered to be
> rule based while shallow
> methods are typical driven by statistical information. Obviously,
> shallow methods of generation
> can be used as well as deep methods and, no surprises, shallow
> methods are performing better
> than deep methods as in just about every other area of computational
> linguistics. But please
> don't fall into the classic trap of assuming that shallow methods
> have no rule system. They have
> a rule system, a very complex one. It just isn't made explicit.
> As you note 'the number of rules could get out of hand'. However, I
> would venture that the very
> reason shallow methods are working better than deep methods is
> precisely because they have
> many more implicit rules that give a wider coverage of real
> linguistic high frequency
> phenomenon. And so I would like to address the following part of
> your statement 'out of hand'.
> Now I'm not sure exactly what you mean by out of hand. If you are
> assuming that a large amount
> of rules is a bad thing then I don't necessarily agree. In fact,
> precisely the opposite. The very
> reason that most modern attempts to define a generative grammar
> aren't as wide coverage as
> they set out to be is because they are designed to be compact and,
> as a result, over generate.
> That is not to say I disagree with you entirely. If many rules are
> defined with no control of how
> they affect each other then unpredictable results will naturally
> arise. My personal experience
> suggests to me that starting from the specific and working up to the
> generic is a wiser approach
> to defining a generative grammar. Most attempts to build a
> generative grammar start with a
> generic sentence rule like:
> S --> NP VP
> It comes as no surprise that such attempts generally fail. They are
> starting with a linguistic
> assumption about the data that they have not extracted from the data
> but rather imposed upon it.
> This is what I would call a top down approach starting with a
> linguistic assumption about what
> the top is. It would seem to make more sense to me to adopt a bottom
> up approach with no
> linguistic assumptions other than letting the data speak for itself.
> That is to say to start by
> defining rules for the smallest frequently observable phenomenon and
> working your way up to
> sentence structure, paragraph structure etc. and thus letting the
> data speak for itself what the
> definition of S is. It may be S --> NP VP, it may be something
> entirely different or it may even be
> a whole collection of statements. The point is to let the data speak
> for itself.
> And so, Eric, what I would like you to consider is that it is not
> generative grammar in itself that is
> the problem. It the method of defining one that may be at fault.
> Please also bear in mind that
> statistical methods of generative grammar are also rule based. They
> only differ in that their rules
> system is superior and machine learned from the data.
> James Christian


Dave Washburn

http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur




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