Abstract
This article1 describes some of the features of a sophisticated language and environment designed for experimentation with unification-oriented linguistic descriptions. The system, called UD, has to date been used successfully as a development and prototyping tool in a research project on the application of situation schemata to the representation of real text, and in extensive experimentation in machine translation.
While the UD language bears close resemblances to all the well-known unification grammar formalisms, it offers a wider range of features than any single alternative, plus powerful facilities for notational abstraction which allow users to simulate different theoretical approaches in a natural way.
After a brief discussion of the motivation for implementing yet another unification device, the main body of the article is devoted to a description of the most important novel features of UD.
We thank Suissetra and the University of Geneva for supporting the work reported in this article, and the ACL for granting reproduction rights. We are grateful to all our former colleagues in ISSCO, and to all UD users for their help and encouragement. Special thanks are due to C.J. Rupp for being a willing and constructive guinea-pig, as well as for allowing us to plunder his work for German examples.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bresnan J., ed. The Mental Representation of Grammatical Relations, Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press, 1982.
D’orre, J. and A. Eisele. “A comprehensive unification-based grammar formalism”, DYANA deliverable R3.1.B, Centre for Cognitive Science, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, January 1991.
Estival, D. “ELU user manual”, Technical Report, ISSCO, University of Geneva, 1990.
Fenstad J-E., P-K. Halvorsen, T. Langholm and J. van Benthem, Situations, Language and Logic, Reidel, 1987.
Gunji T., Japanese Phrase Structure Grammar,Reidel, 1987.
Johnson, R. and C. J. Rupp. “Evaluating complex constraints in linguistic formalisms”, In Trost, H., editor, Feature Formalisms and Linguistic Ambiguity. Ellis Horw000d, Chichester, 1993. To appear.
Kaplan R., J. Maxwell and A. Zaenen, “Functional Uncertainty”, in CSLI Monthly, January 1987.
Sag I. and C. Pollard, “Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar: an Informal Synopsis”, CSLI Report no.CSLI-87–79, 1987.
Rupp, C. J. Semantic Representation in a Unification Environment, PhD thesis, University of Manchester, 1990.
Rupp, C.J., R. Johnson and M. Rosner, “Situation schemata and linguistic representation”, in M. Rosner and R. Johnson (eds.), Computational Linguistics and Formal Semantics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Shieber S., “The design of a computer language for linguistic information”, Proceedings of Coling 84, Stanford, 1984.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Johnson, R., Rosner, M. (1994). UD, yet another unification device. In: Zampolli, A., Calzolari, N., Palmer, M. (eds) Current Issues in Computational Linguistics: In Honour of Don Walker. Linguistica Computazionale, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-35958-8_29
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-35958-8_29
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-2998-5
Online ISBN: 978-0-585-35958-8
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive