Linguistics colloquium: Livnat Herzig Sheinfux

Livnat Herzig Sheinfux, University of Haifa

Topic: A computational Grammar of Hebrew

Abstract: In my talk I will present HeGram, a deep, linguistically motivated grammar of Modern Hebrew, which is implemented in the framework of Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). Implementing grammars is an important endeavour, as it provides a way of testing how adequate a linguistic analysis is, as well as pointing out contradictions within the linguistic theory that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. We utilize this platform to develop a scheme of representing argument structure that diverges from the prevalent approach in HPSG. Our scheme, which was formulated based on corpus data, includes a set of ten semantic roles, each with corresponding potential syntactic realizations. With this scheme we aim to reconcile two conflicting desiderata: having argument labels that are coherent across predicates and semantically driven on the one hand, but maintaining a small and manageable set of argument labels, on the other hand. Our schema is syntactically driven, in that the semantic representation is directly related to the syntactic structure. Nevertheless, our inventory of semantic roles is sufficiently extensive to be meaningful, and extends the expressive power of the grammar by providing a way to state generalizations which are not captured in standard HPSG. 
 

Place: Building 403 Room 101