Journal

Volume 4, Issue 1 (January 31, 2003)

4 articles

• Markedness, Harmony, and Phonological Invisibility
  by Paul Smolensky
  J. CS. 2003, 4(1), 1-41;
  Abstract To what extent can Optimality Theory ('OT', Prince and Smolensky 1993/2004; Prince and Smolensky 1997) provide theoretical phonology a satisfactory formalization of markedness theory (Trubetzkoy 1939/1969, Jakobson 1962)? Through a case study of the unmarkedness of coronal place of articulation (Par... [Read more].
  Abstract To what extent can Optimality Theory ('OT', Prince and Smolensky 1993/2004; Prince and Smolensky 1997) provide theoretical phonology a satisfactory formalization of markedness theory (Trubetzkoy 1939/1969, Jakobson 1962)? Through a case study of the unmarkedness of coronal place of articulation (Paradis and Prunet 1991), it is argued that OT makes possible formal markedness-based explanations of both broad universal generalizations - provided the theory incorporates conjunctive constraint interaction. The phonological invisibility of unmarked elements is an inevitable consequence of the computational structure of OT; stipulating the representational absence - underspecification - of the unmarked is both unnecessary and undesirable. [Collapse]
• Mapping Lexical Semantics onto Syntactic Structure: The Problem of Unaccusative Mismatches in Romance Languages
  by Geraldine Legendre & Antonella Sorace
  J. CS. 2003, 4(1), 43-78;
  Abstract We propose that the interface between lexical-aspectual semantics and syntax is subject to violable mapping constraints as proposed in Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky [1993] 2004). This proposal is applied to an OT analysis of unaccusative mismatches in Romance languages in the domain of auxil... [Read more].
  Abstract We propose that the interface between lexical-aspectual semantics and syntax is subject to violable mapping constraints as proposed in Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky [1993] 2004). This proposal is applied to an OT analysis of unaccusative mismatches in Romance languages in the domain of auxiliary selection in periphrastic past tenses. [Collapse]
• Two Paradoxes in the Interpretation of Imperfective Aspect and the Progressive
  by Asier Alcazar
  J. CS. 2003, 4(1), 79-105;
  Abstract In my article I address an outstanding issue concerning the interpretation of imperfective aspect and the progressive that would seem to make Basque earn its label as a true language isolate. If we look at its Indo-European neighbors, imperfective and progressive forms coexist with overlapping inter... [Read more].
  Abstract In my article I address an outstanding issue concerning the interpretation of imperfective aspect and the progressive that would seem to make Basque earn its label as a true language isolate. If we look at its Indo-European neighbors, imperfective and progressive forms coexist with overlapping interpretations (Comrie, 1976; Giorgi and Pianesi, 1997). By way of example, in French and Peninsular Spanish both forms unequivocally express the progressive. In contrast, when the equivalent forms coexist in Basque (they do so in a limited number), they compete for interpretation and only one of them is allowed to express the progressive. If available, simple forms block the progressive interpretation of compound imperfective forms, which then unambiguously express the habitual reading (this distribution supports habitual as an independent feature: Chierchia, 1995; Cinque, 1999). In addition, simple forms replace the progressive form. The two losing forms contain the participial ending -t(z)en, which is considered an imperfective aspect marker by many (Ortiz de Urbina, 1989; Laka, 1990). I propose that -t(z)en is a default whose interpretation is contingent upon the morphemes available for insertion. The verb class with simple forms has a morpheme to express the progressive, thus the blocking effect. My proposal accounts for the semantic and morphosyntactic idiosyncrasies of the data set, which had not received a principled explanation to date. [Collapse]
• An Efficient Trigram Model for Speech Act Analysis in Small Training Corpus
  by Harksoo Kim & Jungyun Seo
  J. CS. 2003, 4(1), 107-120;
  Abstract Speech act analysis is essential to a dialogue understanding system because a speech act of an utterance is closely tied with the user's intention in the utterance. However, it has been difficult how to analyze a speech act of an utterance since it highly depends on the context of the utterance. For... [Read more].
  Abstract Speech act analysis is essential to a dialogue understanding system because a speech act of an utterance is closely tied with the user's intention in the utterance. However, it has been difficult how to analyze a speech act of an utterance since it highly depends on the context of the utterance. For that matter, statistical approaches seem a promising direction although traditional statistical models usually require large corpus to train probability distributions. It is also not an easy job to collect dialogue corpus and annotating them with speech acts. In this paper, we propose a fuzzy trigram model as an alternative. The trigram model uses a membership function in fuzzy set theory instead of conversational probability distributions to alleviate sparse data problems. In the experiments, the trigram model performed better than a traditional statistical trigram model although the scale of training data was as small as 300 dialogues. The result showed that the fuzzy trigram model is an appropriate alternative for a traditional statistical models when training data is small. [Collapse]