Robust processing of the Dutch verb phrase
The Dutch verb phrase (VP) is notorious for its syntactic intricacies. There are
three main reasons why it is difficult to robustly handle its complexity in a
processing model. First of all, a single VP can contain multiple modal
auxiliaries (‘modal stacking’). Second, perfect auxiliaries can not only take a
past participle as their argument but also a modal auxiliary in the infinitive
form. Finally, there are various word orders in which the verb forms can appear.
The first part of this paper presents a fully operational precision processing
model of the Dutch VP in Fluid Construction Grammar. The model shows that the
aforementioned challenges can be overcome by carefully managing the hierarchical
relations between the elements of the VP. The second part introduces a robust
comprehension method, which can process VPs containing morphological and word
order errors. This method allows in many cases to recover the intended meaning
of an erroneous VP, as well as to correct its form, using a strategy that
exploits the deep semantic analyses and the bidirectional nature of the
model.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.A meaning representation for the Dutch VP
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3.A bidirectional grammar of the Dutch VP
- 3.1The grammar explicated
- 3.2The grammar at work
- 3.3Handling the syntactic intricacies of the Dutch VP
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Modal stacking
- Perfect auxiliaries
- Word order variation
- 4A robust comprehension method
- 4.1The robust comprehension algorithm
- 4.2An example of robust comprehension
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4.3A first validation
- 5.Further research
- 6.Conclusion
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Acknowledgements
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Notes
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References