Universal Grammar a Common Paradigm.pdfVIP

Linguistic, Philosophical, and Pragmatic Aspects of Type-Directed Natural Language Parsing Sebastian Shaumyan1 and Paul Hudak2 1 Yale University, Department of Computer Science, New Haven CT 06520, USA 2 Yale University, Department of Linguistics, New Haven CT 06520, USA Abstract. We describe how type information can be used to infer gram- matical structure. This is in contrast to conventional type inference in programming languages where the roles are reversed, structure determin- ing type. Our work is based on Applicative Universal Grammar (AUG), a linguistic theory that views the formation of phrase in a form that is analogous to function application in a programming language. We de- scibe our overall methodology including its linguistic and philosophical underpinnings. The natural language parser that we have constructed should be inter- esting to computer scientists in the way in which AUG relates to types and combinatory calculus, and to linguists in the way in which a very simple, brute force parsing strategy performs surprisingly well in both performance and accuracy. Both computer scientists and linguists should also be interested in the convergence of the theory of functional program- ming languages and AUG with regard to their conceptual bases. Both have been motivated by entirely different goals and have developed in- dependently, but they are rooted in a common conceptual system of an applicative calculus. 1 Functional Programming Languages and Applicative Universal Grammar: a Common Paradigm The central goal of a theoretical study of linguistics is to reveal how a human being uses l