Affiliations: LORIA/INRIA Nancy – Grand Est, 615 rue du Jardin Botanique, 54602 Villers-lès-Nancy, France. [email protected]; [email protected] | The Ohio State University, 202 Oxley Hall Columbus, OH 43210, United States. [email protected]
Note: [] The authors wish to acknowledge support from the Conseil Régional de Lorraine.
Note: [] The authors wish to acknowledge support from the Conseil Régional de Lorraine. Address for correspondence: LORIA/INRIA Nancy – Grand Est, 615 rue du Jardin Botanique, 54602 Villers-lès-Nancy, France
Note: [] The authors wish to acknowledge support from the Conseil Régional de Lorraine.
Abstract: Recent discussions of grammatical architectures have distinguished two competing approaches to the syntax-semantics interface: syntactocentrism, wherein syntactic structures are mapped or transduced to semantics (and phonology), vs. parallelism, wherein semantics (and phonology) communicates with syntax via a nondirectional (or relational) interface. This contrast arises for instance in dealing with in situ operators. The aim of this paper is threefold: first, we show how the essential content of a parallel framework, convergent grammar (CVG), can be encoded within abstract categorial grammar (ACG), a generic framework which has mainly been used, until now, to encode syntactocentric architectures. Second, using such a generic framework allows us to relate the mathematical characterization of parallelism in CVG with that of syntactocentrism in mainstream categorial grammar (CG), suggesting that the distinction between parallel and syntactocentric formalisms is superficial in nature. More generally, it shows how to provide mildly context sensitive languages (MCSL), which are a clearly defined class of languages in terms of ACG, with a relational syntax-semantics interface. Finally, while most of the studies on the generative power of ACG have been related to formal languages, we show that ACG can illuminate a linguistically motivated framework such as CVG.
Keywords: Grammatical formalism, type theory, linear logic, lambda calculus, mathematics of language, syntax-semantics interface
