Assignment 3 Solution

Using features in grammars [10 marks]










Grammar 1 handles NPs of various different types. Grammar 2 is much simpler and easier to read, but doesn’t appropriately constrain the NPs generated.




Grammar 1




Rules:




S → NPsg VPsg




S → NPpl VPpl




VPsg → Vsg NP




VPpl → Vpl NP




→PNP NPsg → NPRP NPsg → Det Nsg NPsg → Det Nsg PP NPpl → Det Npl NPpl → Det Npl PP NPpl → Npl



NPpl → Npl PP NP → NPsg NP → NPpl







Lexicon:




Fido: NPRP




biscuits: Npl




feed: Vpl




feeds: Vsg




the: Det




dog: Nsg




puppies: Npl




with: P




Grammar 2




Rules:




S→NPVP




VP→VNP




→PNP



NP→N




NP → Det N NP → Det N PP NP→NPP




Lexicon:




Fido: NP




biscuits: N




feed: V




feeds: V




the: Det




dog: N




puppies: N




with: P






(2 marks) Code up Grammar 1 in TRALE (using types for non-terminals), and show the parse tree for the following sentence according to that grammar:



Fido feeds the dog with biscuits.




Submit the grammar as the file onea.pl and the parse tree as onea.gralej. Your grammar should declare one type for each non-terminal listed in this grammar.




(7 marks) Code up Grammar 2 in TRALE, and augment it with features so as to restrict its language to that of Grammar 1. You must use features. Do not add extra non-terminals.



2












Submit this grammar as the file oneb.pl. Again, your grammar should declare one type for each non-terminal in this grammar, but you will need additional types to rep-resent the values of the features that you introduce.




(1 mark) Show the parse tree for the sentence in part A above, this time using your augmented Grammar 2.



Submit this output as the file onec.gralej.




The TRALE system can be run with this command:




/h/u2/csc485h/fall/pub/trale/trale -fsg




(which you are welcome to alias). Do not copy the TRALE or SICStus Prolog systems to your directory; run these in situ in your shell. You may find that, in order to use the graphical user interface that comes with TRALE, you must remove the very small default virtual memory limit that comes with accounts on teach.cs. In tcsh, you do this with the command:




limit vmemoryuse unlimited




Use File Export Gralej to pretty-print trees for your assignment submission.




Hint: The mnemonics sg and pl stand for singular and plural, the numbers for singular and plural.










































































































3


















2. Verb complements and gap features [20 marks]










Gap features enable us to assign the right grammatical functions to the arguments of a verb, which in turn guarantees that they will be assigned the right thematic roles. For example, in the grammar for the passive construction that we saw in class, we can associate the NP subject with the object position through a “gap” feature, so that, in the semantics, the subject NP can be interpreted as the Theme of the verb.




There are many more situations in which NPs are interpreted as if they occurred in positions in which they do not overtly occur than the passive. Consider the following sentences:







The student tried to sleep.



The student appeared to sleep.



The student promised the teacher to sleep.



The student expected the teacher to sleep.






For example, in (i), the student is the Agent of tried, as we would presume because it is the subject of tried; but interestingly in (i), the student is also the Experiencer of sleep, even though it does not appear to be the subject of sleep.




In answering the three questions on the next page, assume the following:




Try and expect have two thematic roles assignable: Agent and Theme. Promise has



three: Agent, Theme and Beneficiary. Sleep has one: Experiencer; and appear has




one: Theme.




Every subject and object must be linked to at least one thematic role. (This is the mapping of thematic roles to grammatical functions that we saw in class.)



Every grammatical function (e.g., subject, object) can be linked with at most one the-matic role from the same verb. This does not mean that the NPs that bear those gram-matical functions can only bear one thematic role, because NPs can bear more than one grammatical function.



A complement clause (i.e., an embedded verb phrase or sentence) can be assigned the Theme thematic role from its verb. In other words, NPs are not the only constituents that can be assigned thematic roles.


















4












(5 marks) For each of the sentences (ii)-(iv) above, for each thematic role assignable by either verb in the sentence, state which constituent receives that role. Submit your answer as the file twoa.txt.



Hint: The treatment of the NP the teacher is different in the last two sentences.




(14 marks) Devise a phrase structure grammar augmented with features for the above sentences. Be sure to give the necessary lexical entries for the four verbs, try , appear, promise, and expect, as well as sleep. Submit this grammar as the file twob.pl.



Use only features that are necessary to ensure the appropriate interpretation of NPs with respect to semantic roles.




To make the class’s grammars a bit more uniform, we have given you a head start with the file teach.cs:/h/u2/csc485h/fall/pub/twosub.pl. You will have to add types and features to this. Do not remove types, and do not alter the subtyping or feature declarations that already appear there.




(1 mark) Parse sentence (ii) above (The student appeared to sleep) in TRALE using your grammar, and submit the resulting parse tree. There should be only one tree generated. This output should be submitted as the file twoc.gralej.






Implementation details




In order for the grader to be able to semi-automatically test your work, each file must have the exact name and format specified in the following subsections.




Some overall specifications for your files:




The first line of each file must be a comment (with %) with your name, login ID, and student ID.



Each grammar rule, lexical entry, or sentence must be separated by one or more blank lines in its appropriate file.



You should organize and use comments to remark upon how your grammar and lexicon function, just as you would programming language code, to make it easily understand-able.



Unlike the standard convention for specifying context-free grammars, the TRALE sys-tem requires lexical entries to provide the grammatical description on the right-hand side and the word on the left-hand side, e.g., john --- np. Do not capitalize non-terminals or proper names like John, as capitalized tokens are interpreted as vari-ables by Prolog. TRALE also does not allow the use of the pipe (|) for disjunction on either side. Use a separate lexical entry for each word that you wish to assign a feature structure to.









5












In your grammar source code files, the grammar rules should all come first, followed by the lexical entries, in alphabetical order of the words.



1 Test sentences




Name of the file: sentences.pl




An example:




Your name, login ID and student ID go here. test_sent([nadia,won,an,elephant]). test_sent([i,could,have,demanded,a,rutabaga]). test_sent([autopoiesis,always,reminded,her,of],fails).






Note: Use this file to provide extra sentences not mentioned in this assignment handout that you may have tried during development. The sentences must be delimited by commas, and no words should be capitalized. If a test sentence is supposed to fail, give test_sent an extra argument that tells us this.




Output parse trees




All your output parse trees should be directed to files with the extension .gralej. All of these files should have your name, ID, and student number as the first line. Do not add any lines to the output you generate except commented lines (again with %).




2 What to submit




On paper




Staple together (no paper clips or folded corners, please) the following items in the following order:




The project cover sheet (attached to the back of this handout).



A written report describing the design of your grammars and lexica, and your ap-proach (how you met the requirements stated above). Don’t forget also to discuss the limitations of your grammars.



A written report on your testing strategy—in particular, why you chose the sentences that you used for testing the grammar and lexicon. This should be no more than one page.



Printouts of the .gralej files that you generate.



Printouts of your grammar source code.



Note: You do not need to submit other code that you write, e.g., code for running your test sentences, calling the pretty-printer, etc.




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Electronically




In addition to your paper submission, you must submit your grammars, parse trees and test sentences electronically. Submit all required files using the submit command on teach.cs:




% submit -c <course -a A3 <filename-1...<filename-n




where <course is either csc485h or csc2501h, and <filename-1 to <filename-n are the n files you are submitting. Make sure every file you turn in contains a comment at the top that gives your name, your login ID on teach.cs, and your student ID number.




3 Grading scheme




We will test your grammars on the examples in this handout as well as on some held-out test sentences (i.e., sentences that you haven’t seen).




Both grammars in a part B will be marked as to style and commenting (1/7), simplicity of your feature geometry and type system (2/7), in addition to correctness (4/7). The grammar in 1A will be marked as to style (1 mark) and simplicity (1 mark).

























































































































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CSC 2501 / 485, Fall 2019: Assignment 3
















Family name: First name:
















Staple to assignment this side up













CSC 2501 / 485, Fall 2019: Assignment 3
















Family name:


First name:
Student #:


Date:















I declare that this assignment, both my paper and electronic submissions, is my own work, and is in accordance with the University of Toronto Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters and the Code of Student Conduct.







Signature:




























Grade:


1.


/ 10
2.


/ 20
TOTAL


/ 30