Publications

Abstract

No idea is older in the history of linguistics than the thought that there is, somehow hidden underneath the surface of sentences, a form or a structure which provides a semantic analysis and lays bare their logical structure. In Plato’s Cratylus the theory was proposed, deriving from Heraclitus’ theory of explanatory underlying structure in physical nature, that words contain within themselves bits of syntactic structure giving their meanings. The Stoics held the same view and maintained moreover that every sentence has an underlying logical structure, which for them was the Aristotelian subject- predicate form. They even proposed transformational processes to derive the surface from the deep structure. The idea of a semantically analytic logical form underlying the sentences of every language kept reappearing in various guises at various times. Quite recently it re-emerged under the name of generative semantics.

Abstract

This paper investigates the production and perception of epenthetic stops at syllable boundaries in Dutch and compares the experimental data with lexical statistics for Dutch and English. This extends past work on epenthesis in coda position [1]. The current work is particularly informative regarding the question of phonotactic constraints’ influence on parsing of speech variability.

Abstract

This paper presents articulatory data on the production of /l/ in various environments in Dutch, and shows that the direction of movement of the tongue dorsum varies across environments. This makes it impossible to measure tongue position at the peak of the dorsal gesture. We argue for an alternative method in such cases: measurement of position of one articulator at a time point defined by the gesture of another. We present new data measured this way which confirms a previous finding on the articulation of Dutch /l/.

Abstract

Lexica play an important role in every linguistic discipline. We are confronted with many types of lexica. Depending on the type of lexicon and the language we are currently faced with a large variety of structures from very simple tables to complex graphs, as was indicated by a recent overview of structures found in dictionaries from field linguistics and language engineering. It is important to assess these differences and aim at the integration of lexical resources in order to improve lexicon creation, exchange and reuse. This paper describes the first step towards the integration of existing structures and standards into a flexible abstract model.

Abstract

The increasing quantity and complexity of language resources leads to new management problems for those that collect and those that need to preserve them. At the same time the desire to make these resources available on the Internet demands an efficient way characterizing their properties to allow discovery and re-use. The use of metadata is seen as a solution for both these problems. However, the question is what specific requirements there are for the specific domain and if these are met by existing frameworks. Any possible solution should be evaluated with respect to its merit for solving the domain specific problems but also with respect to its future embedding in “global” metadata frameworks as part of the Semantic Web activities.

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that components in a set of simple signs in Nederlandse Gebarentaal (also called Sign Language of the Netherlands; henceforth: NGT), i.e. hand configuration (including orientation), movement and place of articulation, can also have morphological status. Evidence for this is provided by: firstly, the fact that handshape, orientation, movement and place of articulation show regular meaningful patterns in signs, which patterns also occur in newly formed signs, and secondly, the gradual change of formerly noninflecting predicates into inflectional predicates. The morphological complexity of signs can best be accounted for in autosegmental morphological templates.