Syntax and Semantics interacting in a Minimalist theory

Maxime Amblard (1) , Alain Lecomte (2) , Christian Retoré (3)

1 SEMAGRAMME - Semantic Analysis of Natural Language
2 SFL - Structures Formelles du Langage
3 LIRMM - Laboratoire d'Informatique de Robotique et de Microélectronique de Montpellier

After several proposals of a logical account of minimalism [5, 4, 6, 1], on the basis of the formalization provided by Edward Stabler [7, 8], we explore more precisely the interface between syntax and semantics. The main idea is that, according to many observations made for instance by Ray Jackendoff [3], the logical form is not the mere result of a derivation after the consumption of formal features. Indeed, there are rather two tasks which are performed on a par : the syntactic analysis properly speaking and the semantical analysis. Both analyses are connected by synchronization links in such a way that a parse can crash for (at least) two reasons : either because of a mismatch of syntactic features, or because of a failure in the semantic derivation.

Domaines: Informatique [cs]

Maxime Amblard, Alain Lecomte, Christian Retoré. Syntax and Semantics interacting in a Minimalist theory. Prospect and advance in the syntax/semantic interface, Jan 2004, Nancy, France. ⟨hal-01079278⟩