Network Grammar

56 years is a long time for doing something.  Beethoven’s age at death.  And Hitler’s.  But modern linguistics, born of Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures, is now… Read more

This is the first substantive piece for LanguidSlog.  It’s quite short and should be easy for the reader.  Books on syntax typically jump straight into… Read more

Last time we looked at how sentence structure could participate in production or comprehension.  For that to happen it must exist somehow in the mental… Read more

Transient-items-with-pointers (from the analogy with computer software in the last piece) would be a blatant straw-man if it misrepresented existing theories.  But no theory really… Read more

Are any real syntacticians following Network Grammar?  If so, most are about to become alienated.  I hope that, for at least a few, the alienation… Read more

I have no quarrel with the idea that a language user has a mental ‘lexicon’.  But I am impatient that no linguist has satisfactorily defined… Read more

This unscheduled post contains my responses to several points in a comment on NG7 by HK.  I’ve also included responses to points about anaphor binding… Read more

NG7 claimed that all knowledge is held in the mind as propositions, each linking three concepts.  I can offer no supporting neuroscience.  Instead this piece… Read more

We’ve said that the sharing of a concept between multiple propositions means propositions exist in a network.  After illustrating the idea, this piece shows that,… Read more

This week we analyse sentence (5) junction by junction, showing that the correct predicate-argument propositions are delivered in a single pass. Read more

This week a format is developed for analysing sentences using NG.  Processing is shown step by step, highlighting where meaning is delivered.  The approach is… Read more

This piece looks at sequences in which the arguments of a three-place predicate can appear in an English sentence.  This leads to an improvement in… Read more

The last several Network Grammar posts have looked microscopically at sentences.  This time we widen the focus to show how use of NG should relate… Read more

Network Grammar has shown that a workable analysis for active and passive declaratives with (auxiliary)__(give participle) is possible without assuming the mind is controlled by… Read more

We move away from give and analyse sentences with other ditransitives, ones that allow either the to-dative or the double-object form but not both. Read more

Compared with those discussed in NG19, interrogatives with who or what are much more puzzling.  The following analyses concentrate on the pronoun who, which can… Read more

Network Grammar’s sentence analyses are quite subtle.  A casual reader may feel that too much must be taken on trust.  Completing the discussion of WHO-interrogatives… Read more

We continue the NG analysis of WHO-interrogatives by discussing actives with a pre-verb noun. Read more

In the sentences already seen, a particle can follow the give form.  Depending on the sentence, the particle can appear in one particular place, or… Read more

NG24 summarised the empirical behaviour of give up.  This time we look for an explanation of the varied semantic effects.  Lexicon-driven sentence processing could account… Read more

The interplay of particle up with verb give and its arguments and possibly an adjunct present a big challenge.  NG’s solution must explain all the… Read more

Even without inflection, English has some flexibility in the order of predicate and arguments. Recent Network Grammar pieces have shown that there is less than… Read more

We’ve already looked at give…up in declaratives.  Now is the turn of who-interrogatives. To keep some momentum we’ll skip polar and pro-adverb interrogatives.  You could… Read more

In the last several Network Grammar pieces we’ve simply assumed up to be a particle.  It can of course be a preposition instead.  Indeed in… Read more

An eminent prof has risen to the challenge of Network Grammar.  Lots of emails have gone to and fro.  I’m encouraged that the blog is… Read more

This and several following posts look at sentences with coordination, most using explicit and.  Incremental processing, as previously described, readily adapts to sentences with AGENT,… Read more

Coordination post-verb presents a different set of problems.  Before starting to look at what is possible and what not, this post presents some final thoughts… Read more

NG35 proposed that, after delivery of propositions from the first clause, the set of propositions for the verb is carried forward but with activation and… Read more

More problems are thrown up by coordination.  This time the tricky sentences are undeniably grammatical and an extension to NG’s range of mechanisms is needed. Read more

This post picks up where NG34 left off.  The essential point is that sentences only need to be treated as multi-clause where subjects or verbs… Read more

With its word count pushing beyond 1000, last week’s post had to finish with a question about how a word proposition gets the appropriate C… Read more

Network Grammar has been showing how a sentence may be processed assuming that junctions within the sentence can be identified as it unfolds, left to… Read more

At the end of last week’s post we asked ‘How can the sequence aaa-then-bbb be correctly identified as parent-then-dependent or as dependent-then-parent?’  The answer is… Read more

Network Grammar has slogged for nearly 10 months analysing sentences with one-word arguments – Nero, apples etc.  We now look at multi-word noun phrases and… Read more

NG44 showed how noun phrases must be fully analysed to find the head that forms a junction with a word elsewhere in the sentence.  This… Read more

A correspondent has challenged NG for being apparently deterministic (see NG42), delivering a single meaning for a sentence, with one left-to-right pass and no memory… Read more

Yet another challenge for Network Grammar: (179) The claim was withdrawn (180) The claim that the moon is a pancake was withdrawn (181) The claim… Read more

We continue looking at the sentences: (179) The claim was withdrawn (180) The claim that the moon is a pancake was withdrawn (181) The claim… Read more

It’s encouraging that none of those who have kindly commented on Network Grammar seem able to answer the objections to mainstream generative grammar set out… Read more

We look at coordinated objects with different adverbs applying to each, and at adverbs before the verb. Read more

Differences in AGENT attitude may be expressed where the relevant nouns are coordinated.  This piece discusses what is possible. Also yesterday and probably, which behave… Read more

Recent Network Grammar pieces showed how attachment of simple adverbs can be explained by NG. A crucial point was that the C (category) concept for… Read more

Among the teases of NG1 was ‘computable meaning’.  On Google the phrase barely registers so there is little risk in giving it the following definition: … Read more

Yes, this is number 57 of the 57 pieces promised in NG1.  The number was arbitrary, chosen for rhetorical effect and because I needed a… Read more