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gf-rgl/resource/oldabstract/Categories.gf
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--1 Abstract Syntax Categories for Multilingual Resource Grammar
--
-- Aarne Ranta 2002 -- 2004
--
-- Although concrete syntax differs a lot between different languages,
-- many structures can be treated as common, on the level
-- of abstraction that GF provides.
-- What we will present in the following is a linguistically oriented abstract
-- syntax that has been successfully defined for the following languages:
--
--* $Eng$lish
--* $Fin$nish
--* $Fre$nch
--* $Ger$man
--* $Ita$lian
--* $Rus$sian
--* $Swe$dish
--
-- The three-letter prefixes are used in file names all over the resource
-- grammar library; we refer to them commonly as $X$ below.
--!
-- The grammar has been applied to define language
-- fragments on technical or near-to-technical domains: database queries,
-- video recorder dialogue systems, software specifications, and a
-- health-related phrase book. Each new application helped to identify some
-- missing structures in the resource and suggested some additions, but the
-- number of required additions was usually small.
--
-- To use the resource in applications, you need the following
-- $cat$ and $fun$ rules in $oper$ form, completed by taking the
-- $lincat$ and $lin$ judgements of a particular language. This is done
-- by using, instead of this module, the $reuse$ module which has the name
-- $ResourceX$. It is located in the subdirectory
-- $lib/resource/lang$ where $lang$ is the full name of the language.
abstract Categories = PredefAbs ** {
--!
--2 Categories
--
-- The categories of this resource grammar are mostly 'standard' categories
-- of linguistics. Their is no claim that they correspond to semantic categories
-- definable in type theory: to define such correspondences is the business
-- of applications grammars. In general, the correspondence between linguistic
-- and semantic categories is many-to-many.
--
-- Categories that may look special are $A2$, $N2$, and $V2$. They are all
-- instances of endowing another category with a complement, which can be either
-- a direct object (whose case may vary) or a prepositional phrase. Prepositional
-- phrases that are not complements belong to the category
-- $Adv$ of adverbs.
--
-- In each group below, some categories are *lexical* in the sense of only
-- containing atomic elements. These elements are not necessarily expressed by
-- one word in all languages; the essential thing is that they have no
-- constituents. Thus they have no productions in this part of the
-- resource grammar. The $ParadigmsX$ grammars provide ways of defining
-- lexical elements.
--
-- Lexical categories are listed before other categories
-- in each group and divided by an empty line.
--!
--3 Nouns and noun phrases
--
cat
N ; -- simple common noun, e.g. "car"
CN ; -- common noun phrase, e.g. "red car", "car that John owns"
N2 ; -- function word, e.g. "mother (of)"
N3 ; -- two-place function, e.g. "flight (from) (to)"
PN ; -- proper name, e.g. "John", "New York"
NP ; -- noun phrase, e.g. "John", "all cars", "you"
Det ; -- determiner, e.g. "every", "all"
Num ; -- numeral, e.g. "three", "879"
--!
--3 Adjectives and adjectival phrases
--
A ; -- one-place adjective, e.g. "even"
A2 ; -- two-place adjective, e.g. "divisible (by)"
ADeg ; -- degree adjective, e.g. "big/bigger/biggest"
AP ; -- adjective phrase, e.g. "divisible by two", "bigger than John"
-- The difference between $A$ and $ADeg$ is that the former has no
-- comparison forms.
--!
--3 Verbs and verb phrases
--
V ; -- one-place verb, e.g. "walk"
V2 ; -- two-place verb, e.g. "love", "wait (for)", "switch on"
V3 ; -- three-place verb, e.g. "give", "prefer (stg) (to stg)"
VS ; -- sentence-compl. verb, e.g. "say", "prove"
VV ; -- verb-compl. verb, e.g. "can", "want"
VG ; -- verbal group, e.g. "switch the light on"
VP ; -- verb phrase, e.g. "switch the light on", "don't run"
--!
--3 Adverbs and prepositions/cases
--
Adv ; -- adverbial e.g. "now", "in the house"
AdA ; -- ad-adjective e.g. "very"
AdS ; -- sentence adverbial e.g. "therefore", "otherwise"
PP ; -- prepositional phrase e.g. "in London"
Prep ; -- pre/postposition, case e.g. "after", Adessive
--!
--3 Sentences and relative clauses
--
-- This group has no lexical categories.
S ; -- sentence (fixed tense) e.g. "John walks", "John walked"
Cl ; -- clause (variable tense) e.g. "John walks"/"John walked"
Slash ; -- sentence without NP, e.g. "John waits for (...)"
RP ; -- relative pronoun, e.g. "which", "the mother of whom"
RC ; -- relative clause, e.g. "who walks", "that I wait for"
--!
--3 Questions and imperatives
--
-- This group has no lexical categories.
IP ; -- interrogative pronoun, e.g. "who", "whose mother", "which yellow car"
IAdv ; -- interrogative adverb., e.g. "when", "why"
Qu ; -- question, e.g. "who walks"
Imp ; -- imperative, e.g. "walk!"
--!
--3 Coordination and subordination
--
Conj ; -- conjunction, e.g. "and"
ConjD ; -- distributed conj. e.g. "both - and"
Subj ; -- subjunction, e.g. "if", "when"
ListS ; -- list of sentences
ListAP ; -- list of adjectival phrases
ListNP ; -- list of noun phrases
--!
--3 Complete utterances
--
-- This group has no lexical categories.
Phr ; -- full phrase, e.g. "John walks.","Who walks?", "Wait for me!"
Text ; -- sequence of phrases e.g. "One is odd. Therefore, two is even."
---- next
V3A ; -- paint the house red
V3V ; -- ask John to come
}