[developers] Realizational v. incremental morphology

[Emily M. Bender]

Thank you, Olivier.  I think your example helps clarify things somewhat:
the incremental/realizational distinction is puzzling from an HPSG
perspective
at least in part because unification makes multiple exponence a non-issue,
but I still think that the process-neutral stance of HPSG is the deeper
reason.

With apologies for replying without doing my homework (i.e. reading the
journal
paper): It's hard for me to grasp how a system without any intermediate
representations will scale to languages with long strings of position
classes
housing, among other things, valence changing or other derivational
morphology.
Perhaps I'll be enlightened when I read the paper!

Emily

On Mon, Nov 9, 2015 at 10:45 AM, Olivier Bonami <
olivier.bonami at linguist.univ-paris-diderot.fr> wrote:

> Dear Emily, dear all,
>
> I can only give partial answers to your question, but here is what I can
> say:
>
> - In answer to question 2, we do not have an implementation of the Bonami
> & Crysmann 2013 story or any other version of our story so far. Berthold
> certainly would be able to speculate about questions 3-5, but the fact of
> the matter is that as long as we don't have an implementation, it is only a
> matter of speculation.
>
> - I should point you to our more recent paper in Journal of Linguistics
> that supersedes Bonami & Crysmann 2013 and gives many more details on
> various things: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0022226715000018
>
> - Now to the incremental/realisational distinction. Let me quote in full
> the relevant passage from Stump (2001:2):
>
> > According to INCREMENTAL theories, inflectional morphology is
> information-increasing; that is, words acquire morphosyntactic properties
> only as a concomitant of acquiring the inflectional exponents of those
> properties. On this view, _likes_ acquires the properties ‘sg subject
> agreement’, ‘present tense’, and ‘indicative mood’ only through the
> addition of -s (whether this is inserted from the lexicon or is introduced
> by rule). According to REALIZATIONAL theories, by contrast, a
> word’s association with a particular set of morphosyntactic properties
> licenses the introduction of those properties’ inflectional exponents; on
> this view, the association of the root _like_ with the properties ‘sg
> subject agreement’, ‘present tense’, and ‘indicative mood’ licenses the
> attachment of the suffix -s (whether this attachment is effected by lexical
> insertion or by the application of a morphological rule).
>
> Clearly, even for Stump himself, this is related to an analysis vs.
> generation intuition; witness the following formulation from Bonami & Stump
> (forthcoming)---this can be downloaded from my web page:
>
> > The definition of an inflectional system is realizational if it is
> formulated as deducing a word’s form from its content; the opposite of a
> realizational definition is one that is incremental, which constructs a
> word’s content on the basis of its form
>
> However if you look at the theories Stump actually uses to illustrate the
> difference, it becomes clear (I hope) that this is not the full story. Both
> classical Item and Arrangement and Item and Process approaches are supposed
> to be instances of incremental theories. What these approaches share is the
> assumption that morphologically complex words involve intermediate
> representations associated with distinct content. For instance under a
> typical IA or IP analysis, the Spanish adjective "roj-a-s" red-F-PL will
> involve three separate items with distinct associated content:
> roj     : ‘red’
> roja    : ‘red’, feminine
> rojas   : ‘red’, feminine, plural
> This is what justifies the use of the term "incremental": content is added
> in increments that correspond to addition of affixes/application of
> processes.
>
> By contrast, in a realisational theory like PFM, although the description
> of a complex word also involves intermediate steps, there is no notion of
> these steps being associated with increments in content: realization rules
> are sensitive to morphosyntactic features but only transition from an input
> phonology to an output phonology.
> Using the same example: the {fem,pl} form of "rojo" is found by taking the
> lexeme's basic stem "roj" and applying successively two rules:
> Block I rule: X:{fem}->Xa
> Hence roj -> roja because {fem} ⊆ {fem,pl}
> Block II rule: X:{pl}->Xs
> Hence roja -> rojas because {pl} ⊆ {fem,pl}
>
> Although on these two examples the constrast is rather clear, it is not
> completely obvious how Stump's distinction applies in general; in
> particular the general modeling assumptions of HPSG make intuitions about
> incrementality difficult to make sense of.
>
> Berthold and I sell our framework as realizational for two reasons:
> (i) We do not have intermediate representations *at all*: it makes no
> sense to talk of incrementality since the relation between form and content
> is stated directly for the fully inflected word.
> (ii) Our framework deals seamlessly with the same issues as realizational
> approaches (e.g. extended exponence)
> Hence if what we do has to be likened with one of the two camps, it is
> rather realizational than incremental.
>
> The interesting question is what to think of the kind of approach you are
> pursuing, which I take to be a version of Item and Process (inflection
> rules are transitions from signs to signs, but affixes are not signs) but
> where the modeling assumptions of HPSG make it possible for a rule to
> monotonously narrow down the morphosyntactic content of both their input
> and their output. In that context I think both interpretations make sense.
> Let me take the same example as before, and assume the two schematic rules:
> [PHON [1], HEAD [1]] --> [PHON [1]+a, HEAD [1][GEN fem]]
> [PHON [1], HEAD [1]] --> [PHON [1]+s, HEAD [1][NUM pl]]
>
> This will license a word like
>
> |PHON rojas                 |
> |HEAD [1][GEN fem, NUM pl]  |
> |DTRS < |PHON roja        |>|
> |       |HEAD [1]         | |
> |       |DTRS <|PHON roj|>| |
> |       |      |HEAD [1]| | |
> |       |      |DTRS <> | | |
>
> In a sense this is non-incremental, as the HEAD value of the three signs
> are identified---there is no more content to the outermost sign than to the
> two others. In another sense, it could be said to be incremental, in the
> sense that each inflection rule contributes to a narrowing down of possible
> HEAD values for both its input and output. I suspect that the second sense
> is what is relevant for present purposes---that this is how Greg would see
> it, but in a way this ambiguity shows that the distinction is not as clear
> as one would like.
>
> I hope this helps rather than adds more confusion.
>
> Best
>
> Olivier
>
>
> > Le 9 nov. 2015 à 18:25, Emily M. Bender <ebender at uw.edu> a écrit :
> >
> > Dear Berthold,
> >
> > I hope you'll find time to respond in this conversation! I've also
> > added Olivier to the cc -- Olivier, please see below for context; I hope
> > you'll have time to reply, too.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Emily
> >
> > On Sat, Oct 31, 2015 at 12:16 PM, David Inman <davinman at uw.edu> wrote:
> > My objection to this during Emily's meeting I think remains: what is the
> actual difference between these views? It seems like a difference of
> perspective more than a difference in theoretical predictions, with
> incremental a generative perspective and relational a set-like perspective.
> It all seems a bit like wondering whether a set is accurately defined
> through induction or intersection - it doesn't matter, both describe the
> same thing, use whatever is most convenient. Unless I am missing something
> - and I consider this very likely -  are there actual theoretically
> different claims made between the two?
> >
> >
> > _____________________________
> > From: Guy Emerson <gete2 at cam.ac.uk>
> > Sent: Saturday, October 31, 2015 1:52 AM
> > Subject: Re: [developers] Realizational v. incremental morphology
> > To: Emily M. Bender <ebender at uw.edu>
> > Cc: Berthold Crysmann <berthold.crysmann at gmail.com>, developers <
> developers at delph-in.net>
> >
> >
> >
> > Here are Stump (2001)'s definitions:
> >
> > "According to INCREMENTAL theories, inflectional morphology is
> information-increasing; that is, words acquire morphosyntactic properties
> only as a concomitant of acquiring the inflectional exponents of those
> properties. On this view, `likes' acquires the properties ‘3sg subject
> agreement’, ‘present tense’, and ‘indicative mood’ only through the
> addition of `-s' (whether this is inserted from the lexicon or is
> introduced by rule). According to REALIZATIONAL theories, by contrast, a
> word’s association with a particular set of morphosyntactic properties
> licenses the introduction of those properties’ inflectional exponents; on
> this view, the association of the root `like' with the properties ‘3sg
> subject agreement’, ‘present tense’, and ‘indicative mood’ licenses the
> attachment of the suffix `-s' (whether this attachment is effected by
> lexical insertion or by the application of a morphological rule)."
> >
> > 2015-10-30 19:55 GMT+00:00 Emily M. Bender <ebender at uw.edu>:
> > Dear Berthold & developers by cc,
> >
> > My students I and were discussing Bonami & Crysmann 2013 (HPSG
> proceedings) in our group meeting this week, and that led me to a question
> about the relationship between the characterization of morphological
> theories (due I think to Stump 2001) and what we do in the implementation.
> That characterization contrasts "inferential" and "lexical" approaches
> (where the former relates inflected forms to stems via rules and the
> latter has morphemes in the lexicon as separate entries) and
> "realizational" and "incremental" approaches.
> >
> > I don't fully have a handle on what the "realizational"/"incremental",
> and I don't have Stump's to hand, but here's how Ida Toivonen summarized
> the definitions in her review of Stump's book on LINGUIST List:
> >
> > "In incremental theories, morphosyntactic information gets added
> > incrementally as morphemes are added to a stem. In a realizational
> > theory, a word's association with certain morphosyntactic properties
> > licenses the appropriate affixes."
> > https://linguistlist.org/issues/13/13-622.html
> >
> > On one way of reading this, it seems to me that the
> inferential/realizational dichotomy is itself opposed to the notion of
> order- and process- independence of constraints which I think is central to
> HPSG.  That is, it looks like an "incremental" theory is taking an
> analysis/parsing point of view (morphemes are given; their morphosyntactic
> effect is calculated) and a "realizational" theory is taking a
> realization/generation point of view (morphosyntactic features are given;
> the morphemes that realize them are licensed/generated).
> >
> > Joshua Crowgey pointed out that perhaps the distinction has to do with
> whether the attachment of morphemes (or application of morphological rules)
> is treated as something that can have an internal order or not, analogous
> to how our phrase structure rules can be ordered via constraints on the
> rules themselves (e.g. head-subj or head-spr refuse a daughter with a
> non-empty COMPS list, in effect enforcing head-comps to apply
> lower/'earlier' in the tree).
> >
> > Having laid out (and perhaps spread) my confusion, a few questions:
> >
> > 1. How do you see the incremental/realizational distinction relating to
> our implementation (within DELPH-IN) of constraint-based grammar?
> > 2. Have you done any implementation based on the theory you lay out in
> Bonami & Crysmann 2013?
> > 3. How do you associate the presence of something like [ MUD {neg} ] (or
> analogously for applicatives, say) with the morphosyntactic and
> morphosemantic consequences?
> > 4. How do you implement a check on whether a form is fully inflected?
> > 5. How do you implement grammaticality that is dependent on comparison
> across forms (per Panini's Principle)
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Emily
> >
> > --
> > Emily M. Bender
> > Professor, Department of Linguistics
> > Check out CLMS on facebook! http://www.facebook.com/uwclma
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Emily M. Bender
> > Professor, Department of Linguistics
> > Check out CLMS on facebook! http://www.facebook.com/uwclma
>
>


-- 
Emily M. Bender
Professor, Department of Linguistics
Check out CLMS on facebook! http://www.facebook.com/uwclma
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