Crit Cremers/Maarten Hijzelendoorn
Universiteit Leiden
Algemene Taalwetenschap
cremers@rullet.leidenuniv.nl
(+31) 71 5275491

WHs as double types

At http://fonetiek-6.leidenuniv.nl/hijzlndr/delilah.html the parsing system Delilah computes syntactic and semantic characteristics of all sorts of discontinuous Dutch. The system is driven by a mildly context sensitive breed of categorial grammar, dubbed categorial list grammar, which was chosen for its neat computational properties. Unlike, for instance, categorial grammar s of the Lambek-type, categorial list grammar does not accommodate type raising or any other monadic type change. Consequently, phenomena like wh-extraction can neither be structured nor be interpreted by means of (dedicated or general) raising, and have to be treated differently. In Delilah, wh-elements introduce two (instead of one) combinatory categories in a structure. For example, the relative pronoun 'dat' is lexically associated with the pair of types < (np\np)/s, np >. Double typing is shown to be adequate for analyzing and interpreting wh-chains in categorial list grammar. Moreover, it allows a fair handling of pied piping phenomena.