Re: "Difficult" clauses

* David G. Durand said on 2007-05-15 15:26:45 +0200
> On May 15, 2007, at 9:04 AM, Henrik Theiling wrote:
> > David G. Durand writes:
> > > I suspect I make a better computer scientist than I would
> > > have a linguist, but I never got over my disgust with
> > > grammatical theories that reach Turing-completeness and
> > > _still_ need features added to them to fix the elegance of
> > > their analysis.
> >
> > HPSG?  It showed me that I probably make a better computer
> > scientist than I would have a linguist.
>
> No, HPSG would have saved me.
HPSG has a real problem with free word order languages, I much
prefer LFG for that.

We did HPSG for Syntax 2 and LFG for Typology and Universals, I
just wish there had been a framework-free class...

Anyway, my uni is currently working hard to eliminate the
linguistics-department, so it's a moot complaint.

> I wanted a model that supported parsing algorithms and
> traditional TG does not -- Brown linguistics in those days met
> the need for linguists to understand Chomsky and the language
> of TG by teaching a straight syntax course with no mention of
> other approaches. I dropped out, but 2 years later ran into an
> acquaintance who didn't. She said the next course (literally)
> started with the sentence "this semester we're going to learn
> why what we did last semester is totally wrong." But I was
> already gone.
Classic :) The same sentence was used in one of my classes:
first year, waterfall, second year: "forget that you ever heard
about waterfall, here's UML". I didn't bother with the second
year.


t.

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