Computer-Mediated Communication Assignment Week 13, 14, 15
The assignment is about the visualization of syntactic data related to natural language sentences that
are characterized by conjunction reduction.
When natural language sentences contain a conjunction (and, or, but), reduction is allowed under
certain conditions and when similar phrases occur in both conjuncts.
In a sentence like the following:
(1) John shut the door and John left the building.
John can be dropped in the second conjunct, provided that John denotes the same individual in both
conjuncts. We can indeed say:
(2) John shut the door and _ left the building.
In a similar way reduction can take place in the following sentences:
(3) John ate an apple and Jill ate a pear.
(4) John admires Bush, but Jill hates Bush.
Conjunction reduction then yields the sentences:
(5) John ate an apple and Jill _ a pear.
(6) John admires _ , but Jill hates Bush.
In the reduced conjunction a gap (indicated by _ ) in one conjunct has to be filled up by a phrase in the
other conjunct. Linguists are intrigued by this phenomenon.
Linguists do not agree about how these reduced conjunctions should be analyzed. Some think that (2)
and (5) imply deletion, and (6) real sharing of linguistic material. Others think that all conjunctions
imply sharing. Sharing can be thought of as parallel structures which are linked by the phrase they
share. E.g. the sharing of Bush in (6) can be represented in the following simplified way:
(7)
S
S
NP
John
S
but
V'
V
admires
NP
Jill
V'
V
NP
hates
Bush
There are at least three categories of this type of conjunction reduction:
- simple coordination
- right node raising
- non constituent right node raising
1
(1) Coordination
a. De juf kiest Tom of Peter.
b. Mary opened the window and looked out.
c. John smokes before dinner or after dinner.
(2) Right node raising
a. Jaap haat en Piet bewondert partijleider Bos.
b. Ik wil dat Peter, maar jij wilt dat Tom wint.
c. Mary wrote and John signed the letter.
(3) Non constituent Right Node Raising:
a.
b.
c.
d.
Anna heeft drie, en Sofie heeft vier kinderen.
Het verbaast mij dat Jan zowel voor als na de wedstrijd een douche neemt.
Peter bought a small, Paul bought a large book.
The Maryland senator voted for, the Virginia senator voted against the amendment.
One linguistic view is to treat each of these sentences as having a structure in which one part of the
sentence is shared by other parts of the sentence. For instance in (1a) ‘De juf kiest’ is shared by the
noun phrase (NP) ‘Tom’ and by the NP ‘Peter’. Likewise in (1c), the prepositional phrases (PPs)
‘before dinner’ and ‘after dinner’ share ‘John smokes’. In (2b) ‘ik wil dat Peter’ and ‘jij wilt dat Tom’
share the verb (V) ‘wint’. In (3c), the noun (N) book is shared by ‘Peter bought a small’ and by ‘Paul
bought a large’.
How can this sharing be visualized? When you want to stick to the syntactic tree structures which are
traditionally used in linguistics, there is a problem. The traditonally used trees do not allow to mark
sharing. You have to introduce new visual elements. One of the options is to make 3D trees where the
parts of the sentence that share another part of the sentence are represented as parallel structures.
Another option is to allow several nodes in the tree to be connected to the shared node.
What are you expected to do?
The assignment is about an alternative, effective and efficient, visualization of the same data, but one
that is different from the hierarchical syntactic tree visualization commonly used in linguistics. You
have to look for other forms of visual representations that, however, represent the same structural data,
and moreover visualizes the sharing of constituents. As you are no linguists, it is not easy for you to
analyze the structures of the above sentences according to the commonly used rules, which are pretty
complex. Therefore I have done it for you. Moreover I have analyzed the sentences given above ( (1a)
– (3c) ) in a way very similar to the simplified structure given in the tree above. See below, at the end
of this document the pictures I have made. I have added a few remarks.
Apply the information visualization view adopted in Card, Mackinlay and Shneiderman (1999). Take
into account the four properties formulated by Shimojima (2004). It is wise to analyze the sentences
and make tables of their structural properties, and then try to map the tables to effective and efficient
visual forms.
2
Design at least two different, alternative visualizations. Substantiate the visual representations you
propose by referring to the concepts introduced in the literature you have read.
You can be as creative as you want. Use of more than two dimensions, use of differents colors and
shapes, etc. it is allowed.
Hand in your proposals with explanation and arguments on paper.
Deadline: 22/12/2006.
Explanation of the abbreviations used in the trees below:
S: sentence
NP: noun phrase
VP: verb phrase
PP : preposition phrase
CP : complement phrase
N: noun
V: verb
Compl : complementizer
Prep : preposition
Det : determiner
Adj : adjective
I have used a red curved line to indicate which sentence part(s) is/are shared in the structure.
I have used a less complex sentence than the one in (3a) above.
I have not given the structure of (3d). I leave that as an exercise for you.
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