Constructions Nominales à Contraintes Fortes et Grammaires D'unification

Irregular nominal compounds can be defined as noun phrases having a regular syntactic construction but having restrictions on their syntactic variations and specific semantic behaviours. The aim of our study is to bring to the fore some of the constraints which have to be taken into account for the realisation of a parser for non lexicalised nominal compounds. Therefore, two nominal compounds are studied from a linguistic standpoint. The first one verre à vin (wineglass) can be classified as a true compound noun although accepting several modifications. The second one verre de vin (glass of wine) is a compositional noun phrase although having idiosyncratic characters. The features drawn from the observation of variations and meaning construction of these two compounds are used to evaluate four unification formalisms in their ability to represent and parse precisely such sequences: PATR-II, Lexicalised Tree Adjoining Grammar, OLMES and Acceptability Controlled Grammar. The first two are general grammar formalisms whereas the last two are dedicated to idioms and compound parsing. The conclusions of this evaluation yield a set of principles which should govern the construction of a parser better suited for compound noun parsing and interpretation.