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Article published In: Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 36:1 (2023) ► pp.270–306

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Computational modeling of a generative grammar for clitic order in River Plate Spanish

ORCiD logo with link | Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso
ORCiD logo with link | Universidad Nacional del Comahue | CONICET
Published online: 28 March 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/resla.20053.koz
Abstract
The order of clitics (CLs) in Romance languages has been studied in depth by many scholars since Perlmutter’s first approach. This author points out that person and case features impose a filter that results in the following pattern in Spanish: Se- II- I- IIIdat- IIIacc. This pattern has been revisited because it is not restrictive enough: it gives rise to impossible sequences. In this context, the goal of this work is to define a pattern of morphosyntactic features for River Plate Spanish clitics, and an ordering pattern, with the purpose of developing a computational model for an automatic analysis of this phenomenon. This kind of analysis is justified because the algorithm output shows the degree of success of the descriptive proposal. To this end, we use NooJ, a linguistic development environment that has diverse tools. The computational modeling involves two stages: (i) the creation of an electronic dictionary and (ii) the creation of a computational grammar. The algorithm developed can generate all correct sentences conformed by Nominative Pronoun + CL + CL + Verb, Non-Finite Verb-CL-CL and Imperative Verb-CL-CL, and it can recognize these kinds of expressions in written text assigning the correct semantic labels. With these results, we conclude that our descriptive proposal is adequate for the analysis of sequences of clitics in River Plate Spanish.
Resumen
Modelización computacional de una gramática generativa para el orden de los clíticos del español rioplatense
Desde el primer enfoque de Perlmutter, el orden de los clíticos en las lenguas romances ha sido estudiado profundamente. Este autor señala que las características de la persona y el caso imponen un filtro que, para el español, deriva el siguiente orden: Se- II- I- IIIdat- IIIacc. Este patrón ha sido revisado porque no es lo suficientemente restrictivo, puesto que da lugar a secuencias imposibles. En este contexto, el objetivo de este trabajo es definir un patrón de características morfosintácticas para los clíticos del español rioplatense, y un patrón de ordenamiento, con el fin de desarrollar un modelo computacional para un análisis automático de este fenómeno. Esto último se justifica en la medida en que los resultados obtenidos por el algoritmo permiten evidenciar el grado de éxito de la propuesta. Para ello se utiliza NooJ, un entorno de desarrollo lingüístico que cuenta con diversas herramientas. El modelamiento computacional involucra dos etapas: (i) la creación de un diccionario electrónico y (ii) la creación de una gramática computacional. El algoritmo desarrollado puede generar todas las oraciones correctas conformadas por Pronombre Nominativo + CL(ítico) + CL + Verbo, Verbo No Finito-CL-CL y Verbo Imperativo-CL-CL, y es capaz de reconocer este tipo de expresiones en textos escritos, asignando correctamente etiquetas semánticas. Con estos resultados, concluimos que la propuesta descriptiva es adecuada para el análisis de secuencias de clíticos en el español rioplatense.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Order in clitic sequences
    • 2.1Clitic ordering
    • 2.2Clitic combinations
    • 2.3On argument structure
  • 3.Automatic analysis of Spanish clitics: Previous approaches
  • 4.Method
    • 4.1A proposal on morphosyntactic features
    • 4.2Creation of an electronic pronoun dictionary
    • 4.3Creation of a syntactic grammar
  • 5.Obtained results
  • 6.Final remarks
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
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