A new dependency based specification of underlying representations of sentences

Abstract

A new approach to the formal description of the semantics of a natural language within the Prague group's functional generative description of language is presented. Our approach represents the semantics and the process of the speaker's formulation of a sentence by a pushdown store generator framework comprising three principal features: dependency relations, coordination (apposition) and the topic-focus articulation. The interplay of these semantic components during the generation of a sentence is shown along with the possibility of an easy refinement of the framework in case special linguistic phenomena be described. © 1987, Walter de Gruyter. All rights reserved.