Grammar blowup
or “Sometimes the pizza oven overheats”
Inari Listenmaa
GF Summer School
5th August 2021, Singapore
Does this ever happen to you?
The problem
Variants
👍 Easy to fix
👎 Hard to suspect
✓
Variants
Variants
Variants
Variants
Variants
Amount of concrete categories and functions
👍 Not outrageously hard to recognise
👎 Often hard to figure out how to fix
✓
Amount of concrete categories and functions
The number of inherent parameters
Amount of concrete categories and functions
The number of inherent parameters
Pre- and postmodifier adjectives implemented with a parameter
Pre- and postmodifier adjectives implemented without a parameter
Amount of concrete categories and functions
With a parameter
With a field
Basque DetCN
DetCN det cn = {
s = det.pre ++ cn.heavyMod ++ cn.noun ++ cn.lightMod ++ det.post
} ;
“your” “in the house” “blue” “the”
Slash categories are dangerous
You won’t believe the change that removed 35000 concrete categories
How to detect
> gf -v LangEus.gf
How to detect
How to detect
2) Use gftest
How to detect
2) Use gftest
How to detect
Size of concrete categories and functions
👍 Easy to recognise
👎 Tedious to fix
👎 Often hard to get right
❓Sometimes needs linguistic insight
✓
Size of concrete categories and functions
The number of variable parameters
Size of concrete categories and functions
The number of variable parameters
Standard Average European
Perfectly spherical cow in a vacuum
Closer to reality
If the result has fewer forms than in your original table, you’re still winning
Basque, obviously
The answer
✓
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