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Newsletter July 18, No. 37



                      C S L I   N E W S L E T T E R
_____________________________________________________________________________
July 18, 1985                   Stanford                       Vol. 2, No. 37
_____________________________________________________________________________
                                
     A weekly publication of The Center for the Study of Language and
     Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
                              ____________
            CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR *NEXT* THURSDAY, July 25, 1985

   12 Noon		CSLI Talk
     Ventura Hall       ``Algebraic Semantics and Logics of Programs''
     Conference Room    Irene Guessarian, National Center for Scientific
			Research, France
			(Abstract will be printed next week)

   2:15 p.m.		CSLI Talk
     Ventura Hall	``Abstract Semantic Algebras: Theory and Practice''
     Conference Room	Peter Mosses, Computer Science Dept., Aarhus University
			(Abstract on page 1)

   3:30 p.m.		Tea
     Ventura Hall		
                              ____________
                              ANNOUNCEMENT

   No newsletter was published last week, July 11, since there was
   nothing to report.  There are no activities this Thursday, July 18.
   Please note that Thursday Activities during the summer will generally
   consist of one or two talks given by visitors at CSLI and held in the
   Ventura Conference room.
                              ____________
                                CSLI TALK
           ``Abstract Semantic Algebras: Theory and Practice''
                      Thursday, July 25, 2:15 p.m.

      It seems possible to improve some of the pragmatic aspects of
   denotational semantics by using ``abstract semantic algebras'' (ASAs).
   Informally, the elements of ASAs can be considered as ``actions'', and
   the operations express fundamental ways of combining actions.
   Formally, ASAs are just abstract data types, specified axiomatically
   in an algebraic framework.
      After introducing ASAs, we consider the foundations and pragmatics
   of their specification.  We conclude by looking at the semantic
   analysis of some of the less trivial constructs of programming
   languages.					--Peter Mosses

   (This talk is the same as the one Peter Mosses will have given on 
   July 23 at Berkeley.)


Page 2                     CSLI Newsletter                      July 18, 1985
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            INTERACTIONS OF MORPHOLOGY, SYNTAX, AND DISCOURSE
           ``Partitive Quantifier Phrases in Serbo-Croatian''
                    Summary of the Meeting on July 3

      Partitive quantifier phrases in Serbo-Croatian pose a number of
   problems for a syntactic treatment. Since they consist of a
   non-declinable quantifier and a partitive genitive nominal form, it is
   in no way obvious which of the constituents acts as phrasal head. I
   argue that the quantifier acts as modifier rather than head, by
   showing that its behaviour with respect to cliticization and the
   possibility of being questioned parallels that of other NP modifiers
   in the language.  This makes the genitive nominal an obvious candidate
   for head, but which leaves unresolved the issue of case-assigner. It
   is therefore proposed that partitive genitive is an example of
   ungoverned, i.e., semantic case, which itself acts as case-assigner. In
   this function the genitive affix acts as an argument-taking predicate
   and takes the nominal stem as its argument. This imposes a
   doubled-layered f-structure of the partitive nominal, predicting that
   its own features can but do not have to be ``visible'' in the broader
   syntactic environment. This is exactly what is found as agreement
   behaviour of these phrases, which presents supportive evidence for the
   proposed analysis.					--Draga Zec
                              ____________
            INTERACTIONS OF MORPHOLOGY, SYNTAX, AND DISCOURSE
                    Summary of the Meeting on July 10

      Japanese deverbal nominals show verb-like properties in certain
   environments: they assign verbal case and can be modified by an
   adverb (`Verbal case' includes nominative, accusative and dative,
   i.e., case normally assigned by a verb).  These case assignment
   phenomena pose a problem for current syntactic theories, which assume
   that verbs assign case, while nouns do not.  I observe the fact that a
   deverbal nominal assigns verbal case only when it is concatenated with
   a suffix bearing temporal information, which might be encoded with the
   feature [+aspect].  The nominal assigns case when the following two
   conditions are satisfied: 
   	(i) The nominal has an argument structure.
       (ii) It is concatenated with a suffix which bears an aspectual
   	    feature.
   I would like to claim that category membership is not sufficient to
   license case assignment, but rather that an aspectual feature is also
   necessary.						--Masayo Iida
                              ____________
                       NEW CSLI COMPUTER DIRECTOR

      Richard Cower will start as the new computer director on August 1.
   He is presently the Director of Research Computing Facilities for
   Columbia University's Department of Computer Science.  He has also
   worked for both SRI International and Stanford University and is a
   Stanford University alumnus.





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