Table Of ContentJANUA LINGUARUM
STUDIA MEMORIAE
NICOLAI VAN WIJK DEDICATA
edenda curat
C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD
Indiana University
Series Practica, 136
A COMPUTER VALIDATED
PORTUGUESE TO ENGLISH
TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR
by
JAMES LARKIN WYATT
IS
1972
MOUTON
THE HAGUE • PARIS
© Copyright 1972 in The Netherlands.
Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague.
No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint,
microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 79-189715
Printed in Hungary
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Introduction 7
II. Phrase structures 28
III. One-String Grammatical Transformations 61
3.1 Passive 61
3.2 Compound-Alternate 62
3.3. Negative 62
3.4. Interrogative 66
IV. Two-String Grammatical Transformations 72
4.1. Modification 72
4.2. Sentence as Subject, Complement, or Direct Object . .. 76
4.3. Interrogative as Subject or Direct Object 80
4.4. Sentence as Time Element 82
4.5. Sentence as Location Element 83
4.6. Sentence as Manner Element 83
4.7. Optional Unknown Relative Transformations 83
4.8. Subordination 84
4.9. Coordination 87
4.10. Reduced Sentences 91
4.11. Comparison of Equality and Inequality 92
4.12. Superlative Comparison 95
4.13. Portuguese Obligatory Transformation 96
4.14. Portuguese Optional Transformation 96
V. Computer Output from Programmed Grammar 97
Appendix: Symbols Used in this Grammar 431
Bibliography 434
Indexe 438
I
INTRODUCTION
1.1. THE SCOPE OF THIS WORK
This introductory chapter describes and discusses a Portuguese to English
generative-transformational grammar which has been programmed for auto-
matic computer production of kernel sentences and transformations of those
kernels. A representative sample of randomly generated computer output
accompanies this bilingual grammar of syntax. The paired Portuguese and
English strings are translations of each other.
This grammar is Portuguese-oriented in that the formulation of phrase
structure and transformation rules was based on the syntactic structures
identified first in a corpus of spoken Brazilian Portuguese. Only after Portu-
guese structures were identified were corresponding English structures
matched with them.
The format of this grammar follows to some degree that of the earlier
transformational grammars. Following the phrase structure rules, which
include several minor optional transformations and some concord rules, are
optional one-string transformations formulated so that one may be applied
after the other, making use of a kernel as the input for the first transformation
and thereafter using as input either a kernel or a transformed kernel result-
ing from the previous transformation. Although the computer output shows
each one-string transformation applied after the other and operating on the
same kernel, any one-string transformation could have been skipped, or
a new kernel could have been used as input. Optional two-string transfor-
mations are formulated for application to an untransformed kernel or to
a kernel having been subjected only to a one-string transformation. No pro-
vision has been made for input the result of a two-string transformation;
hence, there is no ordering of the two-string transformations, as is the case
for one-string transformations.
The computer program which automated this grammar and provided the
randomly generated output was written for IBM computers of the "70"
series (i.e., 704, 7040, 709, 7090, 7094). The program is not included here
8 INTRODUCTION
because of the bulk it would add, and because the computers on which it
would run have largely been replaced by newer models.
Automation was an important feature in the preparation of this grammar
because computer output was used as feedback during the formulation of
phrase structure and transformational rules. It is in this sense that the term
'validated' is used in the title of this work. In no sense is the claim made that
the formulations contained in this grammar are in themselves valid and that
the computer output represents valid sentences in Portuguese and English.
The computer output will, however, enable the reader to arrive at his own
conclusions as to the validity of the Portuguese and English sentences, the
result of the intent of the grammar. The reader may also judge the adequacy
of the grammar by an examination of the computer output. All major features
of the grammar were programmed, but a number of optional transformations
were omitted. Since the output was generated randomly, not all features
which were programmed appeared in any single run of the program. The
sample of output included here is typical of a great many executions of the
program.
1.2. THE METHOD OF PROCEDURE
The corpus of spoken Brazilian Portuguese used as the basis of this grammar
was obtained through approximately 150 hours of contact with Mr. Ubiratâo
Pimentel Sayd, who had lived in Sâo Paulo all his life before coming to the
United States. After graduating from secondary school, Mr. Sayd worked
in his father's drugstore and as a bank teller. He came to the United States
for the purpose of learning English and earning a university degree in engi-
neering. Elicitation for this work began only a few days after Mr. Sayd arrived
from Brazil. At that time he spoke only a few words of English, and those
with considerable hesitancy. Mr. Sayd seemed to have practically no formal
knowledge of Portuguese grammar, and he was not intimately familiar with
any language other than Portuguese. During the period of elicitation Mr.
Sayd lived in a married sister's home where Portuguese was used for communi-
cation.
Since the writer had already assembled data from two other native Brazil-
ians and from recordings of unrehearsed Brazilian Portuguese in the form of
monologues, certain shortcuts were taken in arriving at details of analysis.
No old data were used, however, without further validation by Mr. Sayd.
The writer served as his own informant for English, making use of his
intuitive knowledge of his native tongue.
When sufficient results were validated by the informant, work on the corre-
sponding English structures was begun, and when sections of correlated Portu-
INTRODUCTION 9
guese and English structures were tentatively formulated, computer program-
ming was begun. At times new data were being gathered while preliminary
analyses were being programmed and computer output was being used to
validate earlier analyses.
The noun phrase and verb phrase were programmed separately at the be-
ginning, and many, many iterations of those programs were executed for
testing purposes. The randomly generated output used as feedback proved
useful in discovering oversights and bringing to light other deficiencies. When
these programs were running satisfactorily, they were joined, making possible
the production of subjects and predicates, and to them were added routines
to make possible transitive, equational, and intrasitive sentences. Other
routines were added for time, place, and manner expressions. While the com-
posite program for generating kernel sentences was being tested, programming
of the transformational parts was begun.
An effort was made to include in this grammar an accounting for all of the
Portuguese structures actually encountered in the corpus or suggested by
the data.
As stated above, this grammar is Portuguese-oriented. English structures
were self-elicited only after Portuguese structures were identified. Another
way to set about the task of devising a bilingual grammar could have been
to make separate and independent analyses of the two languages and then to
have sought to equate the parts of the one with those of the other. In this
case, however, the writer's interest was to identify and formulate Portuguese
syntactic structures in the data and then provide a means for expressing those
structures and their semantic content in English. In practically all cases a
broad parallelism in syntactic structures was possible. In some instances the
selection of lexical items influences the degree of parallelism, as in the case
of adjectives which can take adverbializing suffixes denoting manner. Here
the lexical lists of the two languages do not match perfectly. An adjective
plus an adverbializing suffix in one language might be equated semantically
with a preposition plus a noun in the other (i.e., Portuguese dificil plus -mente
vs. English with difficulty, not *difficultly; English calm plus -ly vs. Portuguese
com calma, not *calmamente).
The effort in this grammar has been to show where syntactic-semantic
parallelism can exist, not to point out the instances where there is a lack of
such parallelism.
The lexical items appearing in the grammar, therefore, favor syntactic-
semantic parallelism. No Portuguese or English structures were excluded,
however, to maintain the sought parallelism.
