[YG Conlang Archives] > [engelang group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
John Cowan, On 03/05/2011 19:06:
And Rosta scripsit:'Parsing' without 'really parsing', involves assigning meaningless and potentially arbitrary structures to phonological strings. This is what the English parsers I knew back in the day did, and what Lojban parsers do. Whereas real processing of language involves taking phonological strings as input, and outputting a logical form -- i.e. decoding.The problem is terminological, then. We computer weenies understand "parsing" as the process of going from linear tokens to purely syntactic structures (hopefully not quite arbitrary, though they may have arbitrary bits here and there). Everything past that is "semantic processing".
I don't know if there's a terminological difference; I think the substantive difference is over conceptions of what syntax is. In one conception it is a crucial structure mediating between phonology and semantic interpretation; and in another conception, it is merely a combinatorics of audible words. --And.