Toward the Construction of a Language Model Integrating Syntactic, Semantic and Discourse Information

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The main purpose of the present research project has been to construct an integrated model of language, incorporating results from syntax, semantics and pragmatics. In order to fully understand the mechanism of language, it is essential that we know how the core computation feeds other cognitive mechanisms, such as concept formation and discourse management. In a language like Japanese, which lacks the major driving force in syntax, i.e. the rich agreement system, most of the interesting things should be found by looking into what happens at the interface level.With those assumptions, we have tried to develop techniques to isolate syntactically licensed phenomena from those that are regulated by cognitive constraints. The structures that are referred to by syntactic licensing are necessarily determined by two factors : merge and linearization. The structural factors must, therefore, be definable by (asymmetric) c-command and/or linear precedence, with concomitant division of labor between the two. If a condition on a construction is outside these two structural factors, it must necessarily be of nonstructural nature. The structural factors are identifiable and judged by native speakers as being categorial, because c-command and linear precedence are categorial notions. The cognitive factors are judged as continuous ; cognitive relations such as proximity, scalar implication etc. are, by its very nature, continuous. We have demonstrated that this is indeed the case by examining the uses of demonstratives, deictic time nouns, conditionals in Japanese and other languages.The results of the present research project were presented at Glow in Asia, the Linguistic Society of Japan, International Conferences on Cognitive Sciences, and other national and international conferences.