What use can and should ACL researchers make of the CambridgeGrammar of the English Language?

Anonymous

Abstract: The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (henceforth H&P) provides an 1842 page description of the grammar of English. We analysed the top 75 citations to this grammar in the ACL Anthology. The community has indeed produced work that is strongly influenced by H&P especially in linguistically challenging areas such as deixis, anaphora and negation. To illustrate the potential of H&P as source material for linguistically informed error analysis in a conceptually complex domain, we extract the examples from chapter 17 (by Sterling and Huddleston), which deals with deixis and anaphora. We show how a representative modern co-reference engine (Stanford's) handles these examples. Since every example in H&P is chosen to illustrate a point about English, and the authors provide text explaining the importance of the point, the error analyst has immediate access to a good proxy for relevant linguistic expertise.

Paper Type: short