--- title: "Towards a linguistically motivated — Wintner 1998" description: "Wintner writes a small HPSG grammar of the Modern Hebrew noun phrase, the first HPSG analysis of a Semitic language, implemented in the AMALIA framework.…" authors: ["Shuly Wintner"] year: 1998 venue: "Computational Approaches to Semitic Languages" source: "https://aclanthology.org/W98-1011/" doi: "10.3115/1621753.1621768" licence: "CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (ACL Anthology, before 2016)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/aclbulk-1998-wintner-linguistically-motivated-computational-grammar-hebrew/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/aclbulk-1998-wintner-linguistically-motivated-computational-grammar-hebrew/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [1998](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/1998/) / Towards a linguistically motivated computational grammar for Hebrew # Towards a linguistically motivated computational grammar for Hebrew **Authors:** [Shuly Wintner](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/shuly-wintner/) · **Year:** 1998 · **Venue:** Computational Approaches to Semitic Languages **Link:** [aclanthology.org/W98-1011](https://aclanthology.org/W98-1011/) · library `aclbulk-1998-wintner-linguistically-motivated-computational-grammar-hebrew` · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC-SA 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/) — summary only [**4** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W1965493953) OpenAlex · 2026-10-14 · [**1** citations in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/aclbulk-1998-wintner-linguistically-motivated-computational-grammar-hebrew/cited-by/) of the 140884 papers whose bibliographies we read · [Computational Approaches to Semitic Languages](https://aclanthology.org/volumes/W98-10/) · [licence](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/) - [Publisher's page](https://aclanthology.org/W98-1011/) - [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/W98-1011.pdf) - [DOI 10.3115/1621753.1621768](https://doi.org/10.3115/1621753.1621768) - [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W1965493953) **Authors (1)** 1. [Wintner, Shuly](https://openalex.org/A5032082399) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7154-4764) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/2524073) · h 27 · 2368 citations · 164 works Citations and author metrics: OpenAlex, 2026-10-14; authors with the same name are not always told apart. ## What it is about Wintner writes a small HPSG grammar of the Modern Hebrew noun phrase, the first HPSG analysis of a Semitic language, implemented in the AMALIA framework. It is a deliberately narrow, work-in-progress grammar, tested on hand-built examples and not on a corpus. The central claim is that `ha-` is an affix on words, not phrases, so definiteness is a boolean head feature (DEF) set by a lexical rule that applies only to words with DEF negative. Construct-state (cs) nouns and adjectives are left unspecified for DEF and inherit definiteness from their complement, which gives two definiteness combinations for constructs against four for free genitives. The paper argues against the DP hypothesis for Hebrew: possessives are complements, not specifiers, and a DEP feature forces prosodically weak words (construct forms, prepositions, some quantifiers) to combine with their obligatory complement before any modifier. ## Ideas - I1. Make DEF a lexical toggle with the paper's rule: the definite rule applies only to bare nominal words, so construct forms cannot become definite directly. A check on the tokens: `ha-` should never attach to a construct noun. Use it in [languages/he/04-nouns-adjectives-pronouns.md](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/he/04-nouns-adjectives-pronouns/) and the construct-state notes in [languages/hbo/04-noun.md](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/04-noun/). - I2. A DEP-like flag on words that must attach to their complement first, applied as a deterministic attachment rule before modifiers are attached. This is a rule for the construct noun in [languages/hbo/08-syntax.md](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/08-syntax/) and for [languages/he/07-syntax.md](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/he/07-syntax/). - I3. Possessive suffixes as complements of the noun rather than determiners. The paper's examples (`kol sefer sheli`, "all my book" with the possessive after the noun) become a small test set against the labels in `treebanks/he`. ## For Mova I1 goes into [languages/he/04-nouns-adjectives-pronouns.md](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/he/04-nouns-adjectives-pronouns/) and [languages/hbo/04-noun.md](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/04-noun/). I2 belongs in [languages/hbo/08-syntax.md](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/08-syntax/), with a parallel note in [languages/he/07-syntax.md](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/he/07-syntax/). I3 is a test on `treebanks/he` for the labels in [languages/he/11-ud-analysis.md](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/he/11-ud-analysis/). The grammar is HPSG and not used by Mova; only the analyses are candidates. ## Cite The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.3115/1621753.1621768](https://doi.org/10.3115/1621753.1621768) ```bibtex @inproceedings{wintner1998linguistically, title = {{Towards a linguistically motivated computational grammar for Hebrew}}, author = {Wintner, Shuly}, booktitle = {Computational Approaches to Semitic Languages}, year = {1998}, doi = {10.3115/1621753.1621768}, url = {https://doi.org/10.3115/1621753.1621768} } ``` - [← previous The Berkeley FrameNet Project](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/lex-1998-baker-berkeley-framenet/) - [next → Translating near-synonyms: Possibilities and preferences in the interlingua](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/edmonds-1998-translating-near-synonyms-possibilities-preferences/) - [↑ back to papers of 1998](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/1998/) ## References 2 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet. 1. Steven Abney. 1987. The English Noun Phrase in Its Sentential Aspect. Ph.D. thesis, Massachusettes Institute of Technology, Cambridge. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Steven+Abney%2E+1987%2E+The+English+Noun+Phrase+in+Its+Sentential+Aspect%2E+Ph%2ED%2E+thesis%2C+Massachusettes+Institute+of+Technology%2C+Cambridge%2E) 2. Esther Bentur, Aviella Angel, and Danit Segev. 1992. Computerized analysis of Hebrew words. Hebrew Linguistics, 36:33-38, December. (in Hebrew). [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Esther+Bentur%2C+Aviella+Angel%2C+and+Danit+Segev%2E+1992%2E+Computerized+analysis+of+Hebrew+words%2E+Hebrew+Linguistics%2C+36%3A33%2D38%2C+December%2E+%28in+Hebrew%29%2E)