Concept
Meaning–text theory (MTT) is a theoretical linguistic framework, first put forward in Moscow by Aleksandr Žolkovskij and Igor Mel’čuk, for the construction of models of natural language. The theory provides a large and elaborate basis for linguistic description and, due to its formal character, lends itself particularly well to computer applications, including machine translation, phraseology, and lexicography. Linguistic models in meaning–text theory operate on the principle that language consists in a mapping from the content or meaning (semantics) of an utterance to its form or text (phonetics). Intermediate between these poles are additional levels of representation at the syntactic and morphological levels. Representations at the different levels are mapped, in sequence, from the unordered network of the semantic representation (SemR) through the dependency tree-structures of the syntactic representation (SyntR) to a linearized chain of morphemes of the morphological representation (MorphR) and, ultimately, the temporally-ordered string of phones of the phonetic representation (PhonR) (not generally addressed in work in this theory). The relationships between representations on the different levels are considered to be translations or mappings, rather than transformations, and are mediated by sets of rules, called "components", which ensure the appropriate, language-specific transitions between levels. Semantic representations (SemR) in meaning–text theory consist primarily of a web-like semantic structure (SemS) which combines with other semantic-level structures (most notably the semantic-communicative structure [SemCommS], which represents what is commonly referred to as "information structure" in other frameworks). The SemS itself consists of a network of predications, represented as nodes with arrows running from predicate nodes to argument node(s). Arguments can be shared by multiple predicates, and predicates can themselves be arguments of other predicates.