Problem using cucumber-java and cucumber-core together

Hi,

I am new to Cucumber so please excuse me if my question is a little basic.

I am writing a new cucumber step definition using cucumber-java (Maven. Intellij. I would like to use the Transformer functionality contained in cucumber-core, cucumber-core/1.2.5/cucumber/api/Transformer.html ... the problem is that when I add in the cucumber-core dependency into my POM.xml and rebuild the project i get errors in my step-definitions on the lines describing @Given, @When, @Then, @And - around the parameter placeholders {string} {int}.. it seems as if its complaining about the placeholders and is expecting the regular expression instead maybe ?

Question :

1/ is it possible to use cucumber-java and cucumber-core together ? if so then does anyone know why I am getting this error ? I have tried putting the dependency ahead and behind my cucumber-java dependency - but it didnt make any difference. 

2/ if its not possible to use the two libraries together then is there an alternative library I can use with the cucumber-java to get the Transformer functionality. 

Any reference to docs would also be apprecated.

Thank you.

Rob.