Topics in LFG: Issues in NP Coordination. Louisa 4.332

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1 Topics in LFG: Issues in NP Coordination Louisa

2 Resolution Person Resolution (1) José José y and yo I José and I speak hablamos speak.1pl 2

3 (2) PERS 1 NUM PL CONJ AND PRED PRO PERS 3 NUM SING PRED PRO PERS 1 NUM SING 3

4 The agreement features are non-distributive features. The process of feature resolution determines what the features associated with the coordinate structure as a whole are (Corbett, 1983, 1991, 1988). For example, for languages like English, Spanish, Slovak: 4

5 (3) (4) conjuncts resolve to 1 and and and and 3 3 {S,H}: 1st person {H}: 2nd person {}: 3rd person 5

6 (5) NP NP + Conj NP ( PER) ( PER) ( PER) ( PER) (6) x y is the smallest set z such that x z y z (7) hablamos: ( SUBJ PERS) = c {S,H} hablan: ( SUBJ PERS) = c {} 6

7 Gender Resolution Languages differ in the patterns of gender resolution, parly related to the fact that syntactic gender may not reflect natural gender. Marker sets for gender might be quite syntactic in nature. (8) a) a coordinate phrase behaves as though it had the same gender as some noncoordinate element in the language - no special gender agreement markers occurring only with coordinate phrases b) a coordinate structure with same gender elements behaves as if it has that same gender c) a coordinate structure with mixed gender may or may not behave as if it has the gender of one of its conjuncts 7

8 (9) NP NP + Conj NP ( GEN) ( GEN) ( GEN) ( GEN) 8

9 Hindi (10) meraa my rahte hãĩ live kuttaa dog MASC aur and SUBJ GEN MASC merii my billii cat FEM mere with saath me g h ar house My dog and my cat live with me in the house mẽ LOC (11) yah this larki girl FEM aur and uski her mãã mother FEM dilli Delhi mé LOC This girl and her mother live in Delhi rahtii live FEM hãĩ 9

10 conj1 conj2 resolves to (12) MASC MASC MASC FEM FEM FEM MASC FEM MASC FEM MASC MASC {M}: masc {}: fem 10

11 Icelandic if the conjuncts are all MASC use the MASC if the conjuncts are all FEM use the FEM otherwise use the NEUT (13) a. drengurinn the.boy(masc) og and telpan the.girl(fem) The boy and the girl are tired eru are ρreytt tired(neut) b. maδurinn the og man(masc) barniδ and The man and the bany are tired eru the.baby(neut) ρreytt are tired(neut) c. ég I sá saw á a.ewe(fem) og and lamb a.lamb(neut) I saw a ewe and a lamb, both black baeδi both svört blakc(neut) 11

12 resolves to MASC MASC MASC (14) FEM FEM FEM FEM MASC NEUT NEUT FEM NEUT NEUT MASC NEUT NEUT NEUT NEUT (15) {M}: {F}: {M,F} MASC FEM NEUT 12

13 Slovene (16) To drevo in gnezdo that tree(neut) and the nest(neut) ostala v spominu remain(masc) in memory na on.it njem to mi me That tree and the nest on it will remain in my memory resolves to MASC MASC MASC bosta will (17) MASC FEM MASC MASC NEUT MASC NEUT FEM MASC FEM FEM FEM NEUT NEUT MASC 13

14 (18) {F,N}: {F}: {N} MASC FEM NEUT Two possible analyses: resolution takes place as normal, using (18) but some other factor accounts for the appearance of MASC PL verbs with NEUT PL coordinate subjects. resolution is not standard - the neuter plural coordinate structure really is marked MASC: the value is determined independently of the conjuncts: (19) will do this. (19) CONJ: F ( GENDER) 14

15 Indeterminacy Indeterminate Values on Nouns: German Free Relatives (20) a. Wer who NOM nicht not gefördert supported S=N wird, is, muss must S=N Who isn t supported must be clever b. Ich I hab have O=A gegessen eaten I ate what was left was what? übrig was S=N war left klug clever sein. be 15

16 You cannot deal with this with disjunction or underspecification: (21) was: ( CASE) = NOM ( CASE) = ACC It seems to require features to be represented as sets of atomic values, to encode indeterminate feature possibilities. (22) was: ( CASE) = {NOM,ACC} (23) gegessen: ACC ( OBJ CASE) 16

17 (24) PRED CASE RELMOD WHAT {NOM,ACC} PRED SUBJ LEFT [ PRED CASE ] 17

18 (25) *Wem who.dat du you vertraust trust muss must klug be Whoever you trust must be clever (26) vertraust: DAT ( OBJ CASE) sein clever muss: wem: NOM ( SUBJ CASE) ( CASE) = {DAT} 18

19 The expression ( CASE) = {NOM,ACC} is a set designator, which indicates that the feature value is a set and also provides an exhaustive enumeration of the elements of the set. Explicit disjunction (denoted by the Boolean operator has an undesired wide scope interpretation but elements in a set are disjunctive only with respect to specific assertions of set membership. 19

20 Indeterminate Values on Nouns: Polish Coordinate Structures (27) Kogo who {ACC,GEN} Janek Janek lubi likes A O C a and Jerzy Jerzy Who does Janek like and Jerzy hate? nienawidzi hates G O C} 20

21 PRED OBJ SUBJ FOCUS LIKE JANEK [ PRED WHO CASE {ACC,GEN} ] PRED SUBJ FOCUS OBJ HATE JERZY (28) lubi: ACC ( OBJ CASE) nienawidzi: GEN ( OBJ CASE) kogo: ( CASE) = {ACC,GEN} 21

22 Indeterminate Feature Values on English Verbs (29) *I certainly will, and you already have, clarify the situation with respect to the budget I certainly will, and you already have, clarified the situation with respect to the budget I certainly will, and you already have, set the record straight with respect to the budget 22

23 Indeterminate Constraints Placed by Verbs: Xhosa (30) a. *Igqira doctor 5/6 b. *Igqira doctor 5/6 c. Izandla hands 7/8 nesanuse and-diviner 7/8 nesanuse and-diviner 7/8 needlebe and-ears 9/10 ayagoduka go home S C = 5/6 ziyagoduka go home S C = 7/8 zibomvu are-red SC { 7/8, 9/10 } The hands and the ears are red (31) zibomvu: ( SUBJ CLASS) {7/8, 9/10} 23

24 Indeterminate Value Requirements: German RNR Verbs (32) a. weil [wir(1) because we Garten kaufen] garden buy das the Haus house kaufen] buy und and [die the Müllers(3) Müllers because we buy the house and the Müllers buy the garden b. weil because [wir we das the Haus] house und and [die the Müllers Müllers den the Garten] garden den the kaufen buy because we [buy] the house and the Müllers buy the garden (33) kaufen: ( SUBJ PERS) { 1,3 } 24

25 Some Problem Cases Transitivity Problem in DK Modifiers and predicates must impose compatible agreement requirements (Levy, 2001): a noun that is indeterminately accusative or dative must take a dative modifier if the predicate requires dative, and an accusative modifier for an accusative predicate. This is not predicted by DK: (34) Er he hilft helps *die/den *the-acc/the-dat Papageien. parrots-acc/dat (German) (35) *Er hilft DAT OBJ CASE die ACC CASE Papageien. {DAT,ACC} (German) The following is based on Dalrymple et al. (2006) 25

26 Second Order Indeterminacy Problem in DK Features that are indeterminate (and thus set-valued) may have indeterminate requirements placed on them. For example, some Russian verbs require objects that are either genitive or accusative. Coordinated objects with one genitive and one accusative conjunct are also possible: (36) Včera ves den on proždal svoju yesterday all day he waited-for self s zvonka ot svoego brata Grigorija. call-gen from self s brother Gregory. podrugu girlfriend-acc (Russian) Irinu Irina Yesterday he waited all day for his girlfriend Irina and for a call from his brother Gregory. (Levy 2001) i and 26

27 (37) podrugu ( CASE ) = {ACC} zvonka proždal ( CASE ) = {GEN} ( OBJ CASE) = indeterminately ACC or GEN For DK, such interactions require a non-null intersection between the set of case values specified by the noun and the set required by the verb, a requirement that is not possible to impose within the standard formal assumptions of LFG. 27

28 CASE as a Complex Feature We treat CASE as a complex feature (f-structure), with attributes corresponding to each (core) case. Nouns and their modifiers specify negative values for the cases they do not express. Verbs specify positive values for the case(s) they require to be realized. (38a) is a fully determinate ACC specification, and (38b) is a partially indeterminate ACC/DAT specification: (38) a. CASE NOM ACC GEN DAT b. CASE NOM ACC GEN DAT 28

29 A verb requiring a DAT object combines with (38b) giving (40), but not with (38a): (39) verb-dat: ( OBJ CASE DAT) = + (40) OBJ CASE NOM ACC GEN DAT + 29

30 No clash results from simultaneously specifying two positive values for case: (41) Er he findet finds und and hilft helps Papageien. parrots-acc/dat (42) hilft: ( OBJ CASE DAT) = + (German) (43) findet: ( OBJ CASE ACC) = + 30

31 (44) SUBJ PRED OBJ [ PRED HE ] FIND SUBJ,OBJ PRED CASE c : PARROTS ACC + DAT + NOM GEN SUBJ PRED OBJ HELP SUBJ,OBJ This accounts for the cases of indeterminacy covered by the DK proposal. Succinct expression can be given to CASE specifications by using templates in the lexical entries. 31

32 Transitivity Problem Resolved Adjectives and Determiners state negative values for case features, placing further constraints on the case features of the noun they modify. (45) Strong form dative alten old : ((ADJ ) CASE NOM) = ((ADJ ) CASE ACC) = ((ADJ ) CASE GEN) = (46) Er he hilft helps *alte/alten *old-acc/old-dat He finds and helps old parrots. Papageien. parrots-acc/dat (German) (47) Fully indeterminate rosa pink : (no case specifications) 32

33 (48) Er findet he finds (German) und and hilft helps He finds and helps pink parrots. rosa pink-nom/acc/dat/gen Papageien. parrots-acc/dat 33

34 Second order Problem Resolved The verb proždat places indeterminate CASE requirements: (49) proždat : ( OBJ CASE {ACC GEN}) = + This allows the verb to govern coordinated objects with different case features, as long as each conjunct is compatible with a positive specification for either ACC or GEN. (50) podrugu: ( CASE NOM) = ( CASE GEN) = ( CASE DAT) = (51) zvonka: ( CASE ACC) = ( CASE NOM) = ( CASE DAT) = 34

35 (52) w : PRED WAIT.FOR SUBJ,OBJ SUBJ [ PRED HE] OBJ p : PRED GIRLFRIEND CASE NOM ACC + GEN DAT INST PREP z : PRED CALL CASE NOM ACC GEN + DAT INST PREP

36 References Corbett, Greville Hierarchies, Targets and Controllers: Agreement Patterns in Slavic. London: Croom Helm. Corbett, Greville G Agreement: A Partial Specification based on Slavonic Data. In Michael Barlow and Charles A. Ferguson, ed., Agreement in Natural Language, pages Stanford: CSLI. Corbett, Greville G Gender. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Dalrymple, Mary, Tracy Holloway King, and Louisa Sadler Indeterminacy by Underspecification. LFG2006 and to appear. Levy, Roger Feature indeterminacy and the coordination of unlikes in a totally well-typed HPSG. Unpublished MS, Stanford University.

Unification. Two Routes to Deep Structure. Unification. Unification Grammar. Martin Kay. Stanford University University of the Saarland

Unification. Two Routes to Deep Structure. Unification. Unification Grammar. Martin Kay. Stanford University University of the Saarland Two Routes to Deep Structure Derivational! Transformational! Procedural Deep Unidirectional Transformations Surface Stanford University University of the Saarland Constraint-based! Declarative Deep Surface