Practical Grammar 13

When it rains, it pours

Implement the analysis of weather verbs that is given on p. 107 of the textbook. Your grammar should predict the following facts:

(1) It rained.
(2) *Ingrid rained

For (1), your grammar should produce the Argument Structure below as the only grammatical output:

Existential sentences

Existential sentences require the word "there" as their subject argument. Treat this word as a noun. They express that an instance of the concept named by the postverbal NP exists or comes about. Sentence (3) for instance means the same as "A storm arose".

From what was said above, the constrast between (3) and (4) follows. Implement these two sentences:

(3) There arose a storm
(4) *Ingrid arose a storm

Sentence (3) should get a single Argument Structure, namely the following one:

Weather verbs and existential verbs in functional control constructions

Now, we are going to test whether your solution to the exercise in Unit 9 and your solutions to the two problems above work together correctly.

Add the following test items to your grammar and parse all items:

(5) *There bought olives
(6) *Ingrid rained
(7) *There rained
(8) *Ingrid bought there
(9) *It tried to rain
(10) *There tried to arise a storm
(11) It seemed to rain
(12) There seemed to arise a storm

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