Practical Grammar 4

Verbs and VPs

Next, we want to associate verbs and VPs with reasonable f-structures. As with NPs, we do this in two steps:

a. We add appropriate features to the lexical entries of verbs, and
b. we add the correct annotation to the VP-rules, so that each node in the VP tree gets the desired f-structure.

Features of verbs

Let us look at the following sentences:

(1) She is happy.
(2) They are happy.
(3) He was happy.

Exercise 4.1

State which verbal feature the constrast between (1) and (3) motivates. What are the feature's possible values?

Check your answer

The feature is TENSE and its possible values are pres, past, future.

Exercise 4.2

State which verbal feature the constrast between (1) and (2) motivates. What are the feature's possible values?

Check your answer

The feature is NUMBER (NUM), whose possible values are sg and pl.

Exercise 4.3

1. Go to https://xlfg.labri.fr/ and log in.
   

Then you locate our workshop:

1. Choose Workshops|All Workshops.
2. Look for the workshop "Syntax 1" for the current semester.
3. In the column "Action", click the button "Consult the workshop".

Now you find a project of the workshop:

1. On the right side of the screen is the list of projects of our workshop.
2. Look for "Grammar 3" and click on "Create your own version".
3. Now click on "Edit your version".

• Add appropriate NUM features to all the nouns in the lexicon.
• Add appropriate TENSE and NUM features to all the verbs in the lexicon.

Annotating the rule VP -> V NP

Let us now turn to the rule that combines a V and an NP into a VP:

VP -> V NP;

In the previous unit, we formulated the following annotated c-structure rule for combining a D and an N into an NP:

1. NP -> D N
2. {
3.  ↑=↓1;
4.  ↑=↓2;
5. }

Reminder:

1. ↑=↓1; in the rule above means that the NP and its first daugher share an f-structure.
2. ↑=↓2; in the rule above means that the NP and its second daugher share an f-structure.
3. ↑=↓1; and ↑=↓2; means that there is a single f-structure that the NP and its two daughers share.
4. As a result if the feature values of D and N are compatible, then the f-structure of the NP will be the unification of the f-structures of D and N.
   

Exercise 4.4

• In Grammar 3, give the VP rule an annotation that requires the f-structure of the V to be the same as the f-structure of the VP.
• Annotate the two NP rules as well.
• Add

(1) broke the bottle
(2) broke the bottles

to the test sentence list and mark them as grammatical.

• Parse.
• Inspect the f-structures of the two VPs.

Next, we add subjects before the two VPs to turn them into sentences:

• Change the test sentences to

(3) Lilly broke the bottle
(4) Lilly broke the bottles

• Parse and note what happens. Why?

• Click on Declarations to see the problem.
• Change the start symbol of the grammar from VP to S. Save the grammar and parse again.

Valence

Exercise 4.6

• Add the following test sentences to your grammar, telling the program that they are ungrammatical:

(5) *John disappeared Fred.
(6) *Lilly saw.

• Add the words in (5)-(6) to the lexicon, if necessary.
• Parse each sentence.
  
• Does the grammar make the right prediction?
  
• If not, formulate in grammatical terms what the problem seems to be.

To solve this problem, we need to add 2 important concepts to our grammatical theory: grammatical functions and the PRED feature.

Grammatical functions

Currently, our VP rule takes the following form:

1. VP -> V NP
2. {
3.  ↑=↓1;
4. }

In words, the rule says 2 things:

(a) In c-structure, a VP consists of a V daughter followed by an NP daughter.
(b) In f-structure, the V and the VP share one and the same f-structure. Another way of saying this is that the V is the head of the VP.

Generalization
If A is the head of B, then the f-structure of A is also the f-structure of B.

The head-of relationship (marked by the annotation ↑=↓1;) is a grammatical function or a grammatical relation between 2 elements in a sentence.

There are other grammatical functions that you already know informally: subject-of and object-of. These are grammatical functions of NPs to the predicate of a sentence.

There are 2 NPs and a verb in the sentence Lilly broke the bottle.

• State which grammatical function these 3 elements bear to each other and to the sentence!

The functions subject and object are coded by word order in English.

• Fill in the blank in the following 2 sentences:

(a) In English, the subject of a verb __________ the verb in linear order.
(b) In English, the object of a verb __________ the verb in linear order.

We will now formally introduce grammatical functions into our grammar beginning with the object function.

To identify the postverbal NP as an object in the following c-structure rule, we add line 4 to the annotation of the rule:

1. VP -> V NP
2. {
3.  ↑=↓1;
4.  (↑ OBJ) =↓2;
5. }

In words, the amended rule now says 3 things:

(a) In c-structure, a VP consists of a V daughter followed by an NP daughter.
(b) In f-structure, the V is the head of the VP.
(c) In f-structure, the NP is the object of the VP (and hence also of the V, since the V and the VP are the same in f-structure).

• Add line 4 to your current version of Grammar 3.
• Parse and inspect the f-structures of

(7) Lilly broke the bottle
(8) Lilly broke the bottles

Exercise 4.5

• Now, it is easy to identify the preverbal NP as the subject of the sentence. Add the required line to the c-structure rule that introduces the subject-NP into the sentence.
• Parse.
• Inspect the result and interpret it.

Look at the f-structures of the 2 ungrammatical sentences

(5) *John disappeared Fred.
(6) *Lilly saw.

• Inspect the result and interpret it.

The PRED feature

Valence is the representation of the knowledge speakers have about what other kinds of constituents a word needs to combine with. You will remember from traditional grammar the distinction between intransitive and transitive verbs. These are just names for those verbs, respectively, which do not need a direct object (i.e. the verb disappear) and those which do (like see).

In Lexical-Functional Grammar, the valence of a word is expressed by the value of its PRED(icate) feature. The PRED features of the 2 verbs disappeared and saw are written under the next 2 sentences:

(9)
John disappeared.
[PRED   'DISAPPEAR<SUBJ>']

(10)
Joe saw Fred.
[PRED   'SEE<SUBJ, OBJ>']

Exercise 4.7

• Open Grammer 4
• Add annotated grammar rules for S, VP, and NP to parse sentences (3)-(6). Do not change the lexicon yet!
• Add (9)-(10) as test sentences with their grammaticality status.
• Parse.
• Add the correct PRED feature to the lexical entries of the verbs.
• Parse.
• Inspect the f-structures of all 4 sentences carefully.

Homework

Read the following pages in the textbook:
section 2.2: p. 13-17 
section 2.3: p. 22-25
section 2.3.2: everything

Note: You will probably not understand everything in these pages! Do your best on the basis of what we've done in class so far.

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