Practical Grammar 4: Difference between revisions

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== The PRED feature and valence ==
== The PRED feature and valence ==


'''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 verbs ''appear'' and ''cough'') and those which do (like ''have'' and ''trust''). Objects are called '''complements''' in our theory; so, to express that the verb ''have'' needs a direct object, its representation would contain the line
'''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 verbs ''disappear'' and ''break'') and those which do (like ''see'' and ''break-Trans'').  


(1) <br>
(1) <br>
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<span style="color: blue>We</span> gave <span style="color: red>Fred</span> <span style="color: green>a wastebasket</span>.<br>
<span style="color: blue>We</span> gave <span style="color: red>Fred</span> <span style="color: green>a wastebasket</span>.<br>
[PRED &nbsp; 'SEE<<span style="color: blue>SUBJ</span>,<span style="color: red>OBJ</span>,<span style="color: green>OBJ-TH</span>>']
[PRED &nbsp; 'SEE<<span style="color: blue>SUBJ</span>,<span style="color: red>OBJ</span>,<span style="color: green>OBJ-TH</span>>']
[PRED &nbsp; 'HAVE<SUBJ,OBJ>'],
which translated into people speech means that the expression needs one and only one complement and that the part of speech of this complement needs to be NP.
Correspondingly,
COMPS <>
means that the expression does not need and, in fact, is not allowed to combine with any complement. That is correct for intransitive verbs like ''appear'', since you cannot say such things as <span style="color: blue>*Lilly appears the cake.</span>.
As we will see, words cannot only select complements, but also subjects and determiners. This is what the two attribute SPR is for. Verbs are marked as
SPR <NP>,
i.e. they must have a subject NP and so-called common nouns (i.e. ''cat'' or ''student'') are listed as
SPR <D>,
which means that they must combine with a determiner like ''a'' or ''the'' in order to function as a subject or an object.
With this background about the 2 valence attributes, look at the lexical entries for ''Lilly'' and ''Fido'' again. You see that both expressions are marked as
SPR <><br>
COMPS <>.
From this we conclude that both words do not need to be combined with a specifier or a complement in order to function as the subject or object of a sentence. And this is correct, as the two sentences below illustrate:
(1) <span style="color: blue>Lilly snores.</span><br>
(2) <span style="color: blue>I like Fido.</span>
In (1), the word ''Lilly'' serves as the specifier (= subject) of the verb ''snores'' and can do so all by itself. In (2), the word ''Fido'' is the direct object complement of the transitive verb ''likes'' and again it can do so all by itself. Compare this with what happens, when we substitute a common noun for the names ''Lilly'' and ''Fido'' in the sentences above:
(3) <span style="color: blue>*Student snores.</span><br>
(4) <span style="color: blue>*I like cat.</span>
Both sentences become ungrammatical! The reason is simple: as already mentioned above, common nouns like ''student'' or ''cat'' are [SPR <D>], which means that they first need to combine with a determiner in order to serve as the subject or object of a sentence. Thus, (3) and (4) can be made grammatical by putting determiners in front of the two common nouns:
(5) <span style="color: blue>'''The''' student snores.</span><br>
(6) <span style="color: blue>I like '''any''' cat.</span>




Revision as of 16:38, 10 November 2020

Exercise 4

♣ Add the following test sentences to your grammar and tell the program that they are ungrammatical:

(1) *John [disappeared the hospital].
(2) *Martha [stayed the hospital].
(3) *Fred [resides].
(4) *Joe [saw Fred John].
(5) *John [sent Martha to a check].
(6) *We [gave Fred].

♣ Parse each sentence.
♣ Does the grammar make the right prediction?
♣ If not, formulate in grammatical terms what the problem seems to be.

The PRED feature and valence

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 verbs disappear and break) and those which do (like see and break-Trans).

(1)
John disappeared.
[PRED   'DISAPPEAR<SUBJ>']

(2)
The bottle broke.
[PRED   'BREAK<SUBJ>']

(3)
Joe saw Fred.
[PRED   'SEE<SUBJ,OBJ>']

(4)
Alice broke the bottle.
[PRED   'SEE<SUBJ,OBJ>']

(5)
John sent Martha a check.
[PRED   'SEE<SUBJ,OBJ,OBJ-TH>']

(6)
We gave Fred a wastebasket.
[PRED   'SEE<SUBJ,OBJ,OBJ-TH>']





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