Practical Grammar 5

Not only verbs have a PRED feature

Last week, we introduced the PRED feature and assigned it to verbs, like the following:

(1) [PRED   'DISAPPEAR<SUBJ>'] (2) [PRED   'SEE<SUBJ, OBJ>']

The PRED feature is discussed at the beginning of section 2.2 in the textbook. There it is described that the value of the PRED feature consists of two pieces of information:

a. a SEMANTIC FORM, and
b. for predicates that must combine with grammatical functions, a list of functions

So, the PRED value of (1) means that the word "diappear" means DISAPPEAR and must combine with a SUBJ and no other grammatial function(s).

Similarly for (2): the word "see" means SEE and must combine with a SUBJ, an OBJ, and no other grammatial function(s).

It follows from what was just said that not only verbs, but all words which are meaningsful have a PRED value. Here are some more examples:

a. "Lilly": [PRED   'LILLY']
b. "cat": [PRED   'CAT']

Some function words like the determiners "a" and "the" are not assumed to have the feature PRED, because they are assumed to have "grammatical" meanings which are different from the meanings of verbs and nouns.

Making our grammar more similar to the textbook system

The following rules are a slightly simplified version of the c-structure rules from pages 33 and 35 of the textbook. The rules are simplified, so as not to introduce too many new ideas at once. We will eventually use the full set of rules.

Exercise

1. Go to xlfg.
2. Create a new project.
3. Calls it "Practical Grammar 5".
4. Enter "start_symbol: IP" into the Declarations editor.
5. Enter the following c-structure rules into the Grammar editor.

DP → D NP;
DP → NP;

IP → DP Ibar;
Ibar → I VP;
Ibar → VP;

NP → N;
NP → AP NP;

PP → P DP;

VP → V;
VP → V DP;
VP → V PP;
VP → V DP DP;
VP → V DP PP;

// The following is a pseudo-rule that is supposed to recognize all categories. Do NOT change or delete it!

Const → CP|Cbar|DP|Dbar|IP|Ibar|NP|PP|VP;

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