Practical Grammar 9
Functional Control
In this unit, we will extend the grammar to license sentences with verbs like 'try' and 'seems' which have interesting properties.
try (Control verb)
Notation:
In the exercises of this unit, we will have to implement Control: this means that a GF of the higher verb and the SUBJ of the higher verb's XCOMP are identical.
In XLFG, this is written as follows:
- (↑SUBJ) = (↑XCOMP SUBJ); means: the SUBJ of the higher verb and the XCOMP's SUBJ are identical.
- (↑OBJ) = (↑XCOMP SUBJ); means: the OBJ of the higher verb and the XCOMP's SUBJ are identical.
Exercise 9.1
- Go to https://xlfg.labri.fr/.
- Create a new project and copy your previous grammar into your new project.
- On the basis of pages 102-103 in the textbook, make all the additions to the grammar that are necessary to yield the following outputs for sentence (1):
(1) Ingrid tried to buy olives.
Implement the following grammatical assumptions:
- 'to' (the infinitive marker): assume that it is marked [IM:+].
- 'buy': [VFORM:INF]
Make sure that your grammar makes the correct predictions for the sentences below:
(2) Ingrid buys olives
(3) *Ingrid tried buys olives
seem(Raising verb)
Notation:
The verb seem differes from the verb try in that seem does not assign a semantic role to its SUBJ. This is the first time we encounter such verbs. In XLFG, GFs that the predicate does not assign a role to are written between the closing > and the final apostrophe, as follows:
- PRED:'X<...>Y'
Meaning of the line above: the GFs listed in ... are assigned semantic roles by the predicate, but the grammatical function Y is not.
(4) Ingrid seemed to buy olives.
Exercise 9.2
- Go to https://xlfg.labri.fr/.
- Make sure that under 'Output Parameters' Extended Coherence test on Feature-Structures is set to Yes.
- Create a new project and copy your previous grammar into your new project.
- On the basis of pages 104-108 in the textbook, make all the additions to the grammar that are necessary to yield the following outputs for sentence (1):
Extended Coherence Condition [non-final version] (p. 138)
- All governable functions present in an f-structure must occur in the value of a local PRED feature.
- All functions that have a PRED value must have a theta role.