ErgSemantics_Inventory

A collection of items that we believe should be described in documenting the ERG's semantic analyses (see ErgSemantics).

Basic Components of Semantic Analyses

Some fundamental aspects of the MRS approach to meaning representation and its use in the ERG are independent of invididual semantic phenomena. The ErgSemantics/Basics page aims to define general terminology and introduce the relevant building blocks of ERG semantics, i.e. our version of things one might find in any logical representation language.

Semantic Phenomena Inventory Derived from Non-Lexical Grammar Entities

The following list of candidate semantic phenomena originates from a two-step process. First, grammar entities (rules or lexical entries) were automatically inspected for indicators of ‘interesting’ semantic properties (via the discovery procedure described on the ErgSemantics page) and grouped by their semantic synopses, i.e. the EP or set of EPs they contribute. Second, this list was paired with examples from the Redwoods Treebank instantiating the grammar entities in question.

Reasoning over the grouping of grammar entities and corresponding linguistic examples, we distilled the following list of semantic phenomena, of which many correspond to one ‘cluster’ of grammar entities with identical (or very similar) synopses.

• Apposition: ‘appos’,

• Compounding: ‘compound’, ‘compound_name’, including titles and N-ed (J-N_CRD-T_C cuts across compounding and coordination)

• Conditionals: ‘if_x_then’

• Coordination: ‘conj’

• Ellipsis: ‘ellipsis_ref’ (‘Can I?’), ‘ellipsis_expl’ (‘There's sun, isn't there?’)

• Foreign Expressions: ‘fw_seq’

• Fragments: ‘unknown’

• Imperatives: ‘pron’ (plus SFORCE)

• Implicit Locatives: (‘today’, ‘every time he arrives’): ‘loc_nonsp’

• Implicit Nominals: ‘generic_entity’

• Implicit Quantification: 'udef_q', ‘proper_q’, ‘pronoun_q', 'number_q'

• Instrumental Relatives: ‘with_p_rel’

• Measure Phrases: ‘measure_rel’

• Nominalization: ‘nominalization’, including verbal and nominal gerunds as well as some non-gerunds and WH nominalization (need to look at relation to free relatives)

• Non-Adverbial Clausal Modifiers: ‘subord’ (including depictives and absolutives)

• Number Sequences: ‘num_seq’ (for numeral juxtaposition)

• Parentheticals: ‘parenthetical’

• Partitives: ‘part_of’

• Quasi-Modal Infinitivals: ‘eventuality’

• Time Expressions: ‘of_p’ ‘def_explicit’ ‘def_implicit’ (‘June third’, ‘Tuesday afternoon’)

Approximation of Phenomenon Inventory from Lexical Types

• Cardinal Adjectives and Number Names:

• (Closed) Clausal Complements:

• Color Adjectives and Names:

• Comparatives:

• Compositional Number Names:

• Control Relations

• Degree Specification (of Quantifiers, e.g. ‘nearly all’, ‘almost but not quite every’): [moved from high level concepts, because it seems more like a linguistic analysis]

• Existentials: ‘_be_v_there’

• Free Relatives: ‘free_relative_q’, ‘free_relative_ever_q’

• Generalized Quantifiers:

• Identity Copulae: ‘_be_v_id’, ‘_be_v_nv’ (for nominal or clausal right-hand side arguments), ‘_be_v_do’, ‘cop_id’, ‘_colon_v_id’ (NB: consider other things under the class of predicate nominals which we analyze with ‘_be_v_id’ though others may not.)

• Modal Operators: ‘neg’, ‘_can_v_modal’, ‘_probable_a_1’, etc.

• MWE Quantifiers: any more et al

• Possessives:

• Pre-verbal Modifiers: [those that are syntactically analyzed as attaching to the subject; what happens to them semantically?]

• Pro-verbs (do so):

• Proper Names:

• Scopal Adverbs: certain uses of also, i.a.

• Verb particle constructions:

• WH Words:

Other Semantic Phenomena

Besides phenomena that can be identified by looking for ‘interesting’ constructions or lexical rules, the following is an emerging list of additional high-level semantic phenomena. [NB: Pages in this section are highly incomplete and may at this point contain only notes.]

• Relative Clauses

• Resultatives (‘put the book in the box’, ‘make Abrams happy’, ‘have the report on my desk’)

• Semantically Vacuous Lexemes (i.e. In-Semantics)

• Relational nouns

Quasi-Semantic Phenomena

These are phenomena which are (currently) reflected in the MRS, but which either aren't directly about truth conditions or represent a way to create connected MRSs in the absence of syntactic analyses which would lead to the expected representations.

• Idiomatic Determinerless PPs: ‘idiom_q_i’

• It-Clefts: ‘_be_v_itcleft’

• Focus Movement: ‘focus_d’

• Passivization: ‘p_arg_d’

• Relative Clause Extraposition: ‘relative_mod’ (arguably should be fully parallel to non-extraposed relative clauses)

• Tag Questions: ‘ne_x’ ‘id’

• Vocatives: ‘addressee’

Semantically Vacuous Lexical Items

• Predicative copulae

• Relative pronouns

• Complementizers

• Dependent elements (both ... and, particles in verb-particle constructions)

More Information

• ErgSemantics main page

• How to cite this work