nl-kr-request@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU (NL-KR Moderator Brad Miller) (12/16/88)
NL-KR Digest (12/15/88 19:38:47) Volume 5 Number 38
Today's Topics:
Re: shallow parsing (was Crass prejudice).
Re: Verb-preposition idioms
Submissions: NL-KR@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU
Requests, policy: NL-KR-REQUEST@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 88 14:24 EST
From: Greg Lee <lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Subject: Re: shallow parsing (was Crass prejudice).
From article <2052@garth.UUCP>, by smryan@garth.UUCP (Steven Ryan):
> ...
> Meanwhile, I continue my own research in parsing shallow with wide rules
> instead of deep rules.
In case the rather nasty tone of your recent postings is due in part
to your feeling that the shallow parsing proposal did not receive the
discussion it deserved, perhaps it would help if I say that I agree.
For my own part, I just didn't think I had anything constructive
to say. But in the interest of renewing that discussion, I'll make
a few comments, anyhow.
>[from earlier posting] ...
>The suggestion was that humans memorise faster than generate and are better
>at handling large chunks in parallel than small chunks nested.
I think it's a plausible idea, and also it's implication that linguists'
methodological reliance on economy of language description is mistaken.
>What I take that to mean, we memorise words in each inflected form, even
>regular forms, ...
But an objection to this is that there is so much difference among
languages in regard to what is expressed by inflections versus what is
expressed using independent words -- periphrastically, that is to say --
without, however, any evidence for a corresponding difference in
learning time or cognitive burden.
> and possibly even groups words possibly up to words. ....
Even for the case of regularly formed phrases? Not everything can
be memorized.
>Than language generation consists of inserting these chunks into a verb
>frame chunk, with each sentence form being a different chunk.
>
>I think I'll call this suggestion shallow parsing: the parse tree will
>only go down two or three levels before running into unanalysed (ig est
>memorised) chunks. In terms of a productions, this would mean having
>thousands of similar yet distinct productions instead factoring the
>similarities to reduce the number of productions.
If we disabbreviate the rules of a GPSG description as a set of
context-free rules, it would look like this I think, at least in regard
to the treatment of inflected forms.
Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 88 17:55 EST
From: Rod McGuire <mcguire@antares.aero.org>
Subject: Re: Verb-preposition idioms
The preceding discussion on "what particles really are" has not been
all that illuminating, so I thought I would trot forth my opinions,
namely:
1) Particles and words sometimes called locational/directional adverbs
(e.g. "here", "home", "away", and "upwards") are really intransitive
prepositions.
2) VPs containing transitive prepositions have at least 2 constituent
analyses rather than a unique one of the form [v [p n]].
ARGUMENTS FOR ANALYSIS AS PREPOSITIONS
1) The set of words that can serve as transitive and intransitive
prepositions form a closed class - one cannot make up new members.
(while somewhat circular this is still an argument for them being
assigned the same category). Some of these words can only be
intransitive while others can also be transitive. Possibly, some
can be only transitive. The best candidates are those words that are
mainly structural and carry little meaning, e.g. "to", "for" and "of"
- though proving this will be difficult.
2) Many verbs lexically subcategorize for prepositions to fill an
argument in the propositional representation of the verb. And the
verbs do not care whether this argument if filled by an intransitive
preposition or by a transitive preposition and object.
John went [home] | [to the store] | [out].
John put the dishes [on the table] | [away].
Categorically we can notate intransitive prepositions as P,
transitive ones as P/N (i.e. a P missing a following noun or noun
phrase), and verbs that need a preposition as V/P. Thus such a verb
can either be satisfied by a P or the sequence [P/N N] which collapses
to a P.
3) For people that don't think that "intransitive prepositions" are
prepositions, there is the question of what the term "prepositional
phrase" is supposed to mean. A few years ago, I was wondering (and
still am) why linguists think the category VP exists (as distinct from
S and V). I found Ruland Wells' 1949(?) article "Immediate Constituent
Analysis" which was influential in defining the terms "noun phrase"
and "verb phrase". There he defines X-phrases as phrases that can be
substituted for a single word of category X in a "good" sentence to
yield an equally good sentence. For example, starting with the
sentence "men sleep" (= N V), the phrase "the old goats" can be
replace "men" and thus it is a noun-phrase, and likewise "love Mary"
can replace "sleep" and thus it is a verb-phrase. (BTW he punts on why
VP should be distinct from S). I don't remember if he mentions
prepositions, but by his criteria phrasal prepositions should be
defined in terms of intransitive prepositions.
ARGUMENTS AGAINST [V/P [P/N N]] AS A UNIQUE CONSTITUENT ANALYSIS
Above I presented a categorical notation that allows the reduction:
V/P P/N N
| \ /
V/P P
\ /
V
However this notation also allows a constituent analysis of:
V/P P/N N
\ / |
V/N N
\ /
V
Or in other words, a transitive preposition can turn a verb that
requires a preposition into a transitive verb. And there is a fair
amount of evidence that this constituent structure is equally valid.
1) Incorporative verbs: There are a few verbs in English that appear to
include prepositions internally, for example "entered" in:
John [entered] | [went into] the room.
Since "went into" is equivalent to a single word, it too must be
a transitive verb.
2) Conjunction: [V/P P/N] phrases can be conjoined with transitive
verbs:
John [stepped on] and [broke] his glasses.
3) Passive: since [V/P P/N] phrases are transitive, passive forms can
exist:
John's bed has been [slept in].
4) Parsing: In left-to-right parsing of text, one can consistently
group [verb preposition] phrases as a constituent, without any
look-ahead, regardless of whether the preposition turns out to be
transitive or not. This allows idiomatic particles to be parsed
in the same manner as "locational adverbs" and transitive prepositions.
In fact, a parser may have to construct a [verb preposition] constituent
just to look up whether or not the phrase is idiomatic and
the preposition is intransitive.
CONCLUSION
I've discussed verb+prepositions only in terms of what constituent
structures they can have. And I think that this is all that there is
to syntax. In addition to simple sentences, there are various other
phrasal forms (aka "transformations") in which particular
verb+prepositions can or cannot appear. Judging the "acceptability" of
these forms however is outside the realm of syntax. References that
mention problem cases are: A.S. Kroch's review of Bruce Fraser's "The
verb-particle combination in English" that appeared in Language V55 N1
(1979), and some paper I can't find but I think is by the Clarks or
one of their students at Stanford that appeared in Language around
1980 on when [V/P P/N] phrases are fully transitive.
Roderick McGuire - mcguire@aerospace.aero.org
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 88 20:35 EST
From: mcguire@aerospace.aero.org
Subject: Re: Verb-preposition idioms
--------
[ I sent the following out over sci.lang, however our uucp mail
connections seem rather disrupted now, so I'm sending this direct,
on the off chance that I can still reach you ]
From: mcguire@antares.aero.org (Rod McGuire)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Verb-preposition idioms
Date: 30 Nov 88 22:55:39 GMT
Reply-To: mcguire@aerospace.aero.org (Roderick McGuire)
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
Lines: 116
Summary: intransitive prepositions
The preceding discussion on "what particles really are" has not been
all that illuminating, so I thought I would trot forth my opinions,
namely:
1) Particles and words sometimes called locational/directional adverbs
(e.g. "here", "home", "away", and "upwards") are really intransitive
prepositions.
2) VPs containing transitive prepositions have at least 2 constituent
analyses rather than a unique one of the form [v [p n]].
ARGUMENTS FOR ANALYSIS AS PREPOSITIONS
1) The set of words that can serve as transitive and intransitive
prepositions form a closed class - one cannot make up new members.
(while somewhat circular this is still an argument for them being
assigned the same category). Some of these words can only be
intransitive while others can also be transitive. Possibly, some
can be only transitive. The best candidates are those words that are
mainly structural and carry little meaning, e.g. "to", "for" and "of"
- though proving this will be difficult.
2) Many verbs lexically subcategorize for prepositions to fill an
argument in the propositional representation of the verb. And the
verbs do not care whether this argument if filled by an intransitive
preposition or by a transitive preposition and object.
John went [home] | [to the store] | [out].
John put the dishes [on the table] | [away].
Categorically we can notate intransitive prepositions as P,
transitive ones as P/N (i.e. a P missing a following noun or noun
phrase), and verbs that need a preposition as V/P. Thus such a verb
can either be satisfied by a P or the sequence [P/N N] which collapses
to a P.
3) For people that don't think that "intransitive prepositions" are
prepositions, there is the question of what the term "prepositional
phrase" is supposed to mean. A few years ago, I was wondering (and
still am) why linguists think the category VP exists (as distinct from
S and V). I found Ruland Wells' 1949(?) article "Immediate Constituent
Analysis" which was influential in defining the terms "noun phrase"
and "verb phrase". There he defines X-phrases as phrases that can be
substituted for a single word of category X in a "good" sentence to
yield an equally good sentence. For example, starting with the
sentence "men sleep" (= N V), the phrase "the old goats" can be
replace "men" and thus it is a noun-phrase, and likewise "love Mary"
can replace "sleep" and thus it is a verb-phrase. (BTW he punts on why
VP should be distinct from S). I don't remember if he mentions
prepositions, but by his criteria phrasal prepositions should be
defined in terms of intransitive prepositions.
ARGUMENTS AGAINST [V/P [P/N N]] AS A UNIQUE CONSTITUENT ANALYSIS
Above I presented a categorical notation that allows the reduction:
V/P P/N N
| \ /
V/P P
\ /
V
However this notation also allows a constituent analysis of:
V/P P/N N
\ / |
V/N N
\ /
V
Or in other words, a transitive preposition can turn a verb that
requires a preposition into a transitive verb. And there is a fair
amount of evidence that this constituent structure is equally valid.
1) Incorporative verbs: There are a few verbs in English that appear to
include prepositions internally, for example "entered" in:
John [entered] | [went into] the room.
Since "went into" is equivalent to a single word, it too must be
a transitive verb.
2) Conjunction: [V/P P/N] phrases can be conjoined with transitive
verbs:
John [stepped on] and [broke] his glasses.
3) Passive: since [V/P P/N] phrases are transitive, passive forms can
exist:
John's bed has been [slept in].
4) Parsing: In left-to-right parsing of text, one can consistently
group [verb preposition] phrases as a constituent, without any
look-ahead, regardless of whether the preposition turns out to be
transitive or not. This allows idiomatic particles to be parsed
in the same manner as "locational adverbs" and transitive prepositions.
In fact, a parser may have to construct a [verb preposition] constituent
just to look up whether or not the phrase is idiomatic and
the preposition is intransitive.
CONCLUSION
I've discussed verb+prepositions only in terms of what constituent
structures they can have. And I think that this is all that there is
to syntax. In addition to simple sentences, there are various other
phrasal forms (aka "transformations") in which particular
verb+prepositions can or cannot appear. Judging the "acceptability" of
these forms however is outside the realm of syntax. References that
mention problem cases are: A.S. Kroch's review of Bruce Fraser's "The
verb-particle combination in English" that appeared in Language V55 N1
(1979), and some paper I can't find but I think is by the Clarks or
one of their students at Stanford that appeared in Language around
1980 on when [V/P P/N] phrases are fully transitive.
Roderick McGuire - mcguire@aerospace.aero.org
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 88 01:51 EST
From: Mark Alexandre <alexandr@surya.cad.mcc.com>
Subject: Re: Verb-preposition idioms
In article <42261@aero.ARPA> mcguire@aerospace.aero.org (Roderick McGuire) writes:
>
> 2) Many verbs lexically subcategorize for prepositions to fill an
> argument in the propositional representation of the verb. And the
> verbs do not care whether this argument if filled by an intransitive
> preposition or by a transitive preposition and object.
>
> John went [home] | [to the store] | [out].
> John put the dishes [on the table] | [away].
>
Upon reading Mr. McGuire's well written analysis, it occurred to me that there
is another form of conjuction that would seem to lend further credence to the
analysis. Consider the sentence (with presumed partial bracketing):
John went [home], [to the store], [[back] [home]],
and [[out] for the evening].
Would Mr. McGuire or anyone care to comment on this?
Furthermore, I am also curious about the anaylsis of the following sentences:
Go on up ahead there.
Stop on over by on your way home.
Finally, during the discussion about the Germanic origins and parallels of
this verb+preposition construct, I have developed a suspicion that the
undisputed historical origin of the phenomenon in Germanic may be of very
limited value in the synchronic syntax of Modern English. That is, I have
an intuitive feeling that the structures may have undergone a reanalysis
at some point in English and that only a remnant of the original Germanic
form survives in Modern English alongside some other structure such as the
one presented by Mr. McGuire. I have been looking for evidence and have
come up the following scattered observations on the lexicon.
1) The number and the distribution of prefixed particles in English (along
the mode of German) appears to be in decline. For example, I found in
a pass over the Webster's Collegiate Dictionary:
- no verbs beginning with the prefixed on-
- only 2 verbs with prefixed by-: bypass and byline, both
of which appeared within the last century and appear to
be backformations derived from corresponding nouns
- only 2 verbs with prefixed off-: offset and the hyphenated
off-load, the latter attested only back to 1850
- only a few verbs with prefixed in-:
-- inset, inweave, and inlay, all pertaining primarily
to handicraft and handiwork;
-- infold, which I have never heard colloquially;
-- inbreed, which like outbreed, arose around the
turn of the century, probably in the argot of
horsebreeding;
-- input, which like output, has only recently taken
on a usage as a verb in the field of computers.
The number of German verbs beginning with an-, bei-, aus-, ein- appear
far more numerous.
2) The meaning of English verb+preposition is often not the same as that
of a corresponding verb with the prepositional prefix.
bypass vs. pass by
offset vs. set off
outwork vs. work out
outkick vs. kick out
overcome vs. come over
overrun vs. run over
overdo vs. do over
undergo vs. go under
uphold vs. hold up
The English pairs are sometimes completely different in meaning. Sometimes
the meaning of the prefixed form is included among several meanings of the
verb+preposition form, suggesting that the former has stagnated while the
latter continues to acquire new meanings as the language evolves. There is
also the strong impression that the verb+preposition forms include far more
colloquial and idiomatic meanings than do the prefixed forms.
In German, the prepositional prefix, if detachable, is obligatorily detached
in the tensed forms of the verb, but without any change in meaning.
3) Some prepositional prefixes are completely productive morphologically
i.e. able to form new verbs with a predictable semantics.
outdo, outperform, outlast, outshine, out-rehearse,
outproduce, out-conceptualize, outkick, etc.
overdo, overwork, overanalyze, overexagggerate,
overproduce, overconcentrate, over-rehearse, etc.
Notice that for these forms, there are never equivalent verb+preposition
forms. Also notice that even non-Germanic root verbs may be so prefixed.
These productive processes account for a great many of the English verbs
of this form, again suggesting that those based on the original Germanic
verbs are in decline.
4) Perhaps more importantly, some free prepositions are completely
"productive", though it is certainly unclear whether this is a morpho-
logical process or simply syntactic, as Mr. McGuire's analysis would
suggest.
Notably "by" and "over" seem to be able to complement any verb involving
a resultant change of location:
pass by, march by, swing by, pop by, stroll by,
swim by, hop by, slither by, scoot by, jog by
pass over, march over, swing over, pop over, stroll over,
swim over, hop over, slither over, scoot over, jog over.
The word "on" can be used to express the continuance of an action:
go on, talk on, burn on, sail on, drag on, continue on,
dream on, equivocate on, babble on.
Are German bei- and ueber- similarly productive? What about equivalents
in other Germanic languages? A lack of comparable productivity in the
Germanic morphological process would certainly weigh heavily in favor of
a syntactic analysis for Modern English verb+prepositions.
This also ties in with the example sentence given earlier, in that it is
just these usages that seem so readily combinable in series:
pass on by, march on over, drop over by,
babble on and on
For all of these reasons, it just doesn't look to me like the "Germanic
analysis" holds water when carried over to Modern English. The intransi-
tive preposition analysis laid out by Mr. McGuire, however, appears much
more promising.
Comments and corrections are welcome,
Mark Alexandre
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Dec 88 08:44 EST
From: Greg Lee <lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Subject: Re: Verb-preposition idioms
From article <42261@aero.ARPA>, by mcguire@antares.aero.org (Rod McGuire):
" The preceding discussion on "what particles really are" has not been
" all that illuminating, so I thought I would trot forth my opinions,
"...
It's an intriguing analysis. I'm very fond of combination by
functional composition (V/P P/N = V/P) as opposed to functional
application (V/P P = V). The dual analysis does give a neat
way of describing passivizable objects of prepositions. (But
what about the non-passivizable ones?)
The earlier discussion centered around the extraposable verb
"particles", which sometimes seem preposition-like ('he put the
cat out') and sometimes not ('he looked the number up'). Does
this categorical analysis offer any advantage in this regard?
I don't see that it does.
" A few years ago, I was wondering (and
" still am) why linguists think the category VP exists (as distinct from
" S and V).
Beats me. *I* don't think VP exists. There was some discussion
of the matter a while back, based on putative transformational
properties of VP (do-so replacement, VP-preposing), without
any clear evidence emerging, that I noticed. The Rulon Wells
criterion you mention has the obvious drawback that it forces
new phrases to be assumed wherever optional constituents
are found, without any discernable rationale.
Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
------------------------------
End of NL-KR Digest
*******************