[developers] Qs: How to check the feature structure under S

[Ann Copestake]

oe at csli.Stanford.EDU said:
> when constructing the parse tree for each result, on the other hand, it is
> desirable to provide the full AVM, including ARGS.  to achieve this, the
> system actually rebuilds the derivation, i.e. goes back to the full AVMs of
> all lexical entries and rules involved and then replays all the unifications.
>  obviously, when replaying an inflectional rule, it will be important to
> remember what the ORTH value (computed from the %suffix annotation of the
> rule) should be, as that too has to be replayed.  at present, the LKB fails
> to do this latter bit.

not CCing to your students!  This is so long-standing as to be almost a 
feature - my recollection is that originally a representation of the new 
orthography was stored as a feature structure on the relevant edge and used 
when regenerating the trees but this caused some problems with the dag 
recycling which meant it was removed - and not replaced by another mechanism.  
I think that, because the tree reconstruction has to be inside one big 
unification context for the coindexation to work out correctly, the obvious 
solution of creating the orthography feature structure fresh each time doesn't 
work properly either.

Anyway, I'm responding primarily because it seems a good time to ask -
how concerned are people on this list about having ORTH values in feature 
structures that show the actual string?  As opposed to having a separate line 
in the display, for instance?  I think it's misleading formally but may be 
useful for pedagogical purposes.  I am not proposing an immediate change!

Ann