[developers] Punctuation and "-default-les" type mapping in PET/ERG

[Dan Flickinger]

> >> ; WARNING: failed to unify new path-value ( = "No") into fs (type:
> >> d_-_no_le)
> >> ; WARNING: failed to unify new path-value (SYNSEM.LKEYS.KEYREL.CARG = 
> >> have) into fs (type: v_np-prd_oeq-ntr_le)
> >
> > If these messages persist after you've removed the generic-le-suffixes
> > setting, then maybe someone else can help diagnose this, or maybe
> > indeed you can just ignore the warnings.
> 
> I am still getting them.

On reflection, I now see why you're getting those messages.  You are using
a larger set of generic lexical entries than I usually use, and the clumsy
mechanism that PET currently uses for building the semantics for an 
unknown word is to simply stamp its orthography into the CARG attribute
of that entry's EP.  To accommodate this hack (grudgingly), I defined 
distinct lexical types for each of the generic lexical entries, so that 
these types could idiosyncractically license the CARG attribute (which 
ordinarily is only used for proper names, numerals, etc).  Since you are 
using the ordinary lexical types to instantiate your richer set of 
generics, you would have to now duplicate all of these types to make ones 
which allow that CARG attribute, since I'm not willing to have CARG 
floating around in every EP in the ERG's MRSs.  This is clearly undesirable.

Instead, I think it is finally time (for someone) to fix this hack in 
the handling of generic entries in PET, so the PRED value for an unknown 
word is a string which is constructed on the fly from its stem orthography
and its POS, using the following template:

  "_ORTH_POS_unk_rel"

Then we should get rid of the assignment of a value for CARG except for
proper names, where the PRED should be "named_rel" and the orthography
should be the CARG value.

The benefit would be that we could then always use an existing open-class
lexical type to instantiate an entry for an unknown word, with a 
predictable semantics and a type which would better match what we find
in our treebanks.

Yi, maybe you have already done something like this?  Or could you at
least estimate how much work would be involved in making the change?

Thanks,

 Dan