[developers] LOGON transfer rules filling in variable properties

[Emily M. Bender]

Dear all,

I'm reaching the end of this year's Ling 567, and this time around we have
two languages (Bardi [bcj] and Lithuanian [lit]) that contrast realis and
irrealis
mood, where irrealis is required in negated sentences but also possible
elsewhere (with other uses).

We typically use VPM to set defaults for various variable properties to keep
the range of generator outputs down in our MT set up, but can't in this
case set MOOD to realis by default, since then we don't get any output
for negated sentences.

It seemed tempting to try to create a family of transfer rules that
specialize
MOOD on the ARG0 of negated _v_rels (i.e. whose LBL is the LARG of a qeq
whose HARG is the ARG1 of neg_rel) to [ MOOD irrealis ] and that of
_v_rels that aren't negated to [ MOOD realis ].  The trouble is, I can't
figure
out a way to write this rule that doesn't feed itself.

Is there something I'm missing, or (perhaps more likely) is this just not an
intended use case for the transfer rules/otherwise a bad idea in some way?

Thanks,
Emily

-- 
Emily M. Bender
Professor, Department of Linguistics
Check out CLMS on facebook! http://www.facebook.com/uwclma
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