[developers] Why is MODIFIED in SYNSEM

[Dan Flickinger]

Hi Kristen,


Though I have not yet been able to remind myself of why MODIFIED is outside of LOCAL, one likely motivation was to allow for unbounded dependencies where the filler needs a different value for MODIFIED than would be required at the other end of the dependency, where the gap was introduced.  Since the value of SLASH is only of type `local', the values for MODIFIED could thus differ.  I can't come up with a compelling example where such a mismatch is needed, but I can imagine that we were unsure at the time, so made a conservative decision allowing for the possibility of finding the need for such a mismatch someday.  If there is never a need for allowing such a mismatch, then we would make stronger predictions by moving MODIFIED into LOCAL, and then it probably should be inside of CAT, but not HEAD.  I'll do a little more investigating to see if I can find evidence supporting the current cautious architecture.


 Dan



________________________________
From: developers-bounces at emmtee.net <developers-bounces at emmtee.net> on behalf of Kristen Howell <kphowell at uw.edu>
Sent: Thursday, November 9, 2017 10:55 AM
To: developers
Subject: [developers] Why is MODIFIED in SYNSEM

Hi all,

I am working on an analysis for adverbial subordinators in clausal modifiers in the Grammar Matrix, and I'm adding a feature similar to MODIFIED. This feature will track the presence of an adverb (so that a rule higher up can be sensitive to it).  It will "start" on the adverb (with different types corresponding to different adverbial subordinators) and be passed to the mother of the head-adj-phrase.

Since this feature is very similar to MODIFIED (which the Grammar Matrix adopted from the ERG), I have put it in SYNSEM and more or less mirrored the way MODIFIED tracks in the grammar. My question is if anyone remembers why MODIFIED lives all the way out in SYNSEM. Of course it couldn't be a HEAD feature because it tracks with the modified daughter, but why not CAT or LOCAL?

Best,
Kristen
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