<div dir="ltr">I know that the FrameNet folks have thought some about unexpressed Frame Elements,<div>but I haven't looked to see how thorough their annotation is in this respect, nor whether</div><div>it is something we could try to use as a source of the fine-grained lexical info.</div><div><br>At any rate, I think we're in agreement that it's non-English languages that really bring</div><div>up the issues wrt to the representation of dropped arguments (specifically those languages</div><div>that use dropped arguments more like pronouns).</div><div><br>Emily</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jan 12, 2016 at 2:33 PM, Ann Copestake <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:aac10@cl.cam.ac.uk" target="_blank">aac10@cl.cam.ac.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Thanks!<br>
<br>
Just picking up on the English case<span class=""><br>
<br>
On 12/01/2016 20:58, Emily M. Bender wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
(ia) I already ate.<br>
(ib) What? (meaning what did you eat)<br>
<br>
(ii) I already dined.<br>
(iib) #What? (meaning what did you dine on)<br>
</blockquote>
<br></span>
but<br>
(iic) What on?<br>
is fine<br>
<br>
also:<br>
<br>
(iv) I understood.<br>
(ivb) What? (meaning what did you understand) is OK<br>
<br>
(v) They blamed me.<br>
(vb) #What?<br>
(vc) What for?<br>
<br>
I just refreshed my memory of Fillmore 1986 - I think both blame and understand would be cases of DNC (definite null complements)<br>
whereas `read' etc are indefinite null complements (because you can say `she's reading without knowing or caring what).<span class=""><br>
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
(iiia) What happened to the cake?<br>
(iiib) #Kim ate.<br>
</blockquote>
<br></span>
Right - but Fillmore attributes that to the fact that eat is an example of INC. A DNC case would be:<br>
<br>
What was their reaction to the proposal?<br>
They accepted.<br>
<br>
I mean, for interpretation, it would indeed be nice to know that `they accepted' => `they accepted something' since that would no doubt help with producing the inference:<br>
<br>
They accepted the proposal.<br>
<br>
but then we'd need to know DNC vs INC. And I'm not sure it's really about dropped arguments:<br>
<br>
What was their reaction to the proposal?<br>
They said `not in a billion years'.<br>
<br>
one wants to interpret this as a rejection of the proposal.<br>
<br>
One other thing - one of Fillmore's main points is that there are some differences between closely related word uses as to whether the complement may or may not be dropped. e.g.,<br>
<br>
he lost - ok when referring to elections, not to keys<br>
I forgot to fix it / I forgot<br>
I forgot my keys / * I forgot<br>
<br>
He argues that this means fine-grained lexical entries are needed. I think this might be a nice class of things to experiment with distributionally, but, in the mean time, I'm not sure we should be trying to handle them in English.<br>
<br>
I guess my overall feeling about the nuances of English dropped arguments is that this is the sort of thing it would be nice to handle well in the ERG, but it looks like the sort of fine-grained lexical semantic analysis that doesn't tend to work out when we try and apply it beyond a few cute examples.<br>
<br>
All best,<br>
<br>
Ann<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr">Emily M. Bender<br>Professor, Department of Linguistics<br>Check out CLMS on facebook! <a href="http://www.facebook.com/uwclma" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/uwclma</a><br></div></div>
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