[erg] semantics of "so" as in "do so"

[Paul Haley]

Apologies for a couple of typos below, and one clarification.

It's not really important whether "so" is treated as a pronoun or do-so 
as a proto-verb but by "direct object" I meant an ARG2 in the 
predication for do_v_so corresponding to whatever "so" references or 
introduces or substitutes for.


On 10/9/2013 8:34 AM, Paul Haley wrote:
> Hi Emily!
>
> Yes, but I'm suggest that "pro-" is "pronomial" not "proto"!-) 
> Generally, don't we want elipsis to be reflected in the semantics?  
> That is, in the "u" and "i" type variables in the MRS (or unresolved 
> pronouns)?
>
> Shouldn't the MRS for for that doing have an argument to be resolved 
> against the situational argument for the moving?  That argument would 
> be "so" treated as a pronoun, which seems the proper semantics since 
> the "so" actually/semantically references some event/situation, no?  
> That is, if pronomial "so" was the direct object of "do" here, I think 
> all would be well.
>
> Paul
>
>
>
> On 10/8/2013 9:14 PM, Emily M. Bender wrote:
>> Hello Paul,
>>
>> It looks like "do so" is being treated as a "pro-verb", and that 
>> seems appropriate to me.  Proverbs (like ellipsis) take their 
>> interpretation from context.  So this says basically that
>> x6 is doing something, but what that something is needs to be resolved.
>>
>> Emily
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 9:33 AM, Paul Haley <paul at haleyai.com 
>> <mailto:paul at haleyai.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     Hi All,
>>
>>     In the following, it seems that "so" is more of a pronoun than a
>>     preposition (at least it seems "so" to me!).
>>
>>     I would appreciate your thoughts on getting reasonable logic from
>>     the ERG for this sentence, which is quite interesting when you
>>     also consider quantification...
>>
>>
>>
>>     Thank you and best regards,
>>     Paul
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Emily M. Bender
>> Associate Professor
>> Department of Linguistics
>> Check out CLMS on facebook! http://www.facebook.com/uwclma
>

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