[erg] semantics of "so" as in "do so"
Paul Haley
paul at haleyai.com
Mon Oct 21 16:39:03 CEST 2013
What logical semantics is appropriate for "kim left and sandy did so, too"?
They may have left together or at different times or independently at
the same time.
In theory, all of these logical/semantic interpretations should be
consistent with the resulting underspecified semantics.
The MRS below corresponds, roughly to:
exists(e10,e14,x6,x17){leave(e10,x6),named(x6,Kim),do_so(e14,x17),named(x17,Sandy)}
If e14 co-references e10, this implies there is one leaving event
"performed by" both Kim and Sandy, which may or may not be the
appropriate logical interpretation.
If not, how is e14 to understood as a leaving?
One resolution of this would be to have an argument, such as follows:
exists(e10,e14,x6,x17){leave(e10,x6),named(x6,Kim),do(e14,e10,x17),named(x17,Sandy)}
This representation would allow either semantics to result from further
(logical) disambiguation.
I submit that the MRS resulting now is insufficient to represent the
underspecified semantics.
Alternatively, I suppose, one could introduce an underspecified form of
co-reference in which e14 references e10 other than as logically
equivalent, but that raises issues not previously addressed (in any
literature that I have seen) with regard to the relationship between
underspecified representation and logical axioms.
On 10/15/2013 11:29 AM, Emily M. Bender wrote:
> [Keeping this on-list]
>
> Hi Paul,
>
> The analysis in the ERG is that do+so is a pro-verb, the whole thing
> stands in for the event. The point of my examples was that that event
> might have any number of participants, and so looking for an ARG2
> specifically seems misguided.
>
> Emily
>
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 12, 2013 at 2:56 AM, Paul Haley <paul at haleyai.com
> <mailto:paul at haleyai.com>> wrote:
>
> But in the MRS there is nothing that relates the doing to the
> leaving or betting!? That's the problem. The semantics is wrong.
>
> Worse, "it" is frequently interchangeable with "so" in such
> constructions, as shown below (as in the case of my first example
> further below). The pronoun refers to the event, of course. That
> reference is missing in the semantics for "so".
>
> Seems to me that "so" in this construction is an 'e' pronoun
> (where "it" is a 'x' pronoun below, which could also be a bug, imo.)
>
>
>
>
> On 10/10/2013 7:28 PM, Emily M. Bender wrote:
>> But "so" in "do so" doesn't actually stand in for the ARG2:
>>
>> Kim left, and Sandy did so too.
>> Kim bet Pat $500 that the Giants would win, and Sandy did so too.
>>
>> Emily
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 5:42 AM, Paul Haley <paul at haleyai.com
>> <mailto:paul at haleyai.com>> wrote:
>>
>> 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
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Emily M. Bender
>> Associate Professor
>> Department of Linguistics
>> Check out CLMS on facebook! http://www.facebook.com/uwclma
>
>
>
>
> --
> Emily M. Bender
> Associate Professor
> Department of Linguistics
> Check out CLMS on facebook! http://www.facebook.com/uwclma
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