[erg] semantics of "so" as in "do so"
Emily M. Bender
ebender at uw.edu
Fri Oct 25 22:23:35 CEST 2013
Yes, I would expect the do_so relation to show up for "and so did Sandy",
at least as one alternative parse.
I'm not sure what you mean by "the classic "the men lifted the crates" or
"substances cross the plasma membrane at different rates"."
Emily
On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 10:19 AM, Paul Haley <paul at haleyai.com> wrote:
> Perhaps I'm beginning to follow your perspective... thanks for asking.
>
> If, instead of resolving that ARG0 to the "leaving", which Dan and I agree
> would be inappropriate for some potentially intended semantics, there was a
> form of co-reference other than (in)equality, such as the "same type" I
> suggested below, I guess you would not need the additional argument for
> "so/it"!
>
> Until now, I had no need to introduce additional predicates into the
> semantics, but to do so seems appropriate after the discussion , so thanks
> again for your patient coaching, Dan and Emily.
>
> Actually, any references on representing the forms of reference as
> additional predicates in less underspecified logical semantics would be
> sincerely appreciated. For example, the classic "the men lifted the
> crates" or "substances cross the plasma membrane at different rates".
>
> I still think an issue lurks here, however, as shown in the following
> examples.
>
>
>
>
>
> Paul
>
>
>
> On 10/24/2013 7:31 PM, Emily M. Bender wrote:
>
> Dear Paul,
>
> Why doesn't the ARG0 of the do_so relation suffice for the
> variable/argument that you are looking for?
>
> Emily
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 2:16 PM, Paul Haley <paul at haleyai.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Dan.
>>
>> No problem agreeing with the first clause of your second sentence, but I
>> don't think the second clause involves coercion as much as proper logical
>> semantic structure. I'm not suggesting anything more than a semantic
>> argument is missing.
>>
>> I'm not expecting sentence-oriented processing to do anything at all in
>> terms of anaphora resolution. That's how it works now (i.e., without a
>> resolution mechanism, which is just fine, imo), but the variable/argument
>> seems critical in any case. I don't see how to approach it otherwise.
>> Inter- vs. intra-sentential resolution doesn't seem pertinent here.
>>
>> I didn't know we had ICONSs! Sounds interesting... and potentially
>> combinatoric. Should be fun. I'm not sure additional types of constraints
>> for verbal anaphora are needed (i.e., we've lived long enough without
>> ICONSs) but if there is a linguistic distinction between such reference to
>> an instance versus a type of event, that would be appropriate too. Without
>> them, the semantics is just more underspecified, which is fine as long as
>> it covers the intended meaning. It seems clear that the representation we
>> have now does not in the cases at issue here.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 10/22/2013 1:57 PM, Dan Flickinger wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Paul -
>>>
>>> I agree that we don't want to identify the two events as the only
>>> possible interpretation. But we have to allow anaphora resolution to
>>> perform its magic quite generally, and it is I think misguided to try to
>>> coerce the sentence-level semantic composition to do too much. If the text
>>> to be parsed were two separate sentences, I hope you would agree that our
>>> sentence-oriented processing could not be expected to constrain the elided
>>> event via unification:
>>> "Kim bought a car. Mary did so, too."
>>> So we have to be content in the grammar to set the stage for a currently
>>> unimplemented resolution engine separate from the current grammar that will
>>> bind these anaphoric elements both sentence-internally and across
>>> discourse. This underspecification is very much the same as the approach
>>> we take to ordinary pronoun binding, though we do expect to enrich the
>>> grammar's MRSs for sentence with pronouns a little more, now that we have a
>>> place to assert structurally derived constraints on equality and inequality
>>> of individuals, as ICONSs. But I don't know of analogous structural
>>> constraints (such as c-command) for verbal anaphora, and in any case these
>>> would again be only sentence-internal.
>>>
>>> Dan
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Paul Haley" <paul at haleyai.com>
>>> To: "Emily M. Bender" <ebender at uw.edu>, "erg" <erg at delph-in.net>
>>> Sent: Monday, October 21, 2013 7:39:03 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [erg] semantics of "so" as in "do so"
>>>
>>> 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
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
> --
> 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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