[erg] Missing article in a sentence causes a problem in parsing?

[Emily M. Bender]

[Keeping this on-list]

Hi David,

Dan has some "mal-rules", which are used in the grammar checking
application among other things, and which surely include a rule for
missing determiners.  I don't know the fine details of how to enable them
(and what to do about parse selection in case they are enabled).

Emily


On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 11:31 AM, David Mott <mottdh at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Emily
>
> Thanks. In this context "male" is intended to be a count noun, its just that
> the writer got sloppy and omitted the determiner.
>
> I will have a go, but I wonder if there is a deeper question here, of how to
> handle "sloppy" style?.
>
> David
>
>
> On 16 September 2013 18:26, Emily M. Bender <ebender at uw.edu> wrote:
>>
>> Hi David,
>>
>> The problem isn't the "adjectival nature" but that the
>> lexical entry for the noun "male" treats it as a count
>> noun, i.e. one which requires a determiner when used in
>> the singular.  So yes, a new entry would fix this.
>>
>> Emily
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 9:39 AM, David Mott <mottdh at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> > Hi
>> >
>> > I have noticed the following behaviour of the ERG in different variants
>> > of a
>> > sentence:
>> >
>> > call from a male to a female   ( parses)
>> > call from man to a female      ( parses)
>> >
>> > call from male to a female     ( *** does not parse)
>> >
>> >
>> > Is this because of the adjectival nature of "male"? Do I need to make a
>> > new
>> > lexical entry for "male"?
>> >
>> > thanks
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> 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