From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Tue May 29 16:50:39 2001 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 10:50:39 -0600 Subject: Dan Everett: apologies Message-ID: A couple of months ago I engaged in a discussion on the list and departed from the discussion in a huff. Rereading my last posting to the list, I was embarrassed to see how obnoxious it reads. So, if anyone on this list remembers that exchange (I hope no one does), please accept my apologies for a brief, and I hope non-recurrent, bout of intemperance. Dan Everett From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Tue May 29 21:10:41 2001 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 15:10:41 -0600 Subject: Mark Volpe: Non-Lexical-semantic PS building Message-ID: Dear DM-listers, I've been interested in how specific syntactic structures are derived in a post-syntax lexical Vocabulary Insertion framework; that is, where the former-Projection Principle assumed that the lexical semantics of the Verb, unergative vs unaccusative, etc., would determine the phrase sructure of the syntax, other frameworks, e.g., LMBM, which have Lexicons, allow for early selection, though insertion and closed-class realization would presumably be post-syntactic (and this has its own pitfalls requiring a story). How does DM insure that Unaccusative structures are built to accompany Unaccusative Verbs despite post-syntactic Vocab. Insertion? It seems to me that the building of an Unaccusative syntax pre-selection would be unmotivated, except perhaps by the language module's want of variety, "Well, the last 3 structures we built had Agents in Subject position, let's do an Unaccusative for the hell of it". Needless to say, I'm seriously missing something here. Could you tell me how late lexical selection works? Thanks in advance, Mark Volpe, SUNY-Stony Brook __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Thu May 31 15:53:02 2001 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 09:53:02 -0600 Subject: Martha McGinnis: Non-Lexical-semantic PS building (reply to Mark Volpe) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Mark, I'll have a go at this. I think the issue you're raising isn't special to DM; it's an issue that also arises in Lexicalist theories. For example, consider GB, where a clause structure is projected from the lexical entry of the main predicate (say, a verb), in accordance with X-bar Theory and the Extended Projection Principle. How does GB ensure that an unaccusative verb is ever selected from the Lexicon? Recall that in GB, semantic interpretation doesn't take place until LF, so there's presumably no conceptual/intentional influence on the choice of items from the Lexicon. The same issue arises in the other theories I'm familiar with -- Minimalism, LFG, RG, Categorial Grammar, G/HPSG. I'm not familiar enough with Beard's LMBM to know for sure whether it addresses this issue differently, but I'd be surprised. The usual response to this issue is that linguistic theories are not theories of production; the production system is a separate component that makes use of the language faculty in ways that we don't yet understand. No doubt Jerry Fodor has talked about this at some point -- maybe someone else on the list can suggest a source. I've actually never seen any story about lexical selection that makes more sense to me than your "want of variety" story. It seems clear that the issue can't be resolved by introspection alone. You might be interested in looking at W. Levelt's book _Speaking_ -- his model of speech production involves funnelling conceptual intentions into the syntax via the Lexicon. It's not quite clear to me how that should work, or what role LF should play, but at least his claims are fairly explicit. There's a separate issue about the 'selection' of unaccusative verbs that I believe *is* special to DM. Namely, how does DM ensure that the Vocabulary item corresponding to the root of an unaccusative verb (say, 'arrive') is inserted into a tree that has unaccusative syntax? If, as DM assumes, all roots compete for insertion, then this can't be the result of a contextual restriction on the item 'arrive' that requires it to be inserted in an unaccusative structure. A contextually restricted/specified item for 'arrive' would then always block the insertion of the less restricted/specified item 'grow', which is only optionally unaccusative. Instead, I believe, DM holds that any root Vocabulary item can be inserted into any root node, and if the result makes sense to the conceptual system, it converges; otherwise, it crashes. So 'I arrived the plane' is no good because the Encyclopedic content of 'arrive' is incompatible with a transitive structure (see Harley & Noyer's MITWPL 32 paper for more details). Hope this helps. Regards, Martha >Dear DM-listers, > I've been interested in how specific syntactic >structures are derived in a post-syntax lexical >Vocabulary Insertion framework; that is, where the >former-Projection Principle assumed that the lexical >semantics of the Verb, unergative vs unaccusative, >etc., would determine the phrase sructure of the >syntax, other frameworks, e.g., LMBM, which have >Lexicons, allow for early selection, though insertion >and closed-class realization would presumably be >post-syntactic (and this has its own pitfalls >requiring a story). How does DM insure that >Unaccusative structures are built to accompany >Unaccusative Verbs despite post-syntactic Vocab. >Insertion? It seems to me that the building of an >Unaccusative syntax pre-selection would be >unmotivated, except perhaps by the language module's >want of variety, "Well, the last 3 structures we built >had Agents in Subject position, let's do an >Unaccusative for the hell of it". > Needless to say, I'm seriously missing something >here. Could you tell me how late lexical selection >works? > Thanks in advance, > Mark Volpe, SUNY-Stony Brook > >__________________________________________________ >Do You Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices >http://auctions.yahoo.com/ mcginnis at ucalgary.ca From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Tue May 29 16:50:39 2001 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 10:50:39 -0600 Subject: Dan Everett: apologies Message-ID: A couple of months ago I engaged in a discussion on the list and departed from the discussion in a huff. Rereading my last posting to the list, I was embarrassed to see how obnoxious it reads. So, if anyone on this list remembers that exchange (I hope no one does), please accept my apologies for a brief, and I hope non-recurrent, bout of intemperance. Dan Everett From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Tue May 29 21:10:41 2001 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 15:10:41 -0600 Subject: Mark Volpe: Non-Lexical-semantic PS building Message-ID: Dear DM-listers, I've been interested in how specific syntactic structures are derived in a post-syntax lexical Vocabulary Insertion framework; that is, where the former-Projection Principle assumed that the lexical semantics of the Verb, unergative vs unaccusative, etc., would determine the phrase sructure of the syntax, other frameworks, e.g., LMBM, which have Lexicons, allow for early selection, though insertion and closed-class realization would presumably be post-syntactic (and this has its own pitfalls requiring a story). How does DM insure that Unaccusative structures are built to accompany Unaccusative Verbs despite post-syntactic Vocab. Insertion? It seems to me that the building of an Unaccusative syntax pre-selection would be unmotivated, except perhaps by the language module's want of variety, "Well, the last 3 structures we built had Agents in Subject position, let's do an Unaccusative for the hell of it". Needless to say, I'm seriously missing something here. Could you tell me how late lexical selection works? Thanks in advance, Mark Volpe, SUNY-Stony Brook __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Thu May 31 15:53:02 2001 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 09:53:02 -0600 Subject: Martha McGinnis: Non-Lexical-semantic PS building (reply to Mark Volpe) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Mark, I'll have a go at this. I think the issue you're raising isn't special to DM; it's an issue that also arises in Lexicalist theories. For example, consider GB, where a clause structure is projected from the lexical entry of the main predicate (say, a verb), in accordance with X-bar Theory and the Extended Projection Principle. How does GB ensure that an unaccusative verb is ever selected from the Lexicon? Recall that in GB, semantic interpretation doesn't take place until LF, so there's presumably no conceptual/intentional influence on the choice of items from the Lexicon. The same issue arises in the other theories I'm familiar with -- Minimalism, LFG, RG, Categorial Grammar, G/HPSG. I'm not familiar enough with Beard's LMBM to know for sure whether it addresses this issue differently, but I'd be surprised. The usual response to this issue is that linguistic theories are not theories of production; the production system is a separate component that makes use of the language faculty in ways that we don't yet understand. No doubt Jerry Fodor has talked about this at some point -- maybe someone else on the list can suggest a source. I've actually never seen any story about lexical selection that makes more sense to me than your "want of variety" story. It seems clear that the issue can't be resolved by introspection alone. You might be interested in looking at W. Levelt's book _Speaking_ -- his model of speech production involves funnelling conceptual intentions into the syntax via the Lexicon. It's not quite clear to me how that should work, or what role LF should play, but at least his claims are fairly explicit. There's a separate issue about the 'selection' of unaccusative verbs that I believe *is* special to DM. Namely, how does DM ensure that the Vocabulary item corresponding to the root of an unaccusative verb (say, 'arrive') is inserted into a tree that has unaccusative syntax? If, as DM assumes, all roots compete for insertion, then this can't be the result of a contextual restriction on the item 'arrive' that requires it to be inserted in an unaccusative structure. A contextually restricted/specified item for 'arrive' would then always block the insertion of the less restricted/specified item 'grow', which is only optionally unaccusative. Instead, I believe, DM holds that any root Vocabulary item can be inserted into any root node, and if the result makes sense to the conceptual system, it converges; otherwise, it crashes. So 'I arrived the plane' is no good because the Encyclopedic content of 'arrive' is incompatible with a transitive structure (see Harley & Noyer's MITWPL 32 paper for more details). Hope this helps. Regards, Martha >Dear DM-listers, > I've been interested in how specific syntactic >structures are derived in a post-syntax lexical >Vocabulary Insertion framework; that is, where the >former-Projection Principle assumed that the lexical >semantics of the Verb, unergative vs unaccusative, >etc., would determine the phrase sructure of the >syntax, other frameworks, e.g., LMBM, which have >Lexicons, allow for early selection, though insertion >and closed-class realization would presumably be >post-syntactic (and this has its own pitfalls >requiring a story). How does DM insure that >Unaccusative structures are built to accompany >Unaccusative Verbs despite post-syntactic Vocab. >Insertion? It seems to me that the building of an >Unaccusative syntax pre-selection would be >unmotivated, except perhaps by the language module's >want of variety, "Well, the last 3 structures we built >had Agents in Subject position, let's do an >Unaccusative for the hell of it". > Needless to say, I'm seriously missing something >here. Could you tell me how late lexical selection >works? > Thanks in advance, > Mark Volpe, SUNY-Stony Brook > >__________________________________________________ >Do You Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices >http://auctions.yahoo.com/ mcginnis at ucalgary.ca