(no subject)

[John_Maxwell.PARC at xerox.com]

>Here is my problem :
>Sometimes, it could be interesting to express something like "accept all
>values for this feature except this one". One could write this like " ?
>Feature <> value" (I use "?" for top arrow and  "!" for bottom arrow).
>Of course, I don't know if this operator have meaning with F-Structure
>(as " ? <> !").

The LFG Grammar Writer's workbench allows negative constraints such as (^
NUM)~=SG (where ^ is top arrow).  You can also say things like (^ SUBJ)~=(^
OBJ), which would only fail if there was another constraint in the grammar that
explicitly said that (^ SUBJ)=(^ OBJ).  (Mary Dalrymple used negative
constraints between f-structures (along with inside-out functional uncertainty)
in her thesis to describe anaphoric binding constraints (in particular, the
Norwegian pronoun "hans" that can't co-refer with its local subject).)  You can
also negate sets of constraints, such as the ~[(^ SUBJ PERS)=3 (^ SUBJ NUM)=SG]
constraint that is used to say "not third person singular" for verb forms in
English without the third person singular marker.

Cheers,

John.