<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>Hello Ash,</div><div><br></div><div>The XLE platform allows non-integrated f-structures, and I think that they should be allowed. I find them useful (and theoretically acceptable) e.g. in the analysis of selected PPs, as in ‘I am talking about the problems’. Here (or actually in the corresponding Norwegian construction ‘Jeg snakker om problemene’) I would like to say that the preposition originates from the regular lexical entry for ‘om’, PRED and all, but that its PRED is not contributed to the global f-structure. The point is that when something is selected, and hence in a certain sense predictable, it does not carry its normal amount of information. In this case the information contributed is that we are faced with the predicate ‘talk*about’, taking the OBJ of the preposition as its own OBL-TH. The result is that the f-structure of the preposition itself is left dangling. (The interested reader can inspect this on the page <a href="http://decentius.aksis.uib.no/logon/xle-mrs.xml">http://decentius.aksis.uib.no/logon/xle-mrs.xml</a> , parsing the sentence ‘Jeg snakker om problemene’ with the grammar ‘Norwegian Bokmål (new morph)’, unchecking ‘Packed representation’ and checking ‘Include non-top F-structures’. The relevant reading is the first one.)</div><div><br></div><div>As for Steve’s question, I don’t see why we shouldn’t be allowed to state constraints on orphaned f-structures once we allow them.</div><div><br></div><div>Best,</div><div>Helge</div><div><br></div><div><div>Den 27. april. 2011 kl. 16.16 skrev Ash_Asudeh:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>Dear Steve<br><br>That's a difficult question, but my understanding is that it should be satisfied: since the constraint has existential force, it should at least logically be satisfied if <br>there is some f-structure that satisfies it and, on your scenario, there is some f-structure that satisfies it. <br><br>In the scenario you describe, I think the final f-structural result would not be well-formed, because it would be disconnected, but that is for reasons other than the constraining equation in question (i.e., it would be due to a general, global constraint on f-structural well-formedness).<br><br>Ash<br><br>On 2011-04-27, at 8:36 AM, Stephen Wechsler wrote:<br><br><blockquote type="cite">Hi all,<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Can anyone answer this question for me? Is a constraining equation (f<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">ATT) =c VAL satisfied, or not, in a case where the f-structure for the<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">root node does not contain the function f, but the 'orphaned'<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">f-structure for a lower node in the tree does contain f with the<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">feature [ATT VAL] ? This is possible where a c-structure node fails<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">to pass up some information.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Steve<br></blockquote></div></blockquote></div><br><div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">--------------------------------------------------------------------</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">Professor Helge J. 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