ARG-ST on phrases (long)

[Stefan Mueller]

Hi,

> 2. HPSG-2 made a move that tried to provide THE BEGINNINGS OF an account of
> selectional locality. By treating SUBCAT values as lists of synsem objects
> (not a list of signs, as it was in HPSG-1) and stating the Subcategorization
> Principle as a universal principle requiring structure sharing of the
> appropriate members of the head daughter's SUBCAT list with the SYNSEM values
> of the selected complements, the specific version of UG embodied in HPSG-2
> made much information about the complements inaccessible -- unselectable.
> As a linguist, I found this very satisfying --- a step in the right direction;
> a step toward accounting for (I won't say explaining) selectional locality
> in terms of a proposed feature geometry and a particular constraint.
>
> 3. So somehow, about once or twice a year (every year), someone comes
> up with some problem in some language where it looks like you could
> solve things just fine if only SUBCAT (or ARG-ST) were a head feature,
> or propagated up to the S-level by some other principled means. To me,
> this looks like moving backwards, away from the goal of accounting for
> selectional locality. If ARG-ST is a HEAD feature, then of course
> essentially the whole (depending on what specific assumptions are made
> about adjuncts) substructure of a complement becomes `visible' for
> selection, e.g.:
>
> (2)              S
>           [AS <[4],[3]>]
>               /    \
>              /      \
>            [4]      VP
>               [AS <[4],[3]>]
>                /         \
>              /            \
>            V              [3]S
>        [AS <[4],[3]>]  [AS <[1],[2]>]
>                          /     \
>                        [1]      VP
>                            [AS <[1],[2]>]
>                               /    \
>                              /     [2]
>                             V'
>                     [AS <[1],[2]>]
>
> V can select for an S complement whose VP contains an ablative object:
>
> (3)      [AS <NP,        S         >]
>                   [AS <NP,NP[abl]>]
>
> Of course someone might try to tell another story about why there aren't
> verbs like this, but I thought the Subcategorization Principle of HPSG-2
> was at least a reasonable attempt...

I agree that one has to have locality restrictions. Selecting for synsem
objects made nonlocal selection more difficult, but it didn't make it
impossible. If one allows for relational constraints, one can dig around
in structures and find the daughter that corresponds to a selected
element. Doing this recursively one can implement selections as the one
above.

Of course this would be ugly in an obvious way, but nevertheless not
excluded by the formalism.

To me the locality principle more looks like a guideline for linguists.

Greetings

	Stefan


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