ARG-ST on phrases (long)

[Carl Pollard]

Hi Ivan et al.,

>
There's nothing in the framework (whatever
foundations one assumes) that requires:

1. the introduction of the type synsem,
2. the typing of the SUBCAT (or ARG-ST) values as list(synsem), and
3. stating the Subcategorization Principle in terms of the SYNSEM value
   of the non-head daughters.

But 1-3 together constitute an empirical hypothesis about the way natural
languages work.
>>

More generally, there is nothing in the framework (RSRL, say) that
requires much of ANYTHING. Theories in this framework don't even have
to be about language

>
One might object that this hypothesis doesn't have enough teeth. Suppose
someone found a selectional dependency in some language like the one I
described in my previous message as never occurring.  Of course one could
posit some HEAD feature --call it FOO-- and rig things so that [FOO +] heads
always select for, let's say, an NP[ablative] complement.  In this way a
higher verb V could select for a [FOO +] sentential complement and that would
guarantee that the sentential complement was headed by a verb that selected an
NP[ablative] complement. The nonlocal selection would be rendered local via
the introduction of an ad hoc feature.
>>

That's typical linguistic methodology, isn't it: you set things up so
that it is easy to describe what usually happens, and you have to do
more work to describe what rarely happens. []Just out of curiosity:
are there other branches of science that work that way? On the same
note, do any scientists other than linguists entertain such a notion
as markedness?]

>
Maybe I'm wrong, but I've never thought that this kind of objection
cut very deep, because there is an aesthetic judgment involved in any
linguistic theory (in any scientific theory).  If, in language after
language, one had to keep introducing new features to transmit
information nonlocally and if there were no independent motivation
found for those features, then one would start to question the whole
selectional locality hypothesis.
>>

But what if you DON'T have to do this in language after language, but
only for circumsribed parts of a few languages?

>
The hypothesis in 1-3
entails at least that any non-local selectional dependency must be mediated by
some feature for which independent motivation should be sought.
>>

How about ... ARG-ST? Surely it is motivated independently of, e.g.
getting the facts right for [WEIGHT lite] French verbal complexes? Then
according to your methodological scruples above, why should you object
to occasionally using ARG-ST for selection? How does it differ from
SLASH in this regard?

>
Carl, can I ask what alternative account of selectional locality you have in
mind?
>>

I don't have one in mind.

Carl