phrasal structure

[Martin Jansche]

On Tue, 11 Jun 2002, K Vikram bt cse wrote:

> if we write out a grammar according to the formalisms of HPSG, what will
> be the phrasal structure of a sentence like:
>
> John is singing in the bathroom.

[S [NP John] [VP [V is] [VP [VP [V singing]] [PP [P in] [NP [Det the] [N bathroom]]]]]]

> (how do we treat the auxiliaries in such a case)

Like raisin' verbs (e.g. "John seems to like them raisins.").

> or a sentence like
>
> John saw Mary singing in the bathroom
>
> (in this case isn't there an syntactic ambiguity)

I didn't see this before, but you're right: "bathroom" could be
anaphoric to "John".

> also let me know the treatment of:
>
> Having seen Mary sing John turned on the radio.
> The song which Mary sung was melodious.
> The song which was sung by Mary was melodious.

Cases like these are hard to try to convince even experts in to treat
without spending too much time on.  In any case, treatment should
start by turning off the radio.

THLA,

- martin