[Lexicog] Re: lexical phrase

[John Roberts]

maxwell at ldc.upenn.edu wrote:
> Quoting John Roberts <dr_john_roberts at sil.org>:
>   
>>  David,What do you mean when you say, "Generally, prepositional
>> phrases ... modify nouns"? The normal function of an adposition with
>> regard to nominals is to indicate the semantic role an adjacent NP
>> plays in the sentence. It doesn't modify the meaning of the NP as
>> such.
>>     
>
> This is a classical problem in syntactic parsing, how to determine what 
> the function of a PP is.  The typical example is
>    I saw the man with the telescope.
> where an ambiguity arises from the PP attachment: it can either modify 
> the NP "the man", meaning the man I saw had a telescope with him, or it 
> can modify the S (I would say it modifies the VP, but that's a 
> different issue), meaning that I used a telescope to observe the man.
>
>   
I am not sure if this is what David meant. Applying what David said to 
this example 'with' modifies 'telescope' -- if I understand what he said 
correctly.

John Roberts

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-- 
********************
John R Roberts
SIL International Linguistics Consultant
dr_john_roberts at sil.org
********************



 
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