[Lexicog] Re: lexical phrase

[David Frank]

from David Frank:

No, I didn't mean to say that the preposition "with" modifies "telescope" in 
the sentence "I saw the man with the telescope." I would say that the 
prepositional phrase "with the telescope" modifies what came before it. As 
Mike pointed out, this sentence is ambiguous as to whether the PP modifies 
"saw" or "(the) man." If I seemed to be saying that a preposition modifies 
the object of the preposition ("telescope" in this example), that was not 
what I meant to say.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Roberts" <dr_john_roberts at sil.org>
To: <lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2006 11:02 AM
Subject: Re: [Lexicog] Re: lexical phrase



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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