Notes on computational linguistics.pdf - UCLA Department of ...

Stabler - Lx 185/209 2003
(32) Various ideas about prepositional phrases.
Lots of ideas have about PPs have been proposed. Here we consider just a few, sticking to proposals
that do not require head movement.
a. PPs and case assignment
Theobjectsofprepositionsarecasemarked.Thiscanbedoneeitherby
i. having the prepositions select phrases in which the objects already have case,
=acc p with =d +k acc d -k mary
p
with
pP
dP1
mary
accP
accP
acc dP
t1
with mary: p
with:: =acc p mary: acc
ɛ: +k acc, mary: -k
ɛ:: =d +k acc mary:: d -k
ii. or by selecting the bare object, and then “rolling” up the object and then the preposition.
=d P -p with =P +k +p p d mary
P
with
PP2
dP
t1
pP
dP1
mary
pP
pP
p PP
t2
with mary: p
mary: +p p, with: -p
ɛ: +k+pp,with:-p,mary:-k
ɛ:: =P +k +p p with: P -p, mary: -k
with:: =d P -p mary:: d -k
b.
The former analysis is closer to “traditional” ideas; the latter sets the stage for developing an analogy
between prepositional and verbal structures (Koopman, 1994), and allows the selection relation
between a head and object to be immediate, with all structural marking done afterwards.
PPs in a sequence of specifiers
Recall our simple grammar for maria makes tortillas from page 171:
=t c
=acc +k t
=v +k +v =d acc
=d v -v makes
=t +wh c
d -k maria d -k tortillas d -k -wh what
One simple (too simple!) way to extend this for the PPs in a sentence like
maria makes tortillas for me on Tuesday
is to just provide a sequence of positions in the VP, so that adjuncts are sort of like “deep complements”
(Larson, 1988) of the VP. Since the VP here is “rolled up”, let’s use the second analysis of
PPs from (32a), and add the PPs above vP but below accP like this
=ben +k +v =d acc =tem =p ben =v =p tem
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