A generic framework for Arabic to English machine ... - Acsu Buffalo

3.2. FORMAL REPRESENTATION OF LAYERED STRUCTURE OF THE CLAUSE
the left-detached position, is outside of the clause but within the sentence. An example
from English with all of these elements is given in Figure 3.4.
Figure 3.4: English Sentence with precore slot and left-detached position
The operator projection in Figure 3.5 may be combined with what we will call the ‘con-
stituent projection’ in Figure3.8 to yield a more complete picture of the clause, as in
Figure 3.6; the periphery is omitted, since it can occur in a number of different positions.
What we have here is two projections of the clause, one of which contains the predicate
and its arguments (the constituent projection), while the other contains the operators (the
operator projection) (Van Valin and LaPolla 1997).
They are both linked through the predicate, which may be a verb, NP, AdjP or PP, be-
cause it is the one crucial element common to both. The operator projection mirrors the
constituent projection in terms of layering; hence ‘nucleus’ in the operator projection
corresponds to ‘nucleus’ in the constituent projection, and so on. The multiple nucleus,
core and clause nodes represent each of the individual operators at that level; the num-
ber of multiple nodes corresponds to the number of operators at that level present in the
sentence. If there are no operators at a given level, a bare node will be given. As the
‘bare skeleton’ of the layered structure of the clause on the right makes clear, the two
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