The ERG models one type of conjunction, as in “I want a soup and a carrot” with a predication that introduces a new variable that represents the combined object. But it represents compound words, as in “I want carrot soup” without such a new variable. Here are the predications used (the full MRS is at the bottom):
_soup_n_1(x13), _carrot_n_1(x18), _and_c(x8,x13,x18)
_soup_n_1(x8), _carrot_n_1(x14), compound(e13,x8,x14)
Is there some underlying linguistic principle that forces the difference here? For my work and scenarios so far, I’d much prefer that compound
be shaped like _and_c
. Absent that, in the implementation of compound
, I end up actually modifying x8
above to be the combined result, which feels icky since normally variables retain their same value through the MRS.
This has puzzled me for a long time and has caused me to do those unnatural feeling gymnastics in Perplexity that I’d like to fix or at least understand.
[ "I want a soup and a carrot"
TOP: h0
INDEX: e2 [ e SF: prop TENSE: pres MOOD: indicative PROG: - PERF: - ]
RELS: < [ pron<0:1> LBL: h4 ARG0: x3 [ x PERS: 1 NUM: sg IND: + PT: std ] ]
[ pronoun_q<0:1> LBL: h5 ARG0: x3 RSTR: h6 BODY: h7 ]
[ _want_v_1<2:6> LBL: h1 ARG0: e2 ARG1: x3 ARG2: x8 [ x PERS: 3 NUM: pl ] ]
[ udef_q<7:26> LBL: h9 ARG0: x8 RSTR: h10 BODY: h11 ]
[ _a_q<7:8> LBL: h12 ARG0: x13 [ x PERS: 3 NUM: sg IND: + ] RSTR: h14 BODY: h15 ]
[ _soup_n_1<9:13> LBL: h16 ARG0: x13 ]
[ _and_c<14:17> LBL: h17 ARG0: x8 ARG1: x13 ARG2: x18 [ x PERS: 3 NUM: sg IND: + ] ]
[ _a_q<18:19> LBL: h19 ARG0: x18 RSTR: h20 BODY: h21 ]
[ _carrot_n_1<20:26> LBL: h22 ARG0: x18 ] >
HCONS: < h0 qeq h1 h6 qeq h4 h10 qeq h17 h14 qeq h16 h20 qeq h22 > ]
[ "I want carrot soup"
TOP: h0
INDEX: e2 [ e SF: prop TENSE: pres MOOD: indicative PROG: - PERF: - ]
RELS: < [ pron<0:1> LBL: h4 ARG0: x3 [ x PERS: 1 NUM: sg IND: + PT: std ] ]
[ pronoun_q<0:1> LBL: h5 ARG0: x3 RSTR: h6 BODY: h7 ]
[ _want_v_1<2:6> LBL: h1 ARG0: e2 ARG1: x3 ARG2: x8 [ x PERS: 3 NUM: sg ] ]
[ udef_q<7:18> LBL: h9 ARG0: x8 RSTR: h10 BODY: h11 ]
[ compound<7:18> LBL: h12 ARG0: e13 [ e SF: prop TENSE: untensed MOOD: indicative PROG: - PERF: - ] ARG1: x8 ARG2: x14 [ x IND: + ] ]
[ udef_q<7:13> LBL: h15 ARG0: x14 RSTR: h16 BODY: h17 ]
[ _carrot_n_1<7:13> LBL: h18 ARG0: x14 ]
[ _soup_n_1<14:18> LBL: h12 ARG0: x8 ] >
HCONS: < h0 qeq h1 h6 qeq h4 h10 qeq h12 h16 qeq h18 > ]