I’m trying to describe in the docs and implement a more general approach to evaluating (I’m not sure of the right term here, "causal verbs’?) “verbs that take a scopal arg because they are going to cause something to happen that isn’t true now”.
I’m looking for: documentation, pointers to how to read the grammar or anything else that would help me determine what kinds of predications will appear in the scopal arg for a particular verb predication. I imagine it is limited to specific parts of speech or phenomena for a specific verb predication, but that’s just a guess. Maybe there is no such constraint.
Some examples:
put the vase on the table
┌────── _vase_n_1(x8)
_the_q(x8,RSTR,BODY) ┌────── _table_n_1(x16)
└─ _the_q(x16,RSTR,BODY) ┌────── pron(x3)
└─ pronoun_q(x3,RSTR,BODY) ┌─ _on_p_loc(e15,x8,x16)
└─ _put_v_1(e2,x3,x8,ARG3)
Does _put_v_1(e,x,x,h) always take a preposition as its scopal arg?
paint the tree green
┌────── _tree_n_of(x8,i14)
_the_q(x8,RSTR,BODY) ┌────── pron(x3)
└─ pronoun_q(x3,RSTR,BODY) ┌─ _green_a_2(e16,x8)
└─ _paint_v_1(e2,x3,x8,ARG3)
Will _paint_v_1(e,x,x,h) always take an adjective?
make me be quieter
┌────── pron(x10)
pronoun_q(x10,RSTR,BODY) ┌────── pron(x3) ┌── more_comp(e16,e15,u17)
└─ pronoun_q(x3,RSTR,BODY) ┌─ and(0,1)
└─ _make_v_cause(e2,x3,ARG2) └ _quiet_a_1(e15,x10)
So my questions are: What are these class of verbs called? What constraints are on their scopal arg (or how do I figure that out), if there even are such constraints.
Edit: For reference, here’s the current version of my developer how-to that is attempting to cover this.
Thanks everyone!