Yes, that looks underspecified. I also wouldn’t expect the wh word to inherit from basic-one-arg or any of those.
Why not?
As for the undespecified lists: I wonder what is going on, because I just created a mini-English grammar using the Matrix trunk and I am observing the same thing. Could it be that I am looking at a wrong thing, still? I am looking at local AVM of the verb and the noun…
The purpose of the types like basic-one-arg et al is to do the lexical threading, creating the NON-LOCAL values for each of the elements out of the append of the NON-LOCAL value of their arguments. (This is basically the analysis from Bouma, Malouf & Sag 2000.) Pronouns in general are ARG-ST < >, so they have no arguments (basic-zero-arg, then I think), BUT wh pronouns should have non-empty QUE values and so that type is incorrect.
As for a grammar that has decent behavior along these lines, maybe the English from grammar here is a good one to look at?
Yes, that looks good. The local avm for the verb should point only to the QUE of the things on its ARG-ST, which, as this is the local avm, aren’t unified with anything else in the sentence.
How do I confirm that the QUE list is not empty for this verb? By looking at the local AVM for the S and then tracking down the verb?.. If I look at the local AVM for the S, I don’t see any ARGS.
What’s the QUE value on the S?
And the daughter of that rule?
…and the VP looks like the verb; QUE looks “healthy” in the sense that the thing on it is identified with something on its ARG-ST but I cannot determine whether it is empty or not.
So the extracted subject phrase is manipulating QUE, perhaps?
It doesn’t look like that to me, although the head-filler phrase insists on a QUE-empty head daugher, I think:
mc-wh-subj-phrase := basic-head-filler-phrase & interrogative-clause &
head-final &
[ SYNSEM.LOCAL.CAT [ MC +,
VAL #val,
HEAD verb & [ FORM finite ] ],
HEAD-DTR extracted-subj-phrase & [ SYNSEM.LOCAL.CAT [ MC na,
VAL #val & [ SUBJ < >,
COMPS < > ] ] ],
NON-HEAD-DTR.SYNSEM.NON-LOCAL.QUE <! ref-ind !> ].
extracted-subj-phrase := basic-extracted-subj-phrase &
[ SYNSEM.LOCAL.CAT.HEAD verb,
HEAD-DTR.SYNSEM.LOCAL.CAT.VAL.COMPS < > ].
basic-extracted-subj-phrase := basic-extracted-arg-phrase & head-compositional &
[ SYNSEM.LOCAL.CAT.VAL [ SUBJ < >,
SPR < >,
COMPS < > ],
HEAD-DTR.SYNSEM [ LOCAL.CAT [ VAL [ SUBJ < gap &
[ LOCAL #local & local &
[ CONT.HOOK.INDEX ref-ind ] ] >,
COMPS olist ],
MC na ],
NON-LOCAL.SLASH.LIST < #local > ] ].
basic-extracted-arg-phrase := head-valence-phrase & head-only &
[ SYNSEM.LIGHT - ].
basic-filler-phrase := binary-phrase & phrasal &
[ SYNSEM [ LOCAL [ CAT [ VAL [ COMPS < >,
SPR < > ],
POSTHEAD + ] ],
NON-LOCAL.SLASH 0-dlist ],
ARGS < [ SYNSEM [ LOCAL #slash & local &
[ CAT.VAL [ SUBJ olist,
COMPS olist,
SPR olist ],
CTXT.ACTIVATED + ],
NON-LOCAL.SLASH 0-dlist ] ],
[ SYNSEM [ LOCAL.CAT [ VAL.COMPS olist ],
NON-LOCAL [ SLASH 1-dlist &
[ LIST [ FIRST #slash,
REST < > & #last ],
LAST #last ],
QUE 0-dlist,
REL 0-dlist ] ] ] > ].
I am confused about how this could ever work, even with only one wh-word, if we expected all the QUEs to be gathered on the verb? I must be misunderstanding something.
Is it that extracted-subj is just failing to constrain the mother’s QUE at all? (If you do View | Grammar Rule for that rule you can check.) This would be compatible with QUE 0-dlist on the head-daughter of head-filler, but probably isn’t right… That is, just leaving it underspecified seems incorrect.
Extracted subject seems to be saying: my QUE is my daughter’s QUE. This comes via head-nexus-que. (Also from looking at the grammar rule in the LKB).
Then repeat that step for the rule licensing the daughter. What does the rule definition for that one say?
(Spoiler: perhaps the Bare-NP rule is to blame)
The Head-Comp rule?
Here’s the tree by the way:
So we have just examined the second (lower) S, licensed by the Subject-Extraction rule. Next in line is the Head-Complement rule.
That one is saying: the mother’s QUE is the head daughter’s QUE.
Then there is the lexical rule (tense) which seems to be saying: My NON-LOCAL features are my daughter’s NON-LOCAL features (that includes QUE).
As for the complement, the bare NP rule does look like it is underspecifying the QUE:
Yes?
(I am not sure why it is so because it is inheriting from head-valence-phrase which is a subtype of head-nexus-phrase, which should take care of the QUE…)
Can we back up at review the top-level question here? What are you trying to discover and why?
I want to make sure that I get correct grammars (from the Matrix), specifically that the QUE feature is what I should expect, including on the verb.
Hi Olga – in talking with @sweaglesw yesterday I remembered a critical piece of what’s going on here: The whole point of the LOCAL/NON-LOCAL feature distinction. The QUE value of the extracted wh word is not amalgamated into the QUE value of the verb, because the verb only sees its LOCAL features. Take a look at the type gap — the thing that ends up on the verb’s ARG-ST if an argument-extraction rule applies. It should have a non-empty SLASH value, identified with its own LOCAL value, but empty QUE and REL.