Grammars 2

Representing Sentences: First Cut

This sentence consists of
  the head VP, consisting of
    the head VERB jumped, (consisting of
       the stem jump and the suffix ed)
    the adjunct PP, consisting of
       the head PREPOSITION into
       the complement NP, consisting of
          the head water
          the complement ARTICLE the
          [complement << head]
       [head << complement]
    [head << adjunct]
  the subject (complement) NP, consisting of
    two NPs consisting of
       the PROPER-NOUNS Frog and Toad
    joined by the conjunction and
    [NP1 << conjunction << NP2]
  [subject << head]

The content of the sentence is an instance of
the RELATION JUMP, which has
   the jumper consisting of a set consisting of
      things named Frog and Toad
   the path consisting of
      the direction TO
      the goal consisting of
         the INSIDE of an identifiable instance of WATER
   the time consisting of
      an unidentified point in time preceding speech-time

Some Initial Thoughts on What Grammars Need

1. The syntactic and semantic structures will not in general be isomorphic.
2. Sentence and VP complements (subject, objects) or adjuncts refer to arguments of the relation which is the content of the sentence. Which refers to which is to some extent a property of the particular verb.
3. To represent 2, there is a need for structure sharing, pointers from one part of the structure to another. The structures we build will be directed acyclic graphs, not trees.
4. There is a need to make reference to the speaking context.

[L645 Syllabus]