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Re: summary from last week's meeting (fwd)
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To: anoop@linc.cis.upenn.edu, beth@linc.cis.upenn.edu, bhatt@linc.cis.upenn.edu, cdoran@linc.cis.upenn.edu, chunghye@BABEL.ling.upenn.edu, fxia@gradient.cis.upenn.edu, izvorski@BABEL.ling.upenn.edu, jason2@linc.cis.upenn.edu, jmacdoug@central.cis.upenn.edu, josephr@linc.cis.upenn.edu, joshi@linc.cis.upenn.edu, kimanzi@seas.upenn.edu, kipper@gradient.cis.upenn.edu, kvenit@central.cis.upenn.edu, lebeaux@research.nj.nec.com, merlo@linc.cis.upenn.edu, mickeyc@linc.cis.upenn.edu, mpalmer@linc.cis.upenn.edu, nari@linc.cis.upenn.edu, prolo@gradient.cis.upenn.edu, rjprasad@BABEL.ling.upenn.edu, schuler@gradient.cis.upenn.edu, siegel@BABEL.ling.upenn.edu, skulick@linc.cis.upenn.edu, spc@gradient.cis.upenn.edu, srini@linc.cis.upenn.edu, tbleam@linc.cis.upenn.edu, timf@linc.cis.upenn.edu, tsmorton@gradient.cis.upenn.edu, vshanker@linc.cis.upenn.edu
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Subject: Re: summary from last week's meeting (fwd)
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From: Tonia Bleam <tbleam@linc.cis.upenn.edu>
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Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1998 13:02:44 -0400 (EDT)
Here are some additional comments from Carlos.
Although I initiallly proposed that small clauses (SC) don't use <passive>
(as it is currently), I raised the point of whether raising verbs in
the past participle can anchor SC trees to form perfect constructions:
John had seemed tired. Has John seemed happy ?
Currently they can't (at least syn db doesn't have ppart entry for seem and
appear), but the answer in the meeting (I think) was "yes" they should be
allowed. Hence we have to include <passive> in SC to block "was seemed". Right?
As for wiping out the features from the lexicon, yes, that's the idea. But
only when/if we are very certain. It's easier to change the grammar than
the lexicon. As Tonia said it requires care and maybe more discussion.
BTW, what about
"By this time, tomorrow, John will be having completed half
a century of existence"
Does this sound good or not ? If "be" can't really take perfective
constructions than we have new data and as Tonia suggested <perfect> would
be used to block, with the proper additions to the lexicon.
One last thing to think about. There's nothing to force us to be minimal
w.r.t. the number of features. We may conclude that all the five features
are sound and independently motivated, even if not stricly independent in
a more "mathematical" sense (i.e. we MIGHT handle everything without some).
However, if we decide for that, then I think ALL the auxiliary entries in the
lexicon should tell about their status w.r.t. the features (i.e. not only
to guarantee blocking as last recourse). Again, topic for discussion.
Carlos