Verb selectional restrictions

Although we explicitly do not want to model semantics in the XTAG grammar, there is some work along the syntax/semantics interface that would help reduce syntactic ambiguity and thus decrease the number of semantically anomalous parses. In particular, verb selectional restrictions, particularly for PP arguments and adjuncts, would be quite useful. With the exception of the required to in the Ditransitive with PP Shift tree family (Tnx0Vnx1Pnx2), any preposition is allowed in the tree families that have prepositions as their arguments. In addition, there are no restrictions as to which prepositions are allowed to adjoin onto a given verb. The sentences in ((506))-((508)) are all currently accepted by the XTAG grammar. Their violations are stronger than would be expected from purely semantic violations, however, and the presence of verb selectional restrictions on PP's would keep these sentences from being accepted.

(505)0(505

(506)

#survivors walked of the street .  (506)0(506

(507)

#The man about the earthquake survived .  (507)0(507

(508)

#The president arranged on a meeting .