[KF99]: What's X Doing Y?

"Grammatical Constructions and Linguistic Generalizations: The What's X doing Y? Construction" (Language 75(1):1–33). WXDY has interrogative form but expressive function on the incredulity reading; the form–function mismatch is derived rather than stipulated: the literal reading is a genuine question (speaker-ignorance satisfies the PerspP presupposition), the incredulity reading a blocked one (speaker knowledge contradicts it), with the presupposed proposition and the incongruity CI typed via PartialProp/TwoDimProp. §2.3's morphosyntactic judgments are derived by running the licensing recognizer over minimal-pair tokens.

The paper's own inheritance hierarchy — WXDY inheriting from the left-isolation, subject–aux-inversion, and wh-interrogative constructions of its unification-based grammar — is recorded here only as prose; assembling it as a checked network awaits verification of the paper's figures.

Main declarations

• KayFillmore1999.wxdyConstruction: the construction, typed form per Figure 12
• KayFillmore1999.wxdy_rejects_bare_stem (and companions): §2.3's morphosyntactic judgments derived by the licensing recognizer
• KayFillmore1999.perspP_disambiguates_wxdy: the two readings derived
• KayFillmore1999.wxdyPresup, wxdyTwoDim: typed pragmatics

The construction

def KayFillmore1999.wxdyConstruction : ConstructionGrammar.Construction Unit

The WXDY construction, as the flat projection of Figure 12's hierarchical AVM: X and Y share a coreference index (coinstantiation, Figure 13); WXDY-what is left-isolated ([loc -]) and nonreferential ([ref ∅]); doing cannot be negated ([neg -] — a stipulation the paper reports being unable to deduce, §4.6). X is constrained semantically, as a referential argument of the predicate Y (§4.7), and Y is a predicate phrase of any category.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

Coreference (Figure 12)

theorem KayFillmore1999.wxdy_coreference_count : ConstructionGrammar.refGroupCount wxdyConstruction.form = 1

WXDY's form has exactly one coreference group: the X–Y coinstantiation.

theorem KayFillmore1999.wxdy_coinstantiation : ((List.head? wxdyConstruction.form).bind fun (x : ConstructionGrammar.Slot String) => x.refIdx) = some 2 ∧ ((List.getLast? wxdyConstruction.form).bind fun (x : ConstructionGrammar.Slot String) => x.refIdx) = some 2

X (the first slot) and Y (the last slot) share a coreference index: X is the understood subject of the Y predicate.

Morphosyntactic constraints derived (§2.3)

The paper's idiosyncratic constraints, run through the licensing recognizer: tokens are daughter sequences in the AVM slot order (X, BE, doing, what, Y), with lemma-level words.

def KayFillmore1999.wxdyPOS : String → Option UD.UPOS

POS assignments for the fixed heads.

Equations

• KayFillmore1999.wxdyPOS "be" = some UD.UPOS.AUX
• KayFillmore1999.wxdyPOS "doing" = some UD.UPOS.VERB
• KayFillmore1999.wxdyPOS x✝ = none

def KayFillmore1999.scratchTokens : List ConstructionGrammar.Token

Ex. 3a, "What's this scratch doing on the table?".

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def KayFillmore1999.stativeTokens : List ConstructionGrammar.Token

Ex. 14a, "What's he doing knowing the answer?" — a stative complement.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def KayFillmore1999.bareStemTokens : List ConstructionGrammar.Token

Ex. 12a, "What does this scratch do on the table?" (ungrammatical): bare-stem do.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def KayFillmore1999.nonCopulaTokens : List ConstructionGrammar.Token

Ex. 13a, "What did he keep doing in the tool shed?" — doing as complement of keep rather than of copular BE; a fine sentence, but not an instance of the construction.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def KayFillmore1999.whatElseTokens : List ConstructionGrammar.Token

Ex. 15f, "What else are you doing eating cold pizza?" (ungrammatical): else on WXDY-what.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def KayFillmore1999.negatedDoingTokens : List ConstructionGrammar.Token

Ex. 17b, "What are my brushes not doing soaking in water?" (ungrammatical): negated doing.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def KayFillmore1999.negatedComplementTokens : List ConstructionGrammar.Token

Ex. 17c, "What are my brushes doing not soaking in water?": negation inside the complement.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

theorem KayFillmore1999.wxdy_matches_canonical : ConstructionGrammar.formMatches wxdyPOS wxdyConstruction.form scratchTokens = true ∧ ConstructionGrammar.formMatches wxdyPOS wxdyConstruction.form stativeTokens = true

The construction licenses the canonical example (ex. 3a) and stative complements (ex. 14a): WXDY does not encode progressive aspect.

theorem KayFillmore1999.wxdy_rejects_bare_stem : ConstructionGrammar.formMatches wxdyPOS wxdyConstruction.form bareStemTokens = false

The present participle is frozen: bare-stem do is rejected (ex. 12a).

theorem KayFillmore1999.wxdy_rejects_non_copula : ConstructionGrammar.formMatches wxdyPOS wxdyConstruction.form nonCopulaTokens = false

doing must complement copular BE (ex. 13): keep doing is not an instance of the construction.

theorem KayFillmore1999.wxdy_rejects_what_else : ConstructionGrammar.formMatches wxdyPOS wxdyConstruction.form whatElseTokens = false

WXDY-what does not accept else (ex. 15f): the what slot is lexically fixed.

theorem KayFillmore1999.wxdy_negation_contrast : ConstructionGrammar.formMatches wxdyPOS wxdyConstruction.form negatedDoingTokens = false ∧ ConstructionGrammar.formMatches wxdyPOS wxdyConstruction.form negatedComplementTokens = true

Negation of doing is rejected by [neg -] (ex. 17b), while negation inside the complement is licensed (ex. 17c).

Coinstantiation (Figure 13, §4.2)

def KayFillmore1999.coinstantiationForm : ConstructionGrammar.TypedForm String

The coinstantiation construction (Figure 13): unifies the intrinsic value of an unfulfilled valence requirement of a predicator with the subject requirement of its controlled complement, covering both raising and control. It figures twice in every WXDY clause — the flat rendering here unifies a predicator's subject with its complement's subject via a shared refIdx.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

theorem KayFillmore1999.coinstantiation_specificity : ConstructionGrammar.derivedSpecificity coinstantiationForm = ConstructionGrammar.Specificity.fullyAbstract

Coinstantiation is fully abstract: every slot is open.

theorem KayFillmore1999.coinstantiation_coreference : ConstructionGrammar.refGroupCount coinstantiationForm = 1

Coinstantiation carries exactly one coreference group (predicator subject = complement subject).

Formal idiomhood

theorem KayFillmore1999.wxdy_formal_idiom : wxdyConstruction.IsFormalIdiom

WXDY is a formal idiom: the X and Y slots are open.

theorem KayFillmore1999.wxdy_partially_open : wxdyConstruction.specificity = ConstructionGrammar.Specificity.partiallyOpen

WXDY is properly partial: BE, doing, and what are fixed while X and Y are open.

Presupposition (§2.1)

def KayFillmore1999.wxdyPresup {W : Type u_1} (embeddedProp : W → Prop) : Semantics.Presupposition.PartialProp W

The incredulity reading presupposes the embedded proposition and has trivial assertion: ex. 4's diner presupposes that there is a fly in the soup — the point of the utterance is the incongruity judgment.

Equations

• KayFillmore1999.wxdyPresup embeddedProp = { presup := embeddedProp, assertion := fun (x : W) => True }

Two-dimensional semantics (§2.2, §4.6)

def KayFillmore1999.wxdyTwoDim {W : Type u_1} (embeddedProp incongruity : W → Prop) : Pragmatics.Expressives.TwoDimProp W

The incredulity reading as a two-dimensional meaning: the embedded proposition at issue, the incongruity judgment as a CI. The incongruity is conventional, not conversationally implicated (§2.2, exx. 7–10).

Equations

• KayFillmore1999.wxdyTwoDim embeddedProp incongruity = Pragmatics.Expressives.TwoDimProp.withCI embeddedProp incongruity

theorem KayFillmore1999.wxdy_incongruity_survives_negation {W : Type u_1} (embeddedProp incongruity : W → Prop) : (wxdyTwoDim embeddedProp incongruity).neg.ci = incongruity

Negating a WXDY utterance cannot target the incongruity judgment (§4.6, exx. 38–41): the CI survives negation of the at-issue content.

The two readings (§2.1)

def KayFillmore1999.wxdyIncredulitySpeakerModel {W : Type u_1} (w : W) : Minimalist.LeftPeriphery.EpistemicModel W

The speaker's epistemic state on the incredulity reading: the answer is known (ex. 4's diner sees the fly), modeled as a veridical epistemic model at the evaluation world.

Equations

• KayFillmore1999.wxdyIncredulitySpeakerModel w = Minimalist.LeftPeriphery.veridicalModel w

theorem KayFillmore1999.perspP_disambiguates_wxdy {W : Type u_1} (q : QUD W) (w : W) : Minimalist.LeftPeriphery.perspPPresupComp (wxdyIncredulitySpeakerModel w) q w = false ∧ Minimalist.LeftPeriphery.perspPPresupComp Minimalist.LeftPeriphery.ignorantModel q w = true

PerspP status separates the two readings of ex. 4: with a veridical speaker model (incredulity) the PerspP ignorance presupposition fails and the utterance is not a genuine question; with an ignorant speaker model (the literal reading) it is satisfied.