Osborne (2019): A Dependency Grammar of English

This file formalizes the parts of the dependency grammar of [Osb19] that the English fragment lexicon supports. A verb's valency frame (sixth chapter) is a lexical property, read here off the argument roles of the fragment's basic frame, and the passive participle's frame is not listed but related to the active one by a shuffle of indices, the passive voice moving the active's participants, with the demoted subject an optional by-phrase (voiceValency_passive); an ergative verb's intransitive use suppresses the agent instead and has no by-phrase (voiceValency_anticausative). Trees over fragment words satisfy their frames, and a spurious or a missing object violates them. The catena (fourth chapter), any set of words connected by dominance, is the unit that constituents do not always match: every constituent is a catena, a head with one of its dependents is always a catena, and it is never a constituent when the head has another dependent, so a verb with its subject but not its object is a catena and not a constituent (IsConstituent.isCatena, isCatena_pair, not_isConstituent_pair); that is the material gapping elides (§12.7). Control and raising (§6.8, §6.9) share one basic tree, whose embedded verb lacks a subject; the enhanced graph adds the subject arc, which the basic tree cannot carry without ceasing to be a tree (hasUnrepresentedArg_enhance, Graph.not_isForest_enhance).

Implementation notes

The trees are Universal Dependencies graphs over fragment words after [Tes59], and the enhanced graph is the basic tree with the recovered subject arc added; the general lemmas live in the dependency-grammar substrate and are instantiated here on the fragment trees. The UD trees make the subject of a passive participle its dependent, where [Osb19]'s function-word-headed trees mark it with ↑ as a dependent of the finite auxiliary.

References

• [Osb19]
• [Tes59]

Words from the Fragment lexicon

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.john : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.john = English.Nouns.john.toWord

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.mary : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.mary = English.Nouns.mary.toWord

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.ball : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.ball = English.Nouns.ball.toWordSg

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.book : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.book = English.Nouns.book.toWordSg

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.pizza : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.pizza = English.Nouns.pizza.toWordSg

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.the_ : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.the_ = English.Determiners.the.toWord

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.was_ : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.was_ = English.Auxiliaries.was.toWord

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.by_ : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.by_ = English.Adpositions.by_.toWord

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.to_ : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.to_ = English.Adpositions.to_.toWord

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.sleeps : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.sleeps = English.Verbs.sleep.toWord English.Verbs.Verb.Cell.thirdSg

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.devours : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.devours = English.Verbs.devour.toWord English.Verbs.Verb.Cell.thirdSg

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.gives : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.gives = English.Verbs.give.toWord English.Verbs.Verb.Cell.thirdSg

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.kickedPass : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.kickedPass = English.Verbs.kick.passiveParticiple

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.givenPass : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.givenPass = English.Verbs.give.passiveParticiple

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.a_ : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.a_ = English.Determiners.a.toWord

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.manages : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.manages = English.Verbs.manage.toWord English.Verbs.Verb.Cell.thirdSg

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.persuaded : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.persuaded = English.Verbs.persuade.toWord English.Verbs.Verb.Cell.past

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.seems : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.seems = English.Verbs.seem.toWord English.Verbs.Verb.Cell.thirdSg

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.sleep_ : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.sleep_ = English.Verbs.sleep.toWord English.Verbs.Verb.Cell.base

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Osborne2019.run_ : Morphology.Word

Equations

• Osborne2019.run_ = English.Verbs.run.toWord English.Verbs.Verb.Cell.base

Valency frames from the Fragment (sixth chapter)

def Osborne2019.intransTree : DependencyGrammar.Graph 2

Equations

• Osborne2019.intransTree = DependencyGrammar.Graph.ofArcs [Osborne2019.john, Osborne2019.sleeps] 1 [(1, 0, UD.DepRel.nsubj)]

def Osborne2019.transTree : DependencyGrammar.Graph 3

Equations

• Osborne2019.transTree = DependencyGrammar.Graph.ofArcs [Osborne2019.john, Osborne2019.devours, Osborne2019.pizza] 1 [(1, 0, UD.DepRel.nsubj), (1, 2, UD.DepRel.obj)]

def Osborne2019.ditransTree : DependencyGrammar.Graph 4

Equations

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

def Osborne2019.intransWithObj : DependencyGrammar.Graph 3

*John sleeps book, an intransitive with a spurious object.

Equations

• Osborne2019.intransWithObj = DependencyGrammar.Graph.ofArcs [Osborne2019.john, Osborne2019.sleeps, Osborne2019.book] 1 [(1, 0, UD.DepRel.nsubj), (1, 2, UD.DepRel.obj)]

def Osborne2019.transNoObj : DependencyGrammar.Graph 2

*John devours, a transitive missing its object.

Equations

• Osborne2019.transNoObj = DependencyGrammar.Graph.ofArcs [Osborne2019.john, Osborne2019.devours] 1 [(1, 0, UD.DepRel.nsubj)]

The passive frame from the active frame (§6.6)

The passive participle's frame is not listed but related to the active frame by a shuffle of indices, (8): the active object is the subject and the active subject the optional object of by. The shuffle is the passive voice's links of its participants, and the by-phrase realizes the participant it denucleativizes. The intransitive use of an ergative verb, It opened, also makes the object the subject, but it suppresses the agent, and no by-phrase expresses it.

def Osborne2019.voiceValency (v : Voice) : DependencyGrammar.Valency

The valency of the construction a voice derives, its derived frame's valency and an optional by-phrase for each initial core term the voice denucleativizes.

Equations

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

theorem Osborne2019.voiceValency_passive : voiceValency English.Verbs.passive = DependencyGrammar.Valency.passiveTransitive

In (8a) the English passive has the subject and an optional by-phrase.

theorem Osborne2019.voiceValency_passive_np_np : voiceValency (Voice.passive ArgumentFrame.np_np) = [{ depType := UD.DepRel.nsubj, direction := HeadDirection.headFinal }, { depType := UD.DepRel.obj, direction := HeadDirection.headInitial }, { depType := UD.DepRel.obl, direction := HeadDirection.headInitial, required := false }]

In (8b) the passive of the double-object frame keeps the second object.

theorem Osborne2019.voiceValency_anticausative : English.Verbs.open_.Alternates Voice.anticausative ∧ voiceValency Voice.anticausative = DependencyGrammar.Valency.intransitive

Open alternates by the anticausative, whose valency has no by-phrase.

def Osborne2019.passiveTree : DependencyGrammar.Graph 4

The ball was kicked (by John) satisfies the participle's derived valency.

Equations

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def Osborne2019.longPassiveTree : DependencyGrammar.Graph 6

Equations

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

def Osborne2019.passiveWithObj : DependencyGrammar.Graph 6

*The ball was kicked the pizza, a passive with a leftover object.

Equations

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

def Osborne2019.ditransPassiveTree : DependencyGrammar.Graph 5

In Mary was given a book the passive of a double-object verb keeps its second object.

Equations

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

def Osborne2019.ditransPassiveNoObj : DependencyGrammar.Graph 3

*Mary was given, with the second object missing.

Equations

• Osborne2019.ditransPassiveNoObj = DependencyGrammar.Graph.ofArcs [Osborne2019.mary, Osborne2019.was_, Osborne2019.givenPass] 2 [(2, 0, UD.DepRel.nsubj), (2, 1, UD.DepRel.auxPass)]

Catenae against constituents (fourth chapter, §12.7)

In John devours pizza the verb with its subject is a catena, being a head with a dependent, but not a constituent, since the verb has another dependent; the whole clause and the object are constituents and therefore catenae. The verb with its subject is what gapping elides in John devours pizza and Mary wine.

Control and raising (§6.8, §6.9)

The basic tree of John manages to sleep, John persuaded Mary to run, and John seems to sleep leaves the embedded verb without a subject; control and raising differ thematically, not structurally. The enhanced graph recovers the subject arc, an argument relation the basic tree does not carry and cannot, since a second head breaks the tree.

def Osborne2019.subjControl : DependencyGrammar.Graph 4

Equations

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

def Osborne2019.objControl : DependencyGrammar.Graph 5

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

def Osborne2019.raising : DependencyGrammar.Graph 4

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