Appendix Signature of the basic fragment

sign

This is the basic linguistic type. A sign is a combination of (at least) form and meaning, i.e., phonological and semantic representation.

Features:

• PHON list(phonstring)
  The PHON list contains the phonological representation of a sign. For convenience, the orthographic form is used here. The PHON list of a word typically contains just one element. In a sentence, it contains as many elements as there are words in the sentence. We may have words with empty PHON lists, such as traces or some phonologically empty function words. In the text book, all words have a non-empty phonology.
• SYNSEM synsem
  The SYNSEM value contains the core syntactic and semantic (and pragmatic) information of a sign.
• LRS lrs

word

Features:

• ARG-ST list(synsem)

phrase

Principles:

• The PHON Principle links the PHON values of the daughters to that of the mother.

Features:

• DTRS list(sign)
  The D(augh)T(e)RS feature is used to encode a tree structure inside a feature structure.

headed-phrase

Principles:

• The Head Feature Principle has an effect on all headed phrases, ensuring that HEAD features are shared between a mother and its head daughter.
• The Immediate Dominance Schemata determine the internal shape of headed phrases.

Features:

• H-DTR sign

head-subject-phrase

The combination of a head and its subject is encoded in a head-subject-phrase. The Head-Subject Schema constraints what counts as a well-formed head-subject combination.

head-specifier-phrase

The combination of a head and its subject is encoded in a head-specifier-phrase. The Head-Specifier Schema constraints what counts as a well-formed head-specifier combination.

head-complement-phrase

The combination of a head and its subject is encoded in a head-complement-phrase. The Head-Complement Schema constraints what counts as a well-formed head-complement combination.

Features:

• H-DTR word

head-modifier-phrase

(not discussed in the textbook)

synsem

Features:

• LOC local
• NONLOC nonlocal

local

Features:

• CAT category
• CONT content
• CONTEXT context

category

Features:

• HEAD head
• VAL valence

context

The sort encodes pragmatic information. This is not dealt with in the textbook.

head

We only use a very limited number of subsorts of head and only very few head features in the textbook, compared to more syntactically oriented HPSG publications.

verb

Features:

• VFORM vform
• AUX boolean
• INV boolean

noun

Features:

• CASE case

preposition

Features:

• PFORM pform

adjective

Features:

• PRED boolean

valence

Features:

• SUBJ list(synsem)
• SPR list(synsem)
• COMPS list(synsem)

vform

There are the following subsorts of vform:

• fin(ite): for finite forms
• inf(initival): for infinitival to
• base: for the base form, as occurring in Alex might snore.
• prog(ressive): -ing form as in Alex was snoring
• ger(und): -ing form
• past-participle: active past participle as in Alex has snored.
• passive: passive participle as in The book was read.

case

English has only two case forms: nominative and accusative.

• nom(inative)
• acc(usative)

pform

Each preposition that can occur as an argument-marking preposition has one particular subsort of pform:

• to: as in talk to someone
• on: as in rely on someone
• for: as in wait for someone
• by: as in the passive: written by someone
• of: as in the destruction of the city

boolean

There are two subsorts of boolean:

• plus
• minus

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