Wechslers 19911995 Constraints on Role Ordering

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Wechslers (1991/1995) Constraints on Role
Ordering

• Morphosyntax-Semantics Interface in Lexicalist
  Theories SS 2004
• Presentation by Bettina Fromkorth
  (befr_at_coli.uni-sb.de)

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Overview

• Three constraints on role ordering
• 1.) based on semantic primitive notion
  (?Notion Rule)
• 2.) based on a part relation
• Being part or an event (?Nuklear Rule)
• Holding between co-arguments with verbs like
  contain or include (?PART Rule)

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Notions

• Theory of believe reports rooted in notions
  (Crimmis and Perry (1989))
• Underlying the semantic constraints on the
  argument structure of a broad class of verbs
• Psychological predicates (want, believe, like,
  hate)
• Perception verbs (see, hear...)
• Verbs of volitional action (murder ...)

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Refering to State of Affaires in External World

• Terminological equivalences
• Object of a belief
• Beliefs content
• Intentional content
• Representative content
• External content
• Holds iff the belief is correct.
• Two different beliefs can have the same
  proposition as content

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Theory of Belief

• Agents have beliefs.
• Beliefs have (normally) contents.
• Crimmins and Perry (1989) p. 689The relation B
  (a, b, t) holds of an agent, a belief and a time
  just in case b is a belief which belongs to the
  agent a at the time t and there is a partial
  function Content (b, s) which, for a belief b and
  time t at which b exists, yields the content of
  b.

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Internal Structure of BeliefsTerminology

• Concrete cognitive structures
• Constituents ideas
• Subtypes idea
• ideas of things (notions)
• ideas of properties and of relations
  (property-ideas)
• The things and properties that ideas are of are
  called contents of the idea

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Internal Structure of Beliefs

• The internal structure of a belief b is an
  ordered set consisting of a k-ary property idea
  and a sequence of k notionsStructure(b)
  ltIdeak, Notion1, ..., Notionkgt
• The content of the belief with structure at time
  t isContent(b,t) ltOf(Ideak,t),Of(Notion1,t),.
  ..,Of(Notionk,t)gtThe prepositional content of a
  belief (what a belief is about) is the
  proposition that the objects its notions are of
  stand in the relation its property-idea is of.

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Definitions of Relations Have and Conceive

• Have(A,n,t)?Exist. mM(A,m,t) Structure(m)
  lt...n...gtRelation holding between an agent A,
  a notion n, and a time t just in case A has the
  notion n at time t.
• CONCEIVES(A,x,t) ?Exist. nHave(A,n,t) Of(n,t)
  xRelation holding between an A,x, and t just
  in case A is an agent, who has at least one
  notion of x at time t.

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Recapitulating

• Cognitive Agents have notions.
• Notions are related to real things and real
  relations via Of function (partial function from
  notions to their contents.
• To give truth conditions for belief reports
  requires that one ascertain just which notions
  are involved in the beliefs being reported.

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Looking at Psych Verbs

• John wants the cat. ? John has a notion of the
  cat. ? The cat has a notion of John
• John likes Mary. ? John has a notion of Mary.
  ? Mary has a notion of John.

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Looking at Psych Verbs (2)

• John fears Mary. ? John has a notion of Mary.?
  Mary has a notion of John.
• John is expecting Fred.? John has a notion of
  Fred.? Fred has a notion of John.

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The Notion Rule

• ltlt CONCEIVE, agentx, entity.agent.has.a.notion.o
  fy,timet gtgt
• The Notion-Rulea lexical sign meeting this
  description is ill-formed REL R ROLES
  lt...ROLE1...ROLE2...gt ,
• if the following entailment holdsAll x,y bR
  (ROLE1y, ROLE2x) ?CONCEIVE(x,y)

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Perception Verbsappear (see)

• John saw the orange cat. ? John has a notion of
  the cat. ? The cat has a notion of John
• Appear SUBCAT ltNP1 ,PPto 2,gt ROLES lt
  Experiencer2r, THEME1gt
• La Mort est apparue à Jean dans ses rêves.The
  death has appeared to Jean in his-pl.
  dreamsDeath appeared to Jean in his/her dreams.

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appear

• La Mort lui est apparue dans ses rêves.The death
  him/her-DAT has appeared in his/her-pl.dreamsDea
  th appeared to him/her in his/her dreams.
• La Mort est apparue Jean dans ses rêves.
• La Mort lest apparue dans ses rêves.

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Volitional Action

• MurderOswald murdered Kennedy. ? Oswald had a
  notion of Kennedy. ? Kennedy had a notion of
  Oswald.
• ChaseFido is chasing Felix
• FleeFelix is fleeing Fido.

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Recapitulating (2)

• So far we looked at
• Mental states want, like,fear, expect...
• Perception see, hear, touch, smell...
• Volitional action murder, chase, flee...
• Coming up more examplesPsych Verbs like
  frighten, terrify ...

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Psych Verbs

• CIA agents/? Hailstorms terrorized the people.
• CIA agents/Hailstorms terrified the people.
• Neither verb violates the Notion-Rule.
• Eventive verbs of the frighten type describe the
  causation of a mental state, but not the
  Intentional content of the resultant state

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Psych Verbs continued

• Causative-inchoativeThe movie frightened John.
• In Verbs like fear, tell us the content, but not
  the cause. The movie frightened John does not
  entail John feared the movie
• The Notion-Rule would apply only if situations
  involving x frightening y necessarily involved y
  having a notion of x, which is not the case.

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Distinguishing Cause and Content

• The roles of cause and content are often played
  by the same entity but they are in fact distinct
  rules.
• The notion rule allows us to zero in on the
  crucial distinction between the two halves of
  flip verb pairs like please/like or
  frighten/fear.

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Examples Flip-Coin Verbs

• As manager of Macys department store, John has
  managed to please thousands of customers over the
  years most of whom do not know he exists.
• Thousands of customers like John, most of whom
  do not know he exist.

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When is having a notion required for stimulus
subject verbs?

• Only a small subset of stimulus subject verbs
  entail that the experiencer has a notion of the
  stimulus.
• Verbs that are obligatorily volitional and
  therefore covered by the Notion-Rule or
  optionally volitional and therefore not covered
  by the Notion-Rule (but in this case they are not
  counter examples)

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Stimulus-Subject VerbsViolating Notion-Rule

• Verbs that are obligatorily volitional are
  covered by the Notion-Rule.
• Verbs that are only optionally volitional they
  are not covered by it. They are no
  counter-examples since neither one of the
  arguments is entailed to have a notion of the
  other.
• concern, preoccupy
• For x to concern or preoccupy y it seems that y
  must have some notion of x.

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Examples (concern/preoccupy)

• Toxic waste concerns the Senator deeply he
  just happens to be unaware of its existence.
• The most recent massacre of defenseless
  civilians in the U.S. military was so brutal that
  it preoccupies even those who do not know that it
  occurred.
• John is trying hard to concern/preoccupy Mary,
  but she couldn't care less about him.

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Isomorphy Condition

• The mapping between unrestricted roles and
  complements in an order isomorphism,i.e., lines
  of association between unrestricted roles and
  complements filling them cannot cross. The
  linking shown in brackets violates this
  principal
• SUBCAT lt ...x2...y1...gt ROLES
  lt...-r1...-r2...gt

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Contractual Verbs (hire, marry)

• Hire and marry normally denote events involving
  two volitional agents, each with a notion of the
  other.
• If any strong cases of mutual conceiving can be
  found, then the solution would be to amend the
  Notion-Rule so that it allows symmetrical
  conceiving between subject and object but
  disallows one-way conceiving of the subject by
  the object.

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The Notion-Rule (revised)

• A lexical sign meeting this description is
  ill-formed
• REL R
• ROLES lt ...ROLE1...ROLE2...gt ,
• if the following holds
• All x,y bR(ROLE1y,ROLE2x) ?CONCEIVE(x,y)
  
• All x,y bR(ROLE1x,ROLE2y) ?CONCEIVE(x,y)

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Cause and Effect

• Looking at verbs which are never volitional
  (dont involve the Notion-Rule) that describe
  causal events and also exhibit semantic
  regularities in argument selection.
• The virus infected the organism.
• The organism metabolized the sugar.
• The acid dissolved the metal.
• The sponge absorbed the water.

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Kill / Melt

• Verbs that like kill, melt that dont necessarily
  denote a volitional action may be analyzed in two
  ways
• In terms of of the cause and effect of the
  denoted action (causal view) some participant is
  identified as the cause of the action, and then
  becomes the subject argument.
• Alternatively one might identify a participant
  as the one more affected by the action, and this
  participant is the object argument.

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Incremental Themes

• Dowty (1991)Incremental theme role since it
  changes state with the progression of the event.
• Krifka (1987) /Hinrichs (1985) mathematically
  precise treatment of incremental themes and
  related thematic roles by applying Links(1983)
  lattice-theoretic analysis of quantity to both
  object and events, and then defining systematic
  relations between them.

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Graduality (Instrumentality) of an Event

• If we let thematic roles be relations between
  object and events, then Krifkas (1987) algebraic
  relations can be used to model thematic role
  types.
• A thematic role R is gradual if whenever R(e,x)
  holds for an event e and object which is part of
  x such that R(e,x).

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Incremental Themes

• Dowty(1991) Incremental theme hood is one
  contributing property of the Patient Proto-Role,
  as part of the proto-role system
• Wechsler(1995) Incremental themes lie at the
  right-hand (low) end of the argument structure
  (non-incremental ones lie at the left-hand side)

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Adding Holistic Themes

• The sun blackened the raisins.
• The sun baked the bricks.
• John grew old.
• The light dimmed.
• Like incremental themes, holistic themes lie at
  the right-hand (low) side of the argument
  structure.
• For other predicates (kill) the change of state
  is not gradual but sudden.

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The Nuclear Rule

• All roles (that have to do with events) will be
  called nuclear roles, reflecting the fact that
  they are part of the aspectual nucleus of the
  event
• All lexical sign meeting this description is
  ill-formed
• RELN R ROLES lt...ROLE1...ROLE2...gt
  ,where ROLE1 is nuclear and ROLE2 is
  -nuclear
• dissolve ltAGENT, -nuclear, THEME,nucleargt

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Verbal Prefix re- in English

• The prefix re- takes scope over all nuclear
  arguments
• If re-S is a sentence like S but with re affixed
  to the verb, then re-S presupposes that a
  situation resembling the event denoted by S (or a
  subpart of that event) previously obtained.
• The situations resemble in such a way that all
  the participants with nuclear roles must be
  common to both.

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Path Accomplishments

• John reread the poem.
• Lacking a result state in the sense of a specific
  state built into the predicate which serves as a
  criterion for the action to be perfected.(also
  rerun, recross...)
• All the re-verbs involve a path either in space
  or along some more abstract dimension (text).
• Here it is sometimes the case (not always) that
  both participants are nuclear since it is the
  relative position of the two which changes
  incrementally as the event progresses.

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The Part Rule

• Covering stative verbs not involving notions
• This toothpaste contains sugar.
• The book includes an appendix
• The object participant is PART of the subject
  participant.
• Whenever the relation denoted by a verb with two
  arguments x and y necessarily involves x being a
  PART of y, then x cannot precede y in the roles
  list.

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The Part Rule (formalized)

• A lexical sign meeting this description is
  ill-formed
• RELN R ROLES lt...ROLE1...ROLE2...gt
  ,where the following lexical entailment
  holdsAll x,y bR(ROLE1y,ROLE2x) ?
  PART(WHOLEx,PARTy)

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Recapitulation Chapter 2

• We have seen the terminology behind the
  Notion-Rule working for
• Psychological predicates (want, believe, like,
  hate)
• Perception verbs (see, hear...)
• Verbs of volitional action (murder ...)
• Nuclear - Role with incremental themes
• Dissolve/Infect/metabolize/absorb
• Involving sudden changes (kill ...)
• Holistic themes (blacken, grow old, bake,...)
• Part Rule (contain/include)

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Oblique Complements

• Model of argument structure consisting of an
  ordered list of argument rolesROLES ltp1,...pngt
• Enhancing the minimal structure with a feature
  r for restricted or obligue roles
• Prepositions and co-predication
• Semantically restricted NP complements

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Dealing with object deletion

• Help the men load the trucks with hay.
• Help the men load the trucks.
• Help the men load hay.
• ()Help the men load with hay.
• () Help the men load onto the trucks.
• loadltagt, (th),(loc)gt
• In each case there is an implicational relation
  between the presence of the preposition and the
  presence of a certain argument of the verb.

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Co-predication

• The preposition makes its own object obligatory,
  and makes a particular co-complement obligatory
  as well.
• Syntactic requirements are being imposed by the
  preposition as well as the verb. It is not enough
  only to indicate optionality in the argument
  structure of each verb.
• Understanding these phenomena under an analysis
  of these prepositions as involving co-predication
  or argument-sharing (Gawron 1986).

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Indicating Co-predication

• load the truck with hayload ltagt, (thi) ,
  (locj)gt with lt locj , thi gt
• tell the story to the authoritiestell ltagt,
  (reci) , (thj)gt to lt reci , thj gt
• Feed the oatmeal to Leofeed ltagt, (reci) ,
  (thj)gt to lt reci , thj gt
• If the preposition and verb share an argument
  then either one may require that the argument be
  expressed.
• Prepositions have semantic content (Gawron 1986).

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Coordination Examples

• search/examine take a desiderative PPfor
• praise/condemn take a for-PP representing a cause
  or reason
• They will search and examine George for the
  letter.
• They will either praise or condemn George for the
  letter.
• They will either condemn or search George for
  the letter.

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Examples with desiderative and benefactive for

• ??Mikael longed and danced for des?/ben? the
  Princess of Muu.
• Mikael longed fordes and danced forben the
  Princess of Muu.
• I wrote this song for Lola. (benefactive)
• I wrote this song for money. (desiderative)
• I wrote this song for Lola and money. (desben)

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Lexical Entry for for(des)

• for(des)CAT HEAD prep SUBCAT ltNP1
  gtCONTENT REL desire ROLES ltDESIRER,
  DESIRED1gt
• Abbreviation Pfor desire lt desirer, desired gt

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Notation

• The Superscript r abbreviates the boolean
  feature RESTRICTED with the value , so that
  YEARNED.FORr abbreviates
• YEARNED.FOR RESTRICTED
• Restricted Linking Principle Any r role must
  be linked to a complement phrase with semantic
  content bearing the appropriate relation to the
  verbs semantic content.

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Restricted Linking Principle

• CAT Head verbCONTENT REL V-REL
  gt ROLES lt...V-ROLEr...gt
• CAT SUBCAT lt...XPP-Rellt...P-ROLE1 ......gt
  CONTENT ROLES lt...V-ROLE1r...gt
• where this entailment holdsAll x
  bV-REL(...V-ROLEx...) ? P-REL(...P-ROLEx...)
  

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Example Restricted Linking

• John donated/contributed/gave books to the
  library.
• donateROLES ltAGT,RECr, THgt
• to(recip)P(INT.CAUSE.REC lt agx, recy, thz gt)

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Example Restricted Linking (continued)

• Donate, send, etc.
• CAT HEAD verb SUBCAT lt NP1,NP 2,
  PPto3...gtCONTENT RELN R
  ROLESltAG1,REC3r, TH2gt
• Since All x,y,z SEND(agx,recy,thz) ?
  INT.CAUSE.REC(agx,recy,thz)

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Perception Verbsappear (see)

• John saw the orange cat. ? John has a notion of
  the cat. ? The cat has a notion of John
• Appear SUBCAT ltNP1 ,PPto 2,gt ROLES lt
  Experiencer2r, THEME1gt
• La Mort est apparue à Jean dans ses rêves.The
  death has appeared to Jean in his-pl.
  dreamsDeath appeared to Jean in his/her dreams.

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Cases of Idiosyncratic preposition selection

• Dan interested Mary in wolves.
• interestSUBCAT lt...PPin3...gtROLES lt
  AG1, EXP2, TH3 gt
• interestSUBCAT lt NP1, NP2, PPin3 gtROLES
  lt AG1, EXP2, TH3gt

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SummarizingLinking to PPs

• Verb roles are linked to PPs when
• (i) the verb roles are marked r and the verb
  meaning subsumes the head prepositions meaning
  (Restricted Linking Principle).
• (ii) a preposition is ideosyncratically selected
  by the verb to mark a given role (Isomorphy
  constraint).

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The Restricted Recepient NP

• Semantically restricted NP complements
• English verb subcat lists (XN)SUBCAT lt NP,
  (NPint.rec,) (PRT,) (NP,) XPgt
• NPint.rec abbreviates NPINT.REC lt agx,
  int.rexy, thz gt
• LP rule (Pollard and Sag 1987)COMPLEMENT1 lt
  COMPLEMENT2where COMPLEMENT1 is less oblique
  than COMPLEMENT2

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Recipient for and NPint.rec

• Recipient for and NPint.recINT.REC(x,y,z)
  holds between three individuals x,y, and z just
  in case x performs an action with the intention
  that y receive z.
• John baked a cake for Mary.
• All x,y,z BAKE(agx, recy, thz) ?
  INT.REC(agx, recy, thz)

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Restricted Linking Principle

• CAT Head verbCONTENT REL V-REL
  gt ROLES lt...V-ROLEr...gt
• CAT SUBCAT lt...XPP-Rellt...P-ROLE1 ......gt
  CONTENT ROLES lt...V-ROLE1r...gt
• where this entailment holdsAll x
  bV-REL(...V-ROLEx...) ? P-REL(...P-ROLEx...)
  

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Recipient to

• Recipient to
• INT.CAUSE.REC(x,y,z,e) holds between three
  individuals x, y, and z just in case x performs
  an action with the intention that an action cause
  y to receive z.
• John mailed a cake to Mary
• All x,y,z GIVE(agx, recy, thz)?
  INT.CAUSE.REC(agx,recy, thz)
• All x,y,z GIVE(agx, recy, thz)?
  INT.REC(agx,recy, thz)

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Give Examples

• John gave the children the books.giveSUBCAT lt
  NP1, NPint.rec2, NP3gtROLES lt AG1,
  REC2r, TH3 gt
• John gave the books to the children.giveSUBCAT
  lt NP1, NP3, PPto2gtROLES lt AG1,
  REC2r, TH3 gt

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Final Recapitulation

• First Part
• Notion Rule
• Nuclear Rule
• Part Rule
• Second Part Restricted Linking Principle
• Prepositions and co-predicationsPPs have
  semantic content
• Semantically restricted NP complements

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Bibliography

• Crimmins, Mark 1989. The Prince and the Phone
  Booth Reporting Puzzling Beliefs. The Journal
  of Philosophy, vl.86, no. 12.pp. 685-711.
• Wechsler, Stephen 1991. Argument Structure And
  Linking. StanfordUMI.
• Wechsler, Stephen 1995. The Semantic Basis of
  Argument Structure. Stanford CSLI Publications.
  Series Dissertations in Linguistics, Joan
  Bresnan, Sharon Inkelas, William J. Poser, and
  Peter Sells (eds.).