Adding Pronoun Constraints to a Grammar: Verbs and Pronouns

1
Adding Pronoun Constraints to a Grammar Verbs
and Pronouns

• Present tense verbs occur in two forms
• singular eats
• plural eat
• only exception is be, which has a third form,
  I am
• Pronouns differ in person, number, and case
• singular plural
• nominative accusative nominative
  accusative
• 1st person I me we us
• 2nd person you you you you
• 3rd person he, she, it him, her, it they
  them

2
Constraints to be Captured

• 3rd person singular pronouns in subject
  positionoccur with singular verb forms
• He eats. He eat.
• other pronouns in subject position occur with
  plural verb forms
• I eat. I eats. They eat. They eats.
• ignore special case of be
• JM treats do as aux, so must include number
  agreement for aux
• nominative pronouns occur in subject position
• I eat. Me eat.
• accusative pronouns occur in object position and
  in PPs
• Fred met him. Fred met he.
• Fred gave a letter to him. Fred gave a letter
  to he.

3
Split NP

• NP ? Pronoun
• becomes
• NP-nom-sing ? Pron-nom-sing
• Pron-nom-sing ? he she it
• NP-nom-pl ? Pron-nom-pl
• Pron-nom-pl ? I you we they
• NP-acc ? Pron-acc
• Pron-acc ? me you him her it
  us them
• (ignore number agreement for nouns)

4
Split VP

• VP ? Verb Verb NP Verb NP PP
  Verb PP Verb S Verb to VP VP and VP
• becomes
• VP-sing ? Verb-sing Verb-sing NP-acc
  Verb-sing NP-acc PP Verb-sing PP
  Verb-sing S Verb-sing to VP VP-sing and
  VP-sing
• VP-pl ? Verb-pl Verb-pl NP-acc Verb-pl
  NP-acc PP Verb-pl PP Verb-pl S Verb-pl
  to VP VP-pl and VP-pl
• VP ? VP-sing VP-pl

5
Require Accusative in other Object Positions

• PP ? Preposition NP-acc
• GerundVP ? GerundV GerundV NP-acc GerundV
  PP GerundV NP-acc PP

6
Enforce Number Agreement

• S ? NP VP Aux NP VP Wh-NP Aux NP VP ...
• becomes
• S ? NP-nom-sing VP-sing NP-nom-pl VP-pl
  Aux-sing NP-nom-sing VP Aux-pl NP-nom-pl
  VP Wh-NP Aux-sing NP-sing VP Wh-NP Aux-pl
  NP-pl VP ...