Regarding trying underspecify PP attachment:

oe: Only PPs in VPs can be a directional complement. Once an adjunct is there, then any following PP can’t be a directional complement. => supports the analysis of directional PPs as complements.

• I threw the boxes into the basement in the summer house.
• I threw the boxes in the basement into the summer house.
• I threw the model road into Rome into the basement.

Dan: I threw those boxes already last Thursday into the basement. : can get the interleaving, but it’s intonationally marked.

oe: Might be able to recognize which adjuncts can do that.

• He slipped quietly into the room.
• ?He slipped on tiptoes into the room.
• ??He slipped on Tuesday into the most heavily guarded room in the palace.
• He slipped quietly into the most heavily guarded room in the palace.

Woodley: Any more marked than the blue big dog barked

Dan: I don’t think we’re doing science anymore if we’re talking about degrees of markedness and strangeness.

oe: Main point of these examples is that they are interactions where the syntax constrains the range of interpretations; one of the things we put on the design principles.

Interface representation should include all information that is constrained by the grammar

Woodley: You were hinting at another design principle a few minutes ago … but not remembering it now.

Editor’s note: This topic comes up again and is basically dismissed in [TheAbbey/Chrysais2014Arity|the arity discussion].

Last update: 2014-02-16 by StephanOepen [edit]