Grammatical Relations and Lexical Functional Grammar

Grammar Formalisms Spring Term 2004

Grammatical Relations
Subject
Sam ate a sandwich. A sandwich was eaten by Sam.

Direct object
Sam ate a sandwich. Sue gave Sam a book. Sue gave a book to Sam.

Others that we will define later

Grammatical Relations in Grammar Formalisms

Tree Adjoining Grammar:
Subject is defined structurally: first NP daughter under S Object is defined structurally: NP that is a sister to V But TAG output can be mapped to a dependency grammar tree that includes subject and object.

Categorial Grammar:
Grammatical relations are defined structurally if at all.

Head Driven Phrase Structure Grammar:

Subject is defined indirectly as the first element on the verbs subcategorization list.

Lexical Functional Grammar:

Grammatical relations are labelled explicitly in a feature structure.

Motivation for Grammatical Relations: Subject-Verb Agreement

Sam likes sandwiches. *Sam like sandwiches. The boys like sandwiches. *The boys likes sandwiches.

Hypothesis 1: The verb agrees with the agent. Hypothesis 2: The verb agrees with the first NP. Hypothesis 3: The verb agrees with the NP that is a sister of VP. Hypothesis 4: The verb agrees with the subject.
Vacuous unless we have a definition or test for subjecthood.

Checking the hypotheses

Hypothesis 1:
Can you think of a counterexample in English.?

Hypothesis 2:
Can you think of a counterexample in English? Can you think of a counterexample in another language that has subject-verb agreeement?
(not Japanese or Chinese)

Some differences between English and Warlpiri (Australia)

S VP

NP
Aux The two small children V

VP
NP

are chasing that dog. S

NP
Wita-jarra-rlu Small-DU-ERG

AUX

NP

NP

NP

ka-pala wajili-pi-nyi yalumpu kurdu-jarra-rlu maliki. pres-3duSUBJ chase-NPAST that.ABS child-DU-ERG dog.ABS

Some Definitions
Case marking: different word form depending on the grammatical relation:
She ate a sandwich. (nominative case marking: subject) *Her ate a sandwich. Sam saw her. (accusative or objective case marking: object) *Sam saw she.

Ergative case marking:

Marks the subject, but only if the verb is transitive (has a direct object).

Absolutive case marking:

Marks the subject, but only if the verb is intransitive. Also marks the direct object.

English has nominative and accusative case markers on pronouns. English does not have ergative or absolutive case marking.

Possible word orders in Warlpiri that are not possible in English

*The two small are chasing that children dog. *The two small are dog chasing that children. *Chasing are the two small that dog children. *That are children chasing the two small dog.

Checking the hypotheses

Hypothesis 2:
Does it work for Warlpiri?

Hypothesis 3:
Does it work for Warlpiri?

English and Warlpiri Under Hypothesis 3

S VP NP VP Deep structure

Aux
English S

NP

VP NP Aux V VP NP

Surface Structure

English and Warlpiri under Hypothesis 3

S NP VP VP

Aux
Warlpiri
S NP S AUX S S

NP

Deep structure

NP

NP NP

VP
VP Aux
e e e

Surface Structure

NP
e

English and Warlpiri under Hypothesis 3

S NP VP VP
Deep structure

Aux
Warlpiri
S NP S AUX S S

NP
Adjunctions: represent the real word order Remnants of the original tree represent gramamtical relations

NP

NP NP

VP
VP Aux
e

NP
e

Empty categories: represent semantic roles

e e

Surface Structure

English and Warlpiri under Hypothesis 4

English S NP
Constituent structure: represents word order and grouping of words into constituents Functional structure: represents grammatical relations and semantic roles Subject two small children chase agent theme that dog

VP VP

Predicate

Aux

NP
Object

Warlpiri
NP

S
Aux V NP NP NP

English and Warlpiri under Hypothesis 4

English S NP
Constituent structure: represents word order and grouping of words into constituents Functional structure: represents gramamtical relations and semantic roles Subject two small children chase agent theme that dog

VP VP

Predicate

Aux

NP
Object

Warlpiri
NP

S
Aux V NP

Mapping from c-structure to fstructure

NP

NP

English and Warlpiri under Hypothesis 4

English S NP
Constituent structure: represents word order and grouping of words into constituents Functional structure: represents gramamtical relations and semantic roles Subject two small children chase agent theme that dog

VP VP

Predicate

Aux
Mapping from c-structure to f-structure

NP
Object

Warlpiri
NP

S
Aux V NP NP NP

Keeping Score
Hypothesis 3: One structure contains a mish-mash of word order, constituency, grammatical relations, and thematic roles Adjunctions Empty categories and invisible constituents Hypothesis 4: Need an extra data structure for grammatical relations and semantic roles Need a mapping between c-structure and f-structure Need a reproducible, falsifiable definition of grammatical relations.

Levels of Representation in LFG

[s [np The bear] [vp ate [np a sandwich]]] SUBJ Agent Eat < agent SUBJ S NP SUBJ V PRED eat patient > OBJ VP NP OBJ OBJ patient lexical mapping constituent structure Grammatical encoding functional structure Lexical mapping thematic roles

VP
V PP OBL

Grammatical Encoding
For English!!!

A surprise
Syntax is not about the form (phrase structure) of sentences. It is about how strings of words are associated with their semantic roles.
Phrase structure is only part of the solution.

Sam saw Sue

Sam: perceiver Sue: perceived

Surprise (continued)
Syntax is also about how to tell that two sentences are thematic paraphrases of each other (same phrases filling the same semantic roles).
It seems that Sam ate the sandwich. It seems that the sandwich was eaten by Sam. Sam seems to have eaten the sandwich. The sandwich seems to have been eaten by Sam.

How to associate phrases with their semantic roles in LFG

Starting from a constituent structure tree: Grammatical encoding tells you how to find the subject.
The bear is the subject.

Lexical mapping tells you what semantic role the subject has.
The subject is the agent. Therefore, the bear is the agent.

Levels of Representation in LFG

[s [np The sandwich ] [vp was eaten [pp by the bear]]] constituent structure

Grammatical encoding SUBJ patient Eat < agent OBL S NP SUBJ V PRED eat patient > SUBJ VP NP OBJ OBL agent lexical mapping functional structure Lexical mapping thematic roles

VP
V PP OBL

Grammatical Encoding
For English!!!

Active and Passive

Active:
Patient is mapped to OBJ in lexical mapping.

Passive
Patient is mapped to SUBJ in lexical mapping.

Notice that the grammatical encodings are the same for active and passive sentences!!!

Passive mappings
Starting from the constituent structure tree. The grammatical encoding tells you that the sandwich is the subject. The lexical mapping tells you that the subject is the patient.
Therefore, the sandwich is the patient.

The grammatical encoding tells you that the bear is oblique. The lexical mapping tells you that the oblique is the agent.
Therefore, the bear is the agent.

How you know that the active and passive have the same meaning
In both sentences, the mappings connect the bear to the agent role. In both sentences, the mappings connect the sandwich to the patient role (roll?) In both sentences, the verb is eat.

Levels of Representation in LFG

[s-bar [np what ] [s did [np the bear] eat ]] constituent structure

Grammatical encoding OBJ patient Eat < agent SUBJ S-bar NP S OBJ SUBJ agent patient > OBJ PRED eat functional structure Lexical mapping thematic roles

lexical mapping

S
NP SUBJ V

VP
PP OBL

Grammatical Encoding
For English!!!

Wh-question
Different grammatical encoding:
In this example, the OBJ is encoded as the NP immediately dominated by S-bar

Same lexical mappings are used for:

What did the bear eat? The bear ate the sandwich.

Functional Structure
SUBJ PRED bear NUM sg PERS 3 DEF + eat< agent patient > SUBJ OBJ past PRED sandwich NUM sg PERS 3 DEF -

PRED TENSE OBJ

Functional Structure
Pairs of attributes (features) and values
Attributes (in this example): SUBJ, PRED, OBJ, NUM, PERS, DEF, TENSE Values:
Atomic: sg, past, +, etc. Feature structure: [num sg, pred `bear, def +, person 3] Semantic form: eat<subj ob>, bear, sandwich

Semantic Forms
Why are they values of a feature called PRED?
In some approaches to semantics, even nouns like bear are predicates (function) that take one argument and returns true or false. Bear(x) is true when the variable x is bound to a bear. Bear(x) is false when x is not bound to a bear.

Why is it called a Functional Structure?

X squared 1 1 Each feature has a unique value.

2 4
3 4 5 features 9 16 25 values

Also, another term for grammtical relation is grammatical function.

We will use the terms functional structure, f-structure and feature structure interchangeably.

Give a name to each function

f1 SUBJ PRED bear NUM sg f2 PERS 3 DEF + PRED eat< agent patient > SUBJ OBJ TENSE past OBJ PRED sandwich NUM sg f3 PERS 3 DEF -

How to describe an f-structure

F1(TENSE) = past
Function f1 applied to TENSE gives the value past.

F1(SUBJ) = [PRED bear, NUM sg, PERS 3, DEF +] F2(NUM) = sg

Descriptions can be true or false

F(a) = v
Is true if the feature-value pair [a v] is in f. Is false if the feature-value pair [a v] is not in f.

This is the notation we really use

(f1 TENSE) = past Read it this way: f1s tense is past. (f1 SUBJ) = [PRED bear, NUM sg, PERS 3, DEF +] (f2 NUM) = sg

Chains of function application

(f1 SUBJ) = f2 (f2 NUM) = sg ((f1 SUBJ) NUM) = sg Write it this way. (f1 SUBJ NUM) = sg Read it this way. f1s subjects number is sg.

More f-descriptions
(f a) = v
f is something that evaluates to a function. a is something that evaluates to an attribute. v is something that evaluates to a function, symbol, or semantic form.

(f1 subj) = (f1 xcomp subj)

Used for matrix coding as subject. A subject is shared by the main clause and the complement clause (xcomp).

(f1 (f6 case)) = f6

Used for obliques

SUBJ

PRED

S NP VP

TENSE VFORM XCOMP

PRED lion NUM pl PERS 3 seem < theme > SUBJ XCOMP pres fin SUBJ [ ] VFORM INF PRED live< theme loc >
SUBJ OBL-loc OBJ

VP-bar
OBL-loc

COMP VP V P DET PP NP N

CASE PRED OBJ

OBL-loc in<OBJ> PRED forest NUM sg PERS 3 DEF +

Lions seem to live in the forest

SUBJ

f1
PRED

f2

S n1
n2

NP

VP

n4

TENSE VFORM XCOMP

PRED lion NUM pl PERS 3 seem < theme > SUBJ XCOMP pres fin SUBJ [ ] f3 VFORM INF PRED live< theme loc >
SUBJ OBL-loc OBJ

n3

n5

VP-bar
COMP VP V
n9

n6

f4
n7 n8

OBL-loc

CASE PRED OBJ

f5 PP P
n11 n10

f6

OBL-loc in<OBJ> PRED forest NUM sg PERS 3 DEF +

NP DET
n14

n12 n13

Lions seem to live in the forest

SUBJ

f1
PRED

f2

S n1
n2

NP

VP

n4

TENSE VFORM XCOMP

PRED lion NUM pl PERS 3 seem < theme > SUBJ XCOMP pres fin SUBJ [ ] f3 VFORM INF PRED live< theme loc >
SUBJ OBL-loc OBJ

n3

n5

VP-bar
COMP VP V
n9

n6

f4
n7 n8

OBL-loc

CASE PRED OBJ

f5 PP P
n11 n10

f6

OBL-loc in<OBJ> PRED forest NUM sg PERS 3 DEF +

NP DET
n14

n12 n13

Lions seem to live in the forest