====================================================================== Elements of my grammar which contribute information about discourse status and how they were implemented ====================================================================== Malayalam contains overt personal pronouns, and I have lexical entries for I, you, he, she, and I added one for who. These have all been specified to have a COG-ST value of activ-or-more. The other determiner types I've specified in my lexicon are: a [oru] which is similar to an english indefinite marker, so I assigned it type-id. this and that [ii and aa] are demonstrative determiners, so I assigned them COG-ST active+fam. many and all [valare and ellaam] I assigned COG-ST uniq-id So far I haven't implemented any constraints based on the COG-ST value, since I don't have examples of how sentences are limited by these features. I don't think Malayalam has nominal inflection associated with these. ====================================================================== How Malayalam expresses demonstratives, and how that was implemented ====================================================================== Malayalam includes 2 demonstrative adjectives: proximate (ii) remote (aa) These forms don't change for number. They precede the noun they are modifying such as in the following examples: kutatauyutae aa peena [that pen of the child] aa kutatauyutae peena [that child's pen] or even aa kutatauyutae aa peena [that pen of that child's] Since these simply precede the noun they modify, and they don't change form for person, number or gender, I've implemented these as determiners with a COG-ST value of active+fam. ====================================================================== How does Malayalam use optional arguments including glossed examples ====================================================================== Malayalam is a pro-drop language, in which the subject, direct object, or indirect object of a verb can be dropped if the meaning can be understood from context. Dropped subjects are most common, and there are many examples of these. visaakkunnu (I) feel-hungry pustakam meesaameel veccu (He) book table-on put-PAST He put the book on the table Many of the examples of dropped objects are in the form of questions, where the question doesn't necessarily include elements that refer to matters already understood. ennx kotauttu when (did he) give (them) aarkkx veenaam who wants (it) And even though I found several references to the fact that the indirect object may be dropped, none of the books I have included an example, so I don't have a case for that in the test suite. ====================================================================== What lexical types were introduced to account for the argument optionality pattern. (And how were lexical entries changed.) ====================================================================== The dropped subject were easily handled by adding the instance of basic-head-opt-subj-phrase to rules.tdl. I don't think that there are any verb which can't drop their subject in Malayalam, so I didn't add any restrictions to this. For dropped object, the example sentences I have are questions, for which the subject is dative case. I have several different verb types, one of which is a transitive verb which takes a dative subject: transitive-subjdat-verb-lex. I split that into 2 types: transitive-subjdat-objyes-verb-lex and transitive-subjdat-objopt-verb-lex transitive-subjdat-objyes-verb-lex has [OPT -] on its complement. transitive-subjdat-objopt-verb-lex has no extra restrictions on its comps. The lexical entry for want-FUT was changed to derive from transitive-subjdat-objopt-verb-lex. ====================================================================== How to test argument optianality analysis. How does the grammar not work yet. Speculate on what should be done to fix it. ====================================================================== Optional subjects were tested by test cases. I have sentences with and without the subject, abd both of them parse. enikkx tanaukkunnu I-DAT feel-cold tanaukkunnu (I) feel-cold (Just out of curiosity - if I generate, and I have a rule that this verb can have an optional argument, should I expect the grammar to generate sentences with all the missing pronouns?) The optional subject was similarly tested with sentences where the subject is present, and missing. Both parsed successfuly. ====================================================================== Describe the modification facts for adjectives and adverbs ====================================================================== Adjectives follow the noun they are modifying. The adjectives are inflected to match the noun they follow, even though the form of the noun may not change according to its gender. Adjectives are inflected to 4 different forms: Masc Sg -van Fem Sg -vala Human Pl -var Neut -tx The base form of the adjective good is nalla. Some examples of its use: kutatai nallavan [good child-boy] kutatai nallavala [good child-girl] kutataikala nallavar [good children] pustakam nallatx [good book] While I was reading about Malayalam, it was often stated that Malayalam doesn't really have adjectives. There is a small class or words, including good which act as adjectives. There is also a mechanism by which nouns are 'adjectivalised' by adding the relative participle of unatax (be), ulalaa. There is also the relative participle of aakukua, aaya. aakuka -> a : denotes an entity which is unatax -> ulalaa : denotes an entity which has a certain quality sundaramaaya tiirumaanam sundaram (that which is beautiful) + aaya decision beautiful decision sukhamulalaa sthalam health-NOM-ADJL place healty place saundaryamulalaa strii beauty-NOM-ADJL woman woman of beauty I haven't implemented any of these cases. The text only provides NPs of these, and not simple whole sentences, so for now I've used the easy cases. However, it would be nice to revisit these since I think they are more common in Malayalam. Adverbs There are several classes of adverbs, and I've only accounted for the place adverbs in my test cases. The adverb precedes the verb in those cases, but is not modified in any way to agree with the verb. ====================================================================== Describe constraints needed on lexical items to get the correct behavior ====================================================================== The adjective good is entered into the lexicon with just its stem nalla. There are lexical rules which create the other forms. I haven't written any rules yet to constrain the combination of adjectives and noun that they modify. No agreement rules are necessary with the adverbs. ====================================================================== Describe how the modification analysis was tested, ways in which the grammar didn't work, and what could be done to fix it. ====================================================================== The test cases with adjectives and adverbs correctly parse. Of course the ungrammatical versions parse as well. I will add the constraints in for next week. ====================================================================== Extra Items ====================================================================== I learned more about the verb types in Malayalam. Transitive verbs can take either a NOM or ACC subject. The subject should be ACC case if it is HUMAN +, or ANIM +. Otherwise the object is NOM. I modified my case types to include a super-type nom+acc, and made case nom and acc subtypes of that. Eventually, I will have to implement the agreement rules which can create the correct agreement between the object noun and its verb when the noun is an object. While most verbs take a nominative subject, there is a class of verbs which take a dative subject. Both of the intransitive verbs I had included take a dative subject, so I changed the lexical type to require the subject to be DAT. I created a new transitive verb-lex sub type called transitive-subjdat-verb-lex which specifies a DAT subject, and an object which is either NOM or ACC.