Grad B: It 's like , " this is what we 're doing .
Professor C: Abso
Grad B: And the complement is Robert . "
Grad E: I 'll I 'll send you I 'll I 'll send you a style file , right ?
Grad B: OK .
Grad E: You just Grad B: I already sent you my fi {comment} my bib file . So .
Grad E: OK . And , um . Sounds good .
Grad A: Someday we also have to we should probably talk about the other side of the " where is X " construction , which is the issue of , um , how do you simulate questions ? What does the simspec look like for a question ?
Grad E: Yeah .
Grad A: Because it 's a little different .
Professor C: Mm - hmm .
Grad B: Yeah .
Professor C: Yeah , now , we we w
Grad A: We had to we had an idea for this which seemed like it would probably work .
Professor C: Great . OK . Yeah . Simspec may need we may n need to re - name that .
Grad A: Yeah .
Grad B: I Yeah . I Professor C: OK ? So let 's think of a name for for whatever the this intermediate structure is . Oh , we talked about semspec , for " semantic spec specification "
Grad A: Mmm .
Professor C: and that seems Um .
Grad A: It 's more general
Professor C: You know , so it 's a m minimal change .
Grad B: Only have to change one vowel . That 's great .
Professor C: Yeah . Just Grad B: All the old like graphs ,
Professor C: Right .
Grad B: just change the just , like , mark out the Grad A: Cool .
Professor C: Right , a little substi substi You know , that 's what text substitution uh macros are for .
Grad A: Yeah . It 's good for you .
Grad B: Yeah .
Professor C: Anyway , uh , so let 's let 's for the moment call it that until we think of something better .
Grad A: OK .
Professor C: And , yeah , we absolutely need to find Part of what was missing were markings of all sorts that weren't in there , incl including the questions Grad A: Mm - hmm .
Professor C: We didn't we never did figure out how we were gonna do emphasis in in uh , the semspec .
Grad A: Yeah .
Grad B: Yeah , we 've talked a little bit about that , too , which uh , uh , it 's hard for me to figure out with sort of our general linguistic issues , how they map onto this particular one ,
Grad A: Yeah .
Grad B: but OK , yeah , understood .
Professor C: But that 's part of the formalism is got to be uh , how things like that get marked .
Grad A: Mm - hmm .
Grad B: W do you have data , like the the You have preliminary data ? Cuz I know , you know , we 've been using this one easy sentence and I 'm sure you guys have uh , maybe you are the one who 've been looking at the rest of it Grad A: Um , I
Grad B: it 'd it 'd be useful for me , if we want to have it a little bit more data oriented .
Grad A: To tell you the truth , what I 've been looking at has not been the data so far ,
Grad B: Yeah . Mm - hmm mm - hmm .
Grad A: I just sort of said " alright let 's see if I can get noun phrases and , uh , major verb co uh , constructions out of the way first . " And I have not gotten them out of the way yet .
Grad B: Mm - hmm .
Grad A: Surprise . So , um .
Grad B: Yeah .
Grad A: So , I have not really approached a lot of the data , but I mean obviously like these the the question one , since we have this idea about the indefinite pronoun thing and all that , you know , I ca can try and , um run with that , you know , try and do some of the sentence constructions now . It would make sense .
Grad E: OK . Do you wanna run the indefinite pronoun idea past Jerry ?
Grad B: OK .
Grad A: Oh yeah , the basic idea is that um , uh you know Uh , let 's see if I can formulate this .
Grad E: So Mary fixed the car with a wrench .
Grad A: Yeah .
Grad E: So you perform the mental sum and then , you know , " who fixed the car with a wrench ? " You basically are told , to to do this In the in analogously to the way you would do " someone fixed the car with a wrench " . And then you hand it back to your hippocampus and find out what that , you know ,
Grad A: Means .
Grad E: means , and then come up with that so who that someone was .
Grad A: The WH question has this as sort of extra thing which says " and when you 're done , tell me who fills that slot " or w you know .
Professor C: Mm - hmm .
Grad A: So , um . And , you know , this is sort of a nice way to do it , the idea of sort of saying that you treat from the simulation point of view or whatever you treat , uh , WH constructions similarly to uh , indefinite pronouns like " someone fixed the car " because lots of languages , um , have WH questions with an indefinite pronoun in situ or whatever ,
Grad B: Use actually the same one .
Grad A: and you just get intonation to tell you that it 's a question . So it makes sense
Professor C: Alright , which is
Grad A: um
Professor C: Skolemization .
Grad A: Hmm ?
Grad B: Mmm .
Professor C: In in logic , it 's it 's @ @ {comment} it 's actual Huh ?
Grad B: Right . Let 's put a Skolem  Skolem constant in ,
Grad A: Yeah . shko
Professor C: What ?
Grad A: Sure .
Grad B: yeah . Yeah . Right .
Grad A: OK .
Professor C: That - that 's not that 's not saying it 's bad ,
Grad A: Right . Right . No . Of course .
Professor C: it 's just that Grad B: Mmm .
Professor C: that that the logicians have have , uh Grad A: That 's right . It makes sense from that point of view , too , which is actually better .
Grad E: come up with this
Grad A: So yeah , um . Anyway , but just that kind of thing and we 'll figure out exactly how to write that up and so on , but
Professor C: Good .
Grad A: Uh , no , all the focus stuff . We sort of just dropped that cuz it was too weird and we didn't even know , like , what we were talking about {comment} exactly , what the object of study was .
Grad B: Um - mmm .
Grad A: So .
Professor C: Yeah . Well , if if I mean , i part of of what the exercise is , t by the end of next week , is to say what are the things that we just don't have answers for yet .
Grad A: Yeah . Yep .
Professor C: That 's fine . I mean
Grad B: Mm - hmm .
Grad E: Well , if you if you do wanna discuss focus background and then get me into that because I mean , I wo I w scientifically worked on that for for almost two years .
Grad A: Yeah . OK , then certainly we will . Good .
Grad B: Yeah , you should definitely , um be on on that maybe maybe by after Monday we 'll y you can see what things we are and aren't Grad A: Yeah . w We should figure out what our questions are , for example , to ask you .
Grad B: Yeah . Yeah .
Grad A: So .
Grad B: OK .
Grad A: OK .
Professor C: Wel - then t Hans . Has I haven't seen Hans Boas ?
Grad B: He 's been around .
Grad A: Yeah .
Grad B: Just maybe not today .
Professor C: OK . So has he been been involved with this , or ?
Grad B: Eh . with us ?
Grad A: Yeah .
Grad B: Yeah .
Professor C: Yeah .
Grad B: I would say that tha that those discussions have been primarily , um , Keith and Keith and me , but um like in th the meeting I mean , he sort of I thin like the last meeting we had , I think we were all very much part of it
Grad A: Yeah .
Grad B: but um
Grad A: Sometimes Hans has been sort of coming in there as sort of like a devil 's advocate type role or something ,
Grad B: but different perspec Yeah .
Grad A: like " This make you know , I 'm going to pretend I 'm a linguist who has nothing to do with this . This makes no sense . " And he 'll just go off on parts of it which definitely need fixing
Grad B: Right .
Grad A: but aren't where we 're at right now , so it 's
Grad B: Like like what you call certain things ,
Grad A: Yeah .
Grad B: which we decided long ago we don't care that much right now .
Professor C: Right .
Grad B: But in a sense , it 's good to know that he of all people Professor C: OK .
Grad B: you know , like maybe a lot of people would have m much stronger reactions , so , you know , he 's like a relatively friendly linguist
Grad A: Yeah . Yeah .
Grad B: and yet a word like " constraint " causes a lot of problems . And , so . Right . So .
Professor C: OK . This is consistent with um the role I had suggested that he he play ,
Grad B: Ah .
Grad A: Mm - hmm .
Professor C: OK , which was that o one of the things I would like to see happen is a paper that was tentatively called " Towards a formal cognitive semantics " which was addressed to these linguists uh who haven't been following this stuff at all .
Grad A: Yeah .
Professor C: So it could be that he 's actually , at some level , thinking about how am I going to communicate this story Grad A: Yeah . Yeah .
Professor C: So , internally , we should just do whatever works ,
Grad A: Yeah .
Professor C: cuz it 's hard enough .
Grad A: Yeah .
Professor C: But if he g if he turns is is really gonna turn around and help t to write this version that does connect with as many as possible of the other linguists in the world um {comment} then then it becomes important to use terminology that doesn't make it hard Grad A: Mm - hmm .
Grad B: Mm - hmm .
Grad A: Yeah . Yeah .
Grad B: Mm - hmm . Sure .
Professor C: I mean , it 's gonna be plenty hard for for people to understand it as it is ,
Grad A: Yeah .
Professor C: but y y you don't want to make it worse .