B: what things to talk about .
F: I 'm What ?
F: Really ?
F: Oh , that 's horrible !
F: Disincentive !
A: OK , we 're recording .
F: Hello ?
B: Check check check check .
F: Hello ?
D: Uh , yeah .
F: Which am I ?
C: Oh right .
B: Alright . Good .
F: Channel fi OK .
F: OK .
F: Are you doing something ?
F: OK , then I guess I 'm doing something .
F: So , um ,
F: So basically the result of m much thinking since the last time we met , um , but not as much writing , um , is a sheet that I have a lot of , like , thoughts and justification of comments on
F: but I 'll just pass out as is right now .
F: So , um ,
F: here .
F: If you could pass this around ?
F: And there 's two things .
F: And so one on one side is on one side is a sort of the revised sort of updated semantic specification .
D: Um F: And the other side is , um , sort of a revised construction formalism .
D: The D: wait .
E: This is just one sheet , right ?
D: Ah !
F: It 's just one sheet .
D: Just one sheet .
F: It 's just a Nothing else .
D: OK .
D: Front , back .
F: Um ,
F: Enough to go around ?
F: OK .
F: And in some ways it 's it 's it 's very similar to F: There are very few changes in some ways from what we 've , um , uh , b done before
F: but I don't think everyone here has seen all of this .
F: So , uh , I 'm not sure where to begin .
F: Um , as usual the disclaimers are there are all these things are F: it 's only slightly more stable than it was before .
E: Mm - hmm .
F: And , um , after a little bit more discussion and especially like Keith and I I have more linguistic things to settle in the next few days , um , it 'll probably change again some more .
E: Yeah .
F: Um , maybe I will F: let 's start b let 's start on number two actually on the notation ,
F: um , because that 's ,
F: I 'm thinking , possibly a little more familiar to , um to people .
F: OK , so the top block is just sort of a sort of abstract nota
F: it 's sort of like , um , listings of the kinds of things that we can have .
F: And certain things that have , um , changed , have changed back to this .
F: There there 's been a little bit of , um , going back and forth .
F: But basically obviously all constructions have some kind of name .
F: I forgot to include that you could have a type included in this line .
C: What I was gonna F: So something like , um C: Right .
F: Well , there 's an example F: the textual example at the end has clausal construction .
F: So ,
F: um , just to show it doesn't have to be beautiful
F: It could be , you know , simple old text as well .
F: Um , there are a couple of F: Uh , these three have various ways of doing certain things .
F: So I 'll just try to go through them .
F: So they could all have a type at the beginning .
F: Um , and then they say the key word construction
C: Oh , I see .
F: and they have some name .
C: So so the current syntax is if it s if there 's a type it 's before construct
F: Yeah , right .
C: OK , that 's fine .
F: OK , and then it has a block that is constituents .
F: And as usual I guess all the constructions her all the examples here have only , um , tsk <comment> one type of constituent ,
F: that is a constructional constituent .
F: I think that 's actually gonna turn out to m be certainly the most common kind .
F: But in general instead of the word " construct " , th here you might have " meaning " or " form " as well .
F: OK ?
F: So if there 's some element that doesn't that isn't yet constructional in the sense that it maps form and meaning .
F: OK ,
F: um , the main change with the constructs which each of which has , um , the key word " construct " and then some name , and then some type specification , is that it 's F: it 's pro it 's often sometimes the case in the first case here that you know what kind of construction it is .
F: So for example whatever I have here is gonna be a form of the word " throw " ,
F: or it 's gonna be a form of the word , you know , I don't know , " happy " , or something like that .
F: Or , you know , some it 'll be a specific word
F: or maybe you 'll have the type .
F: You 'll say " I need a p uh spatial relation phrase here "
F: or " I need a directional specifier here " .
F: So - uh you could have a j a actual type here .
F: Um , or you could just say in the second case that you only know the meaning type .
F: So a very common example of this is that , you know , in directed motion , the first person to do something should be an agent of some kind ,
F: often a human .
F: Right ?
F: So if I you know , the um , uh , run down the street then I F: I I run down the street ,
F: it 's typed , uh , " I " ,
F: meaning category is what 's there .
F: The the new kind is this one that is sort of a pair
F: and , um ,
F: sort of skipping fonts and whatever .
F: The idea is that sometimes there are , um , general constructions that you know , that you 're going to need .
F: It 's it 's the equivalent of a noun phrase or a prepositional phrase , or something like that there .
E: Mm - hmm .
F: And usually it has formal um , considerations that will go along with it .
C: Mm - hmm .
F: And then uh , you might know something much more specific depending on what construction you 're talking about ,
F: about what meaning what specific meaning you want .
F: So the example again at the bottom , which is directed motion ,
F: you might need a nominal expression to take the place of , you know , um , " the big th " , you you know , " the big the tall dark man " , you know , " walked into the room " .
E: Mm - hmm .
F: But because of the nature of this particular construction you know not just that it 's nominal of some kind
F: but in particular , that it 's some kind of animate nominal ,
F: and which will apply just as well to like , you know , a per you know , a simple proper noun
F: or to some complicated expression .
F: Um ,
F: so I don't know if the syntax will hold but something that gives you a way to do both constructional and meaning types .
F: So .
F: OK , then I don't think the , <comment> um F: at least F: Yeah . <comment> None of these examples have anything different for formal constraints ?
F: But you can refer to any of the , um , sort of available elements and scope ,
F: right ? which here are the constructs , <comment> to say something about the relation .
F: And I think i if you not if you compare like the top block and the textual block , um , we dropped like the little F subscript .
F: The F subscripts refer to the " form " piece of the construct .
C: Good .
F: And I think that , um , in general it 'll be unambiguous .
F: Like if you were giving a formal constraint then you 're referring to the formal pole of that .
F: So so by saying if I just said " Name one " then that means name one formal
F: and we 're talking about formal struc <comment> Which which makes sense .
F: Uh , there are certain times when we 'll have an exception to that ,
F: in which case you could just indicate " here I mean the meaningful for some reason " .
F: Right ?
F: Or Actually it 's more often that , only to handle this one special case of , you know , " George and Jerry walk into the room in that order " .
F: So we have a few funny things where something in the meaning might refer to something in the form .
E: Mm - hmm .
F: But but s we 're not gonna really worry about that for right now
F: and there are way We can be more specific if we have to later on .
F: OK , and so in terms of the the relations ,
F: you know , as usual they 're before and ends .
F: I should have put an example in of something that isn't an interval relation
F: but in form you might also have a value binding .
F: You know , you could say that , um , you know , " name - one dot " , t you know , " number equals " , you know , a plural or something like that .
E: Mm - hmm .
F: There are certain things that are attribute - value , similar to the bindings below
F: but I mean they 're just us usually they 're going to be value value fillers , right ?
F: OK , and then again semantic constraints here are just are just bindings .
F: There was talk of changing the name of that .
F: And Johno and I I you you and I can like fight about that if you like ?
F: but about changing it to " semantic n effects " ,
F: which I thought was a little bit too order - biased
B: Well B: Th
F: and " semantic bindings " ,
F: which I thought might be too restrictive in case we don't have only bindings .
F: And so it was an issue whether constraints um , there were some linguists who reacted against " constraints " , saying , " oh , if it 's not used for matching , then it shouldn't be called a constraint " .
F: But I think we want to be uncommitted about whether it 's used for matching or not . Right ?
F: Cuz there are I think we thought of some situations where it would be useful to use whatever the c bindings are , for
F: actual , you know , sort of like modified constraining purposes .
C: Well , you definitely want to de - couple the formalism from the parsing strategy .
E: Yeah .
C: So that whether or not it 's used for matching or only for verification , I F: Yeah , yeah .
F: It 's used shouldn't matter , right ?
F: Mm - hmm .
C: s For sure .
F: Mm - hmm .
C: I mean , I don't know what , uh , term we want to use
C: but we don't want to F: Yeah , uh , there was one time when when Hans explained why " constraints " was a misleading word for him .
C: Yep .
F: And I think the reason that he gave was similar to the reason why Johno thought it was a misleading term ,
F: which was just an interesting coincidence .
F: Um , but , uh F: And so I was like , " OK , well both of you don't like it ?
F: Fine , we can change it " .
C: It 's g it 's gone .
F: But I I I 'm starting to like it again .
F: So that that 's why <comment> That 's why I 'll stick with it .
B: But F: So A: Well , you know what ?
A: If you have an " if - then " phrase , do you know what the " then " phrase is called ?
C: Th
F: What ?
F: Con - uh , a consequent ?
A: Yeah .
F: Yeah , but it 's not an " if - then " .
C: I know .
C: Anyway , so the other the other strategy you guys could consider is when you don't know what word to put , you could put no word ,
A: No , but F: Mm - hmm .
C: just meaning .
C: OK ?
E: Yeah .
C: And the then let F: Yeah , that 's true .
B: So that 's why you put semantic constraints up top and meaning bindings down down here ?
F: Oh , oops !
F: No . That was just a mistake of cut and paste from when I was going with it .
B: OK .
C: OK .
F: So , I 'm sorry .
F: I didn't mean that one 's an in unintentional .
B: So this should be semantic and F: Sometimes I 'm intentionally inconsistent
F: cuz I 'm not sure yet .
F: Here , I actually it was just a mistake .
B: Th - so this definitely should be " semantic constraints " down at the bottom ?
E: Sure .
F: Yeah .
B: OK .
F: Well , unless I go with " meaning "
F: but i I mean , I kind of like " meaning " better than " semantic "
B: Or C: Oh , whatever .
F: but I think there 's vestiges of other people 's biases .
C: Or wh
F: Like C: That - b
C: Right .
C: Minor min problem F: Minor point .
E: Extremely .
C: OK .
F: OK , um ,
F: so I think the middle block doesn't really give you any more information , ex than the top block .
F: And the bottom block similarly only just illus you know , all it does is illustrate that you can drop the subscripts and and that you can drop the , um uh , that you can give dual types .
F: Oh , one thing I should mention is about " designates " .
F: I think I 'm actually inconsistent across these as well .
F: So , um , strike out the M subscript on the middle block .
C: Mm - hmm .
F: So basically now , um , this is actually this little change actually goes along with a big linguistic change ,
F: which is that " designates " isn't only something for the semantics to worry about now .
C: Good .
F: So we want s " designates " to actually know one of the constituents which acts like a head in some respects
F: but is sort of , um , really important for say composition later on .
F: So for instance , if some other construction says , you know , " are you of type is this part of type whatever " , um , the " designates " tells you which sort of part is the meaning part .
F: OK , so if you have like " the big red ball " , you know , you wanna know if there 's an object or a noun .
F: Well , ball is going to be the designated sort of element of that kind of phrase .
E: Mmm .
F: Um ,
F: there is a slight complication here which is that when we talk about form it 's useful sometimes to talk about , um to talk about there also being a designated object
F: and we think that that 'll be the same one , right ?
F: So the ball is the head of the phrase ,
F: " the r the " , um , " big red ball " ,
F: and the entity denoted by the word " ball " is sort of the semantic head in some ways of of this sort of , um , in interesting larger element .
C: A a and the C: Yeah .
C: And there 's uh there 's ca some cases where the grammar depends on some form property of the head .
F: Mm - hmm .
E: Yeah .
C: And and this enables you to get that , if I understand you right .
E: Yeah .
F: Right , right .
E: That 's the idea .
E: Yeah .
C: Yeah yeah .
F: And , uh , you might be able to say things like if the head has to go last in a head - final language , you can refer to the head as a p the , you know the formal head as opposed to the rest of the form having to be at the end of that decision .
C: Right .
F: So that 's a useful thing
F: so that you can get some internal structural constraints in .
C: OK , so that all looks good .
C: Let me C: Oh , w Oh .
C: I don't know .
C: Were you finished ?
F: Um , there was a list of things that isn't included
F: but you you can you can ask a question .
F: That might @ @ it .
C: OK .
C: So , i if I understand this the C: aside from , uh , construed and all that sort of stuff , the the differences are mainly that , we 've gone to the possibility of having form - meaning pairs for a type
F: Mm - hmm .
C: or actually gone back to ,
F: Right .
C: if we go back far enough F: Well , except for their construction meaning ,
F: so it 's not clear that ,
F: uh F: Well , right now it 's a c uh contr construction type and meaning type .
F: So I don't know what a form type is .
C: Oh , I see .
C: Yeah , yeah , yeah .
C: I 'm sorry ,
F: Yeah .
C: you 're right .
C: A construction type .
C: Uh , that 's fine .
F: Right .
C: But it , um F: A well , and a previous , um , you know , version of the notation certainly allowed you to single out the meaning bit by it .
F: So you could say " construct of type whatever designates something " .
C: Yeah .
F: But that was mostly for reference purposes ,
F: just to refer to the meaning pole .
F: I don't think that it was often used to give an extra meaning const type constraint on the meaning ,
F: which is really what we want most of the time I think .
C: Mm - hmm .
F: Um ,
F: I I don't know if we 'll ever have a case where we actually h
F: if there is a form category constraint , you could imagine having a triple there that says , you know that 's kind of weird .
C: No , no , no , I don't think so .
C: I think that you 'll you 'll do fine .
E: I C: In fact , these are , um ,
C: as long as as Mark isn't around , these are form constraints .
C: So a nominal expression is uh , the fact that it 's animate , is semantic .
C: The fact that it 's n uh , a nominal expression I would say on most people 's notion of of f you know , higher form types , this i this is one .
F: Mm - hmm .
E: Yeah .
F: Right , right .
E: Yeah , yeah .
C: And I think that 's just fine .
F: Which is fine , yeah .
E: It 's that now , um , I 'm mentioned this ,
C: Yeah .
E: I I don't know if I ever explained this
E: but the point of , um ,
E: I mentioned in the last meeting , <comment> the point of having something called " nominal expression " is , um ,
E: because it seems like having the verb subcategorize for , you know , like say taking as its object just some expression which , um , designates an object or designates a thing , or whatever , um , that leads to some syntactic problems basically ?
E: So you wanna , you know you sort of have this problem like " OK , well , I 'll put the word " , uh , let 's say , the word " dog " ,
E: you know . And that has to come right after the verb
F: Mm - hmm .
E: cuz we know verb meets its object .
E: And then we have a construction that says , oh , you can have " the " preceding a noun .
E: And so you 'd have this sort of problem that the verb has to meet the designatum .
C: Right .
E: And you could get , you know , " the kicked dog " or something like that , meaning " kicked the dog " .
C: Right .
E: Um , so you kind of have to let this phrase idea in there
E: but C: That I I have no problem with it at all .
E: It - it
E: Yeah .
F: Yeah .
C: I think it 's fine .
F: Right , n s
F: you may be you may not be like everyone else in in Berkeley ,
E: Yeah .
E: Yeah .
F: but that 's OK .
E: I mean , we we we sort of thought we were getting away with , uh with , a p
F: Uh , we don't mind either ,
F: so E: I mean , this is not reverting to the X - bar theory of of phrase structure .
C: Right .
E: But , uh ,
F: Right .
E: I just know that this is Like , we didn't originally have in mind that , uh that verbs would subcategorize for a particular sort of form .
F: Mm - hmm .
C: But they do .
E: Um ,
E: but they does .
F: Well , there 's an alternative to this
E: At least in English .
F: which is , um The question was did we want directed motion ,
C: Yeah .
F: which is an argument structure construction E: Yeah .
C: Mm - hmm .
F: did we want it to worry about , um , anything more than the fact that it , you know , has semantic F: You know , it 's sort of frame - based construction .
F: So one option that , you know , Keith had mentioned also was like , well if you have more abstract constructions such as subject , predicate , basically things like grammatical relations ,
E: Mm - hmm .
F: those could intersect with these
F: in such a way that subject , predicate , or subject , predicate , subject , verb , ob you know , verb object would require that those things that f fill a subject and object are NOM expressions .
C: Right .
F: And that would be a little bit cleaner in some way .
F: But you know , for now , I mean ,
C: Yeah .
C: But it y y it 's yeah , just moving it moving the c the cons the constraints around .
F: uh , you know .
F: M moving it to another place , right .
E: Yeah .
C: OK , so that 's F: But there does basically , the point is there has to be that constraint somewhere , right ?
C: Right .
F: So ,
F: yeah .
C: And so that was the F: Robert 's not happy now ?
A: No !
F: Oh , OK .
C: OK , and sort of going with that is that the designatum also now is a pair .
F: Yes .
C: Instead of just the meaning .
F: Mm - hmm .