Final

Due Wednesday 12/12, to my box (Padelford A-210), by 5pm (stapled hard copy) or to CollectIt by 5pm (pdf only).

This exam counts for 35% of your course grade.

No late finals will be accepted.

Note: You may not discuss the final with other students (until after everyone has turned it in). Please send any questions about the final directly to me (via email) rather than posting on GoPost. I will respond by email and post answers as appropriate on the GoPost. Please read GoPost.

Problem 1. A Tree (60pts)

A. Draw a tree for the following sentence, using the grammar from the textbook and according to the instructions below. (NB: This problem is not only about long distance dependencies, but also about multiple phenomena involving the SPR feature as well as argument marking prepositions, and the rules and principles of our grammar.)

• This pie seems to me to be difficult to bake and easy to impress people with.

Instructions

1. Show the whole tree (i.e., no triangles under nodes).
2. Assume lexical entries for the words instantiating appropriate types from the grammar. In one case, you'll need to posit a lexical entry which doesn't correspond to a type in our grammar fragment. This is a type of raising verb, with the following ARG-ST value:

   [ARG-ST < [1] , PP, VP[FORM base, INF +, SPR [1]] > ]

3. Label each node with an appropriate abbreviation (e.g., NP).
4. Show the values of SPR, COMPS, GAP, and STOP-GAP where they are non-empty. These values should include tags where they are identified with other structures in the tree. At least one instance of each tag should be associated with a category abbreivation (NP). If the grammar requires coindexing (but not complete identification), show that with a subcript (NP_i).
5. Use tags and indices to indicate identities involving the features you show and nodes in the tree.
6. Assume that to in its use as a preposition and with are argument-marking prepositions.
7. Assume that impress introduces a three-place predication in the semantics (with the roles SHOW-OFF, AUDIENCE, and INSTRUMENT). (NB: You don't need to show the predication, the role names are just to help your semantic intuitions.)
8. Check your work: The correct tree has 29 nodes, not counting the leaves (word forms). I found 36 non-empty values for SPR, COMPS, GAP and STOP-GAP collectively.

B. Describe each step in the cascade of identities that link the INST value of the 'pie' predication to the INSTRUMENT value of 'impress' predication. Your answer should take the form of an enumerated list. Each item in the list should describe one step, i.e., state which features are required to have the same value and state which lexical entry, rule or principle of the grammar requires this.

I found 31 steps in this chain. Hint: 10 of them involve the Argument Realization Principle. To start you off, here are the first and last:

• 1. The lexical entry for pie identifies its INDEX with the INST of its 'pie' predication.
• ...
• 31. The lexical entry for impress identifies the INDEX of its last ARG-ST element with the INSTRUMENT role in its 'impress' relation.

Problem 2. Some lexical rules (40pts)

A. For each word in the following sentence, list the lexical rules involved in licensing its word structure. (Again, this question is cumulative, and not only about LDDs. Also, while you do not need to provide a tree for your answer, it might help you work through the problem to sketch one out.)

• These problems I think can't be expected to be easy to solve.

Check your work: Though there are only 12 words in the sentence, they collectively represent 15 applications of lexical rules. One lexical rule is used five times, and another is used four times.

B. Show the word structure for can't as it appears in this sentence. Include the effects of the lexical rule(s) it undergoes as well as constraints inherited from types (e.g., those on auxv-lxm and its supertypes, as well as those on word). You don't need to show the RESTR values of the elements of the ARG-ST and valence lists.

C. How does our analysis capture the fact that be is required before expected in this example? That is, why don't the following (with nothing there or the other semantically empty auxiliary) parse?

1. *These problems, I think can't expected to be easy to solve.
2. *These problems, I think can't do expected to be easy to solve.

D. (Extra Credit) How does our analysis capture the fact that solve must not be passive, i.e., how does it predict the ungrammaticality of the following string?

1. *These problems, I think can't be expected to be easy to be solved.

Note: The anaylsis of this sentence requires a lexical sequence for think which allows an S as its complement (second ARG-ST element). The grammar in this book doesn't allow such a verb yet. You may assume that one exists. (In Problem 5 of Chapter 11, we suggest handling this via a derivational rule that takes verbs allowing a CP complement and outputs verbs allowing an S complement.)