Re: [SHOEBOX] answers to David and jeff

> From: BP Jonsson
>
> At 06:22 21.7.2000 -0400, The Gray Wizard wrote:
>
> >Since I have effectively created a [SHOEBOX] tagged thread here, I have a
> >question for other Shoeboxers out there.  amman iar has an auxiliary verb
> >form that is semantically empty, serving only to specify the grammatical
> >usage (mood [prefix], aspect[infix], tense [suffix]) of the
> lexical verb and
> >as such has no root form, only affixes.  Shoebox will refuse to
> parse a word
> >without a root.  As a work around I have arbitrarily selected
> the mood affix
> >(which is always required and happens to be a prefix) as the
> root form.  Is
> >there a better way to do this?
>
> Does the verb actually not *have* a root, or is it that being semantically
> empty it cannot really be glossed?
No, the auxiliary actually does not have a root, but consists solely of the
mood, aspect and tense inflections.

for example:

The boy is eating the soup.

\t ir  adanisse         eliras                 im  mastmear-0
\m i   adan =is    -e   el        -ir   -as    in  masad - mear   -0
\g the man  =small -[A] assertive -prog -pres  to  food  - liquid -[P]
\p DET N    =DIM   -ERG MOOD      -ASP  -TENSE PTP N     - N      -ABS
\f the boy              is                     to  soup

\t ervathiel
\m er-  matho -ie      -l
\g do-  eat   -agt/thm -actn
\p AGT- V     -VAL     -VC
\f eat

In the sentence, all of the semantic content is in the lexical verb
"ervathiel".  The auxiliary "eliras" is both semantically empty and rootless
consisting of the mood prefix el-, the aspect suffix -ir, and the tense
suffix -as.  Only the aspect affix is optional.  Shoebox forces me to define
one of these (I chose the mood prefix) as a root.

> Assuming it is the latter, it would
> seem a good idea to gloss it as 'AUX'; the use of _do_ in English often
> approaches this, as in:
>      Does        John    read        books?
>      AUX -s      John    read -0     book -s
>      AUX -3.SG.  PN      V    -INF   S    -PL
>
> As you can see I make use of the null morpheme //0// as a device to hang
> tags on.  I imagine you could provide a lexical form which
> de_fact consists
> of only affixes and endings with a null root.  I've never really done this
> in Shoebox, but I did once play with the idea of a Romance artauxlang
> having the three auxiliaries
Speaking of null morphemes, is there a way to force Shoebox to insert a null
morpheme in the absence of an explicit one and then parse it?  For example,
in the above example "mastmear" is in the absolutive case which takes a null
morpheme.  I have explicitly added this null morpheme "-0" to the amman iar
text in order to force Shoebox to correctly parse the case.  Is there a way
to force this parse without explicitly adding it to the text?

David

David E. Bell
The Gray Wizard
    dbell@graywizard.net
    www.graywizard.net

"Wisdom begins in wonder." - Socrates