Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar

--- Herman Miller <hmiller@...> wrote:

> Gary Shannon wrote:
>
> > Hypothesis: For any natural language, related
> elements
> > are always immediately adjacent and there exists a
> > complete fusion grammar for that language.
> >
> > Comments? Counterexamples?
> >
>
> Did you want counterexamples from English?
>
> (did ... want)
We need to keep in mind the the actual role played by
each word. In this sentence the word "did" functions
as a query-marking particle (tag:QMP) with the literal
meaning: "Is the following statement true?"

Then we parse the marked statement:

(((you want).SV counterexamples).SVO (from
English)).SVO

which contains the complete .SVO fusion ((you want).SV
counterexamples).SVO which is further qualified by
fusing it with a source element (from English). This
entire complete SVO element is then attached to the
query marking particle turning it into a question:

((did).QMP (((you want).SV counterexamples).SVO (from
English)).SVO).QUERY

There is also the possiblity that element
transposition rules could be employed that do not
violate adjacency of the related pairs. For example,
there is no graceful way to parse "was gently falling
on the ground", because the proper parse would be
((was falling) gently). However, in the proper parse
"gently" remains adjacent to "falling", suggesting
that the rules may allow for limited transposition as
long as the critical adjaceny is not broken, and no
group can be based on an incidental adjacency created
by the transposition. Transposition would have to put
a wall between the transposed word and any word that
follows it: "was falling gently | on the ground"

In the case of "did you want", transposition results
in "you did want" which has an entirely different
meaning since (did want) puts "want" into the past and
destroys the query nature of the sentence. With the
wall placed between "did" and "want", e.g. "did |
want" that erroneous fusion is forbidden.

The fact that the deep meaning of "did" changes
radically with that transposition suggests that
transposition rules cannot be applied in this case,
and that interpreting "did" as a query-marking
particle that properly belongs at the front of the
query, rather than a past tense marker, is reasonable.

>
> Or how about Dutch?
>
> Steek er nu mee de niet-brandende fakkel aan om de
> deur te openen.
>
> You've got "nu" (now) in the middle of "ermee" (with
> it), and "aan"
> which is part of the word "aansteken" (to light; the
> sentence refers to
> lighting a torch) at the end of the phrase with
> "steek" at the beginning.
>
I don't know any Dutch, but I do have a dictionary, so
here goes...

Seperable prefixes really need to be re-interpreted as
attachable particles. "annsteken" is analyzed "ann
steken" analagous to the English "uplight" or "up
light", as in to light up a thing. Such words might
require adjacency rules involving a central element
being surrounded by two bookend elements. In other
words, the adjacency is more strict because the middle
word has to satisfy TWO adjaceny rules simultaneously.
For example in: (om (de deur) te) where (de deur)
requires simultaneous adjacency to both bookends, "om
... te" forming an element with three members.  I
imagine bookend adjacency will be required in English
as well for things like "AS big AS".

Steek ... aan is a (possibly) different situation
because the "Steek" gets fused early. But once fused,
it marks it ancestral elements as requiring the "aan"
particle after it has assimilated the subject noun.
There is a simlimar construction in English in "Light
the torch _up_...", and "Burn the castle _down_..."

With that analysis I will gloss the sentence as
follows: (I know NO Ducth, so correct me if I'm way
off base here.)

Steek - Light
er    - it
nu    - now
mee   - with
de    - the
niet-brandende - [ignition device?]
fakkel - torch
aan    - up
om     - in-order
de     - the
deur   - door
te     - to
openen - open

Light it now  with the [ignition device?]  torch  up
in-order the door to open.
Light it now  with (the [ignition device?])  torch  up
 in-order (the door) to open.
Light it now  (with (the [ignition device?]))  torch
up  (in-order (the door) to open).
(((Light it) now)  (with (the [ignition device?])))
torch  up  (in-order (the door) to open).
(((((Light it) now)  (with (the [ignition device?])))
torch)  up)  (in-order (the door) to open).

Now we have the apparent complete sub-sentence: "Steek
er nu mee de niet-brandende fakkel aan." parsed, and
we need only fuse it with the "reason-why" modifier
((om (de deur) te) openen).

This is a first draft only, and I'm sure it could be
improved on. I'll need to give more thought to
seperable prefixes (alias attachable particles) in
Dutch and German.

--gary

Reply