Subject: sum : nonreferential np 's in english

a week or two ago , i sent the following query to the folks on linguist : > my interest is in identifying nonreferential np 's in written english so > that a computer natural lg processing system would know not to set up > referents for them to serve as antecedents for subsequent anaphora > resolution . compounds ( e . g . duck-shooting season ) can i suppose be > treated superficially as single words , but what about things like ' lose > faith in ' , ' catch sight of ' . of course , some criteria will involve > larger discourse issues , but it may be that it is possible to identify > at least some nonreferential np 's " cheaply " , i . e . just by looking > within a clause and / or considering inherent lexical semantics . my interest is also in examples like ' john is a teacher ' , where ' a teacher ' is not used to introduce a new discourse referent , but rather to characterize one which has already been introduced . my thanks to gregory ward , marion kee , and louise mcnally for their replies and comments . to summarize my investigations to date and the comments of these people : ward , gregory , richard sproat , and gail mckoon . 1991 ` ` a pragmatic analysis of so - called anaphoric islands , ' ' in language 67 : 439-474 . - - contrary to what i was assuming about compounds , subparts may serve as antecedents for pronominal anaphora . louise mcnally noted : ' first of all , it appears that languages with article systems ( like english and other germanic lgs . , and the romance lgs . ) mark " nonreferentiality " by the absence of an article ( i . e . via bare singular or , more commonly , bare plural nps ) . although such nps may function syntactically just like nps with articles ( in contrast to incorporated nominals ) , semantically and pragmatically they are quite distinct . . . in english things are complicated by the fact that bare plurals also appear to denote natural kinds , but this appears to be the [ exception rather ] than the rule ( bare nominals in the other languages i ' ve looked at do not have this interpretation ) . thus , what is shared by incorporated and non-incorporated , nonreferential nps is thus ( 1 ) the absence of an article ; and ( 2 ) their semantics / pragmatics . - - i would treat bare nominals as property denoting ( alternatively , as contributing only descriptive content ) , whereas i treat nps with articles as entity denoting ( alternatively , as contributing both descriptive content and , crucially , a discourse referent ) . quantificational nps are another matter altogether . there appear to be differences between the discourse anaphoric properties of nouns in compounds ( like " baby-sitter " ) and bare plurals that occur as independent elements in sentences . specifically , bare nominals are much more likely to felicitously license discourse anaphora to " token " entities ( as opposed to kinds ) than are nouns inside compounds . i have not investigated this in detail , but i suspect that the differences involve the sorts of existential inferences you get via the use of the compounds vs . full sentences ( for example , i can truthfully describe someone as a " tomato grower " at time _ t _ without there being any tomatoes that the person is growing at _ t _ ; in contrast , if it is true that fred grew tomatoes at _ t _ , there must have been tomatoes at _ t _ that he grew . - - this pair does n't do justice to the complexity of the problem , but i hope it gives you an idea of the differences one finds between the conditions on the applicability of nouns as descriptions and the truth of sentences . ) ' marion kee suggested marking phrasal verbs in the lexicon , for example ' catch sight of ' , where 's ight ' is non-referential . while this is an eminently practical solution to a thorny problem , my mandate is to explore methods for automatically identifying such non-referential uses , this being ( presumably ) more general , and computationally less expensive than searching the lexicon for given collocations . i am still musing on structural cues which might be used , perhaps in combination with semantic information . finally , i have attached a brief summary of the ' backgrounded object construction ' in roviana , a w . oceanic lg , spoken in the solomon islands . i am currently working on a sketch gr for an upcoming volume on oceanic lgs . the construction i am referring to would be called an antipassive by some ( roviana has morpho-syntactic ergativity with really unusual splits ) , ' i cooked the taro ' comes out as a transitive , with ' i ' having ergative ' marking ' ( actually , zero for ergative , which is one of the unusual things ) , and there is transitive morphology on the verb . constituent order vao ' i cooked taro ' / ' i did taro-cooking ' comes out as intransitive , with ' i ' marked as absolutive , and constituent order voa . no transitive morphology on the verb , and you could say that the o has ' moved into the verb phrase ' if you were inclined to use such dynamic metaphors , and could make a case for what a verb phrase was in roviana . i call this the ' backgrounded object construction ' . it is used in subordinate clauses , which do not have morpho-syntactic ergativity , and it does n't involve the marking of a as oblique , so i am not prepared to call it an antipassive . now : you use the backgrounded object construction ( i ) ( optionally ) for pragmatically backgrounding the undergoer in discourse ( coz it is not important ) or ( ii ) ( obligatorily ) if the undergoer is non-specific . by non-specific i mean that the speaker does n't have a particular ref in mind , even if one might be said to exist , e . g . ' i did taro-cooking ' implies taro exists , but you are not focusing on any particular taro . exception : if you are asserting the non-existence of an undergoer by using a prenominal modifier ' none / nothing ' , you can use the normal transitive construction . e . g . ' i did n't kill anyone ' ( there does not exist a person such that i killed them ) = transitive ' i did n't kill anyone ' ( denying the action , not asserting the non-existence of the referent ) = backgrounded object construction . thus : the transitive construction is used if the undergoer is ( a ) asserted to not exist or ( b ) specific and not pragmatically backgrounded . the backgrounded obj construction is used if the undergoer is ( b ) non-specific and not being asserted to not exist or ( b ) specific and pragmatically backgrounded . roviana has articles that mark information statuses like definite . the np in a backgrounded obj construction however can only be a bare noun . my thanks again to those who replied . any further thoughts / comments much appreciated . simon corston
