Compositional Semantics - Computational Linguistics and Talking Robots - page 135

The double function of bark as (i) the verb of the subclause and (ii) the noun or
adverbial of the main clause is shown by the dotted rectangles in their SRGs.
No such double function exists in the corresponding elementary nouns and
adverbials, as shown by the signatures at the bottom.
Extrapropositional functor-argument relations are opaque 22 because the re-
lation between the lower verb and the higher verb (or noun in relative clauses;
cf. Sects. 9.3 and 11.5) requires attributes and values which differ in kind from
those of the corresponding transparent intrapropositional relations listed in
7.3.6. More specifically, the lower verb requires an additional attribute (ei-
ther fnc or mdd ) and (ii) the higher verb or higher noun has a verbal value
in its arg or mdr slot - attributes which are normally reserved for nominal or
adjectival values, respectively.
As a concrete example, consider the proplet representation of the sentential
subject construction in 7.5.1: 23

7.5.2 P ROPLET REPRESENTATION OF That Fido barked surprised Mary.
⎡
⎣

⎤
⎦

⎡
⎣

⎤
⎦

⎡
⎣

⎤
⎦

⎡
⎣

⎤
⎦

noun: Fido
cat: nm
sem: sg
fnc: bark
mdr:
prn: 27

verb: bark
cat: v
sem: past
arg: Fido
fnc: (surprise 28)
prn: 27

verb: surprise
cat: decl
sem: past
arg: (bark 27) Mary
mdr:
prn: 28

noun: Mary
cat: nm
sem: sg
fnc: surprise
mdr:
prn: 28

The bark proplet has the core attribute verb , but unlike a regular verb it
also has the attribute fnc , which is normally reserved for nouns. Its value
(surprise 28) establishes the extrapropositional subject / x verb relation be-

tween the subject sentence and the verb surprise of the main clause. Con-
versely, surprise has (bark 27) in the subject position of its arg slot. 24
The semantic relations between the verb of the lower sentence and the verb
of the higher sentence are strictly local. For example, in 7.5.2, the remainder
of the subject sentence comes into play only insofar as Fido is connected to,
and is dragged along by, bark . The remainder of the main clause comes into
play only insofar as Mary is connected to, and is dragged along by, surprise .

20 In analyses not concerned with extrapropositional coordination the arc 0 is optional.
21 The subscripts x in the elementary signatures indicate an extrapropositional relation.
22 The transparent/opaque distinction was used by Quine (1960) for another purpose, namely to distin-
guish between contexts called even/uneven by Frege (1892) and extensional/intensional by Montague
(1974); cf. FoCL'99, Chap. 20.
23 Cf. NLC'06, 7.2.1, for an analogous hear mode derivation.
24 The proplets of the subclause have the prn value 27 , while those of the main clause have the prn
value 28 . Because of these different prn numbers, the value of the fnc attribute of bark is specified as
the address (surprise 28) and the first value of the arg attribute of surprise is specified as the address
(bark 27) . See Sect. 4.4 for a more detailed discussion of symbolic addresses and pointers.