Compositional Semantics - Computational Linguistics and Talking Robots - page 137

Conversely, the subject-predicate relation in the English copula construction
Julia is a doctor is N / N (opaque) based on the lexical proplets Julia and

doctor ,butisN V (transparent) based on the content proplets. This is shown

by the following hear mode derivation:

/

7.5.5 H EAR MODE DERIVATION OF Julia is a doctor.

.

Julia is a doctor

lexical lookup

.

noun: Julia
cat: nm

verb: v_1 noun: n_1 noun: doctor

cat: sn
sem: sg
fnc:

verb:
cat: v' decl

cat: ns3' be' v cat: snp

fnc:
mdr:
prn:

sem: be pres sem: indef sg arg:

mdr:
prn:

arg: fnc:

prn: prn: prn:

syntactic−semantic parsing

noun: Julia
cat: nm

verb: v_1

cat: ns3' be' v

1 fnc:

mdr:

sem: be pres

arg:

prn: 38 prn:

noun: Julia
cat: nm

verb: v_1 noun: n_1

cat: be' v cat: snp

2 fnc: v_1 sem: be pres sem: indef sg

mdr: arg: Julia mdr:

prn:

prn: 38 prn: 38

noun: Julia
cat: nm

verb: n_1 noun: doctor

cat: sn
sem: sg
fnc:

cat: snp v
sem: be pres indef sg 3 fnc: n_1

mdr: arg: Julia

prn: 38 prn: 38 prn:

.

noun: Julia
cat: nm

verb: doctor verb:

cat: v' decl

cat: snp v
sem: be pres indef sg 4 fnc: doctor arg:

mdr:
prn:

mdr: arg: Julia

prn: 38 prn: 38

result

noun: Julia
cat: nm

verb: doctor

cat: snp decl
sem: be pres indef sg

fnc: doctor

mdr: arg: Julia

prn: 38 prn: 38

In this strictly surface compositional, strictly time-linear derivation, five lex-
ical proplets are reduced to two content proplets based on function word ab-
sorption. In line 1, the core value Julia and the substitution value v_1 are
cross-copied into fnc and arg slots, and the ns3' valency position in the cat