Simultaneous Amalgamation - Computational Linguistics and Talking Robots - page 164

The restrictions on the variable α for appear and try class constructions

(8.5.2) are disjunct.
A third content class of object infinitives is called the promise class. It dif-
fers from the try and appear classes in that the matrix verb has three valency
positions, one for the subject, one for the indirect object, and one for the direct
object. The latter may be either a noun or an infinitive.

8.6.5 Promise CLASS INFINITIVE CONSTRUCTIONS

1. nominal object: John promised Mary a cookie.
2. one-place infinitive object: John promised Mary to sleep.
. . . (as in 8.5.1)

Accordingly, the promise class is defined with the following two schemata:

8.6.6 D EFINITION OF promise CLASS INFINITIVES

⎡
⎣

⎤
⎦

noun: δ
fnc: α

verb: α
arg: γδβ

noun: δ
fnc: α

noun: β
fnc: α

verb: α
arg: γδβ

verb: β
fnc: α
arg: γ X

(examples of matching proplets
for illustration only)

Mary to sleep promise Mary cookie promise

where α {offer, promise, threaten 22 }
Selectional constellations :[omitted]
The schema on the left matches the elementary signatures N

\

V (indirect ob-

ject) and V V (infinitive), while the schema on the right matches transpar-

ent three-place verb constructions with the elementary signatures N

\

\ V (indi-

V (direct object). 23 The first noun pattern in either schema
matches the indirect object, e.g., Mary . Its core value, represented by

rect object) and N \

δ ,ap-

pears in the second arg slot of the matrix verb ,ofthis

attribute represents the subject of the matrix verb and reappears in the subject
slot of the infinitive verb

α .Thefirstvalue, γ

, thus coding subject control.
A fourth class of infinitive content construction is called the persuade class.
It differs from the promise class in that the matrix verb may not take a noun
instead of an infinitive. Also, the implicit subject of the infinitive is the nom-
inal object of the matrix construction (object control). Consider the following
examples:

β

22 Threaten is an exception insofar as it doesn't seem to take a noun in place of the infinitive as its
second object. This may be handled as part of the selectional constellations.
23 The distinction between indirect and direct object is coded by the order of the arg values.