Computing Perspective in Text - Computational Linguistics and Talking Robots - page 229

at their proplet NAGs (7.4.2). The following examples use an object sentence
construction, but the explanation holds for all the other constructions as well:

11.6.5 P ROPLET NAG SOFAN H'L AND AN L' H CONSTRUCTION

H'L: L'H:

verb: know verb: know

arg: (Mary 18)/ça (happy 18) arg: Mary (happy 18)

prn: 17 prn: 17

3 6 1 4

1 2 5 6

noun: (Mary 18)/ça adj: happy noun: Mary adj: happy

fnc: know fnc: (know 17) fnc: know fnc: (know 17)

prn: 17 arg: Mary

prn: 18

prn: 17 arg: (Mary 17)/ça

prn: 18

4 2

5 3

noun: Mary noun: (Mary 17)/ça

fnc: happy
prn: 18

fnc: happy
prn: 18

1 2 3 4 5 6

.

(iv) surface realization That she was__happy was__known to__Mary

1 2 3 4 5 6

.

% She knew that Mary was_happy

For the sake of the argument, the noun proplet representing she in the H'L
construction on the left has the core value (Mary 18)/ça rather than only ça -
as if a coreferential interpretation were possible. We would like to show why
this is in fact not the case.
When the matrix verb know is traversed in the initial navigation step, its
intrapropositional arg values are (sub)activated as well (Sect. 5.4). In the L' H
construction on the right of 11.6.5, the relevant arg value is intrapropositional
Mary .Inthe H'L construction on the left, in contrast, the relevant arg value is
an extrapropositional address, namely (Mary 18) .
The arg value (Mary 18) in the matrix verb of the H'L construction fails as a
potential item to be pointed at by the core value (Mary 18) of the noun proplet
representing she because it is in need of a value to point at itself. This value
would be the Mary proplet in the subclause, to be traversed later. Thus, there
is no address to point at, and no coreferential interpretation is possible.
In the L' H construction on the right of 11.6.5, in contrast, the postcedent of
she , i.e., the Mary proplet serving as the higher subject, is activated as soon
as the matrix verb is traversed. Thus when the noun proplet representing she
is reached in transition 2, there is an item available to be pointed at by the
address value (Mary 17) - which explains why a coreferential interpretation
is possible in this case.