(no subject)

* We had the combined St. Patrick's Day and birthday party at the club today. This was the last day at that location, and the new location opens Wednesday.
* I got some work done on Epsilon: pronominals and syntax.
* There are a couple new apartment possibilities, but with the usual communications problems.

project Epsilon: Syntax

Last Edited: 2006.Mar.19 Sun

It might be useful to distinguish syntactical nouns and verbs from lexical nouns and verbs. It's especially useful to distinguish between a lexical adjective, which is a type of lexical verb, and a syntactical adjective, which is the verb form (any verb) used in an adjective clause.

• A sentence consists of a chain of clauses. The last clause in the chain is called the final clause and each of the others is called a non-final clause.


• A clause consists of a verb form, which always appears last in the clause, and possibly some arguments and adverbs. Each argument is either a noun phrase, a complement clause, or a pronoun.


• The tense and aspect for the chain as a whole is marked on the final verb (i.e. the syntactical verb of the final clause).


• A syntactical verb is usually a lexical verb, but can be the copula of identity (which acts syntactically like a verb) or the copula of definition preceded by a definition phrase, which is a noun phrase except that the noun isn't marked for either case or number.


• A noun phrase ends with a noun component and may contain adjective clauses and/or relative clauses.


• A noun component consists of a noun form preceded by its manifest argument, if any. A noun form is a form of a lexical noun.


• The valence of a word stem is the number of argument it may have semantically; either one or two for a lexical noun and from one to three for a lexical verb.


• The number of arguments which appear for a syntactical noun or adjective is one less than the word stem's valence. The number of arguments which appear for a syntactical verb (other than an adjective) is the verb stem's valence minus the number of arguments shared with the previous clause in the chain.


• A relative clause is adjectival but contains a relative pronoun instead of omitting an argument. It's used when the relative argument is not an argument of the clause, but of a subordinate component.


• Pronouns are proclitic (except in the imperative mood) and not interspersed with phrases unless marked for case.


• Imperative mood clitic pronouns are enclitic, not proclitic.


• The order for both phrases and proclitic pronouns is subject, animate object, inanimate object.


• A non-manifest argument is either the relative subject (in an adjective clause) or the previous subject (which it self may be a non-manifest argument referring further back).