Agreement

Agreement or concord is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase. Agreement happens when a word changes form depending on the other words it relates to. In the UNL^arium framework, agreement is defined through S-rules. Agreement is not informed in UNL.

Syntax

Agreement is defined through S-rules in the following format:

<SYNTACTIC ROLE>(+<AGREEMENT>);

Where:

• <SYNTACTIC ROLE> is the syntactic role (VA, VC, VS, VH, etc) of the constituent in relation to the head; and
• <AGREEMENT> is the agreement to be assigned, and may assume the following values:
  • ANUM = assigns number (if the constituent assigns number value to the head)
  • AGEN = assigns gender (if the constituent assigns gender value to the head)
  • APER = assigns person (if the constituent assigns person value to the head)
  • ACAS = assigns case (if the constituent assigns case value to the head)
  • ATNS = assigns tense (if the constituent assigns tense value to the head)
  • RNUM = receives number (if the constituent receives number value from the head)
  • RGEN = receives gender (if the constituent receives gender value from the head)
  • RPER = receives person (if the constituent receives person value from the head)
  • RCAS = receives case (if the constituent receives case value from the head)
  • RTNS = receives tense (if the constituent receives tense value from the the head)

Examples

VS(+ANUM);

number agreement: the verb agrees with its specifier in number (i.e., the specifier of the verb assigns number to the verb)

NA(+RGEN);

gender agreement: the adjunct agrees with the noun in gender (i.e., the adjunct receives gender from the noun)

Observations

Conditional agreement

Conditional agreement may be stated by defining the left side of the s-rule and coindexing it to the right side:

• NA(+RGEN); (unconditional agreement: the adjunct always receives the gender from the noun);
• NA(ADJ):=NA(+RGEN); (conditional agreement: the adjunct receives the gender from the noun if adjective);
• NA(^PP):=NA(+RGEN); (conditional agreement: the adjunct receives the gender from the noun if not a prepositional phrase);
• NA(GEN):=NA(+RGEN); (conditional agreement: the adjunct receives the gender from the noun if the noun has the feature gender (GEN);

Complex agreement

A single agreement rule may contain several agreement operations:

• VS(+ANUM,+APER,+AGEN); (the specifier of the verb assigns number, person and gender to it)
• NS(+RNUM,+RPER,+RGEN)NA(+RNUM,+RPER,+RGEN); (the specifier and the adjunct of the noun receives number, person and gender from it)

Use of "+"

As rules are conservative (i.e., features are preserved unless explicitly deleted), the use of "+" is actually optional:

• VS(+RNUM); is the same as VS(RNUM);

Feature removal

Agreement features may be deleted through "-"

• NA(-RGEN); (delete "receive gender" from all noun adjuncts)
• NA(PP):=NA(-RGEN); (delete "receive gender" from all noun adjuncts that have the feature PP)

The symbol ^ is used for negation and to control infinite recursion

• NA(^RGEN):=NA(+RGEN); (the adjunct receives the gender from the noun if it does not have the feature "receive gender")