C-rule
Compounding or composition is the word-formation process of creating compounds by combining or putting together lexemes.
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Expressing compounds in the UNLarium
In the UNLarium framework, compounds are treated as ordinary simple words except in case of discontinuous multi-word expressions or with infixation (such as "give in" or "take into account"). In these cases, the lemma is different from the base form, and the compound-formation process is expected to be defined through S-rules such as the following:
<CATEGORY><ROLE>(<ADDED>);
Where:
<CATEGORY> is the category of the compound (N = noun, V = verb, J = adjective, A = adverb, P = preposition, D = determiner, C = conjunction)
<ROLE> is the syntactic role of the term to be added to the base form (H = head, S = specifier, C = complement, A = adjunct)
<ADDED> is the term to be added to the base form to form the compound. It can be a string between "quotes" or a lemma between [brackets]
Examples
| Lemma | BF | Compound | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| give in | give | VH([in]) | the lemma "in" is to be added to the base form as part of the head of the verb (VH) |
| take into account | take | VA("into account") | the string "into account" is to be added to the base form as an adjunct to the verb (VA) |
| throw <person> to the lions | throw | VA("to the lions"), VC(NP) | the string "to the lions" is to be added to the base form as an adjunct to the verb (VA) and a noun phrase (NP) is to be added as a complement to the verb (VC) |
Observation
- Phrasal verbs
- Particles of phrasal verbs must be represented as part of the head, if non separable, or as adjuncts, otherwise:
- give in = VH([in]); ("give in something" but
"give something in") - give back = VA([back]); ("give back something" or "give something back")
- Strings and lemmas
- In the compound-formation process, the UNLarium distinguishes between strings (to be represented between "") and lemmas (to be represented between [ ]). The difference between strings and lemmas has to do with the dictionary status. Lemmas, but not strings, are expected to be defined as dictionary entries:
- VA("into account"); (add the string "into account" as a verbal adjunct, take > take into account)
- VC([love]); (add the lemma "love" as a verbal complement, such as in make > make love)
In the above, it's unlikely to have "into account" as a single entry, whereas "love" is probably already there.
Syntax
Compounds may be explicitly expressed by S-rules, a formalism for describing the syntactic structure of phrases.
