Subcategorization rules

Subcategorization rules are sets of rules used to generate particular syntactic structures out of the base form.

What are subcategorization rules

Subcategorization rules are rules for describing the necessary constituents for a form to project its corresponding maximal projection.

When to use subcategorization rules

Subcategorization rules are used in case of valent words that have an irregular syntactic behaviour.

When not to use subcategorization rules

Subcategorization rules are not used in case of avalent words or in case of valent words that have a regular syntactic behaviour (i.e., which may be described by subcategorization frames).

Syntax

Subcategorization rules are expressed by S-rules, a special formalism for representing the syntactic structure of phrases.

<SYNTACTIC ROLE>(<REQUIRED>);

Where:
<SYNTACTIC ROLE> is the Syntactic roles (VA, VC, VS, VH, etc) of the term required by the base form; and
<REQUIRED> is the term required by the base form to saturate its syntactic structure, to be expressed as:

• the maximal projection (NP, VP, JP, AP, PP, DP), in case of general phrases, or a specific head, in case of particular cases;
• the order, if not default;
• the adjacency, if not default;
• other features, when pertinent.

The head is represented between "quotes", if a string, or between [brackets], if a lemma.

Examples

Rules	Description	Examples
VS(NP)VC(NP)VA(PP("into account"));	The verbal phrase requires three arguments: a specifier (NP), a complement (NP) and an adjunct (the fixed PP "into account")	take into account
VS(NP)VC(NP,HUM)VA(PP("to the lions"));	The verbal phrase requires three arguments: a specifier (NP), a complement (NP with the feature HUM = human) and an adjunct (the fixed PP "to the lions")	throw someone to the lions