I just tried to implement the (non-presuppositional part of the) analysis of superlatives at the beginning of Stateva (2005), "Presuppositions in Superlatives", and I hit a snag on the first sentence, "John is (the) most impressive". The superlative morpheme won't combine with the gradable predicate. The program just freezes. I tried this is both the teacher and the student edition of v2.0. Here is my exercise file:
# One can write arbitrary comments in this file after hashes,
# but keep in mind that students will be able to see such comments.
# The first non-comment line of the file is the title of the
# assignment.
Penka Stateva (2005)
# Next, typing conventions are entered. If no typing conventions
# are given, some defaults are used.
constants of type e : c p r s j m
variables of type e : x-z
variables of type m : d m
variables of type <e,t> : C X-Z
variables of type <m,et> : G R
variables of type <m,t> : P
# The following directive instructs the program to
# interpret multiple-letter constants and variables
# properly.
multiple letter identifiers
# "use rule" directives are for tree evaluation exercises.
# They indicate which composition rules are available
# at nonterminals.
use rule function application
use rule non-branching nodes
use rule predicate modification
#use rule lambda abstraction
# Next, lexical entries provided to the student are given.
# A word (i.e. "sleep") can be given any number of lexical
# entry choices by repeating the "define" directive multiple
# times. Students are able to add their own lexical entries
# as well.
define mountain : Lx[mtn(x)]
define tall : Ld . Lx . [tall(x,d)]
define impressive : Ld . Lx . [impressive(x,d)]
define max : L P . Id.[P(d) & Am[P(m) -> leq(m,d)] ]
define happy : Lx[happy(x)]
define guy : Lx[guy(x)]
define love, loves : LyLx[love(x,y)]
define someone, somebody : LX[Ex[X(x)]]
define everyone, everybody : LX[Ax[X(x)]]
define a : LX.LY.[Ex[X(x)&Y(x)]]
define is : LX.Lx.[X(x)]
define the : LX.Lx.[X(x)]
define John : j
define Mary : m
define C : C
define est : LC . LR . Lx . greater(Id.[R(d)(x)],Id.[Ay[[neq(y,x) & C(y)] -> R(d)(y)]])
# Finally, the exercises themselves are entered.
title Basics
exercise tree
[.IP [.DP John [.I' [.I is ] [.DP [.D the ] [.AP [.DegP est C ] [.A impressive ] ] ] ] ] ]
created by eecoppock on Jun 17, 2014
I just tried to implement the (non-presuppositional part of the) analysis of superlatives at the beginning of Stateva (2005), "Presuppositions in Superlatives", and I hit a snag on the first sentence, "John is (the) most impressive". The superlative morpheme won't combine with the gradable predicate. The program just freezes. I tried this is both the teacher and the student edition of v2.0. Here is my exercise file: