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opencog / link-grammar

The CMU Link Grammar natural language parser
GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1
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Bare infinitives after relative clauses? #1241

Open stephenfrechette opened 3 years ago

stephenfrechette commented 3 years ago

Hello,

Another odd construction I have ran into.

Relative clauses modifying the subject of the sentence with the main verb being "do" seem to force the main verb "be" to take a bare infinitive, unless "do" is in the present perfect, in which case "be" must take a present perfect.

This post I found online goes over the details, but with no explanation of the mechanics of WHY this is actually idiomatic. https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/all-i-did-was-verb.2942166/

Even odder is that some phrases seem to have the same behavior if the subject and object are swapped, but some do not, with no clear distinction why.

Currently, all of these with a bare infinitive heading the object phrase parse with an "Ifv" linkage to the bare infinitive, which I don't see any documentation on currently, so I'm not sure what the details are there. Any with the bare infinitive in the subject phrase do not parse.

linas commented 3 years ago

It would be best if you provided a list of example sentences: those that should parse, but don't; and then some that should not parse. The more distinct examples, the better.

The primary problem is that the verbs do/be/have are the most tangled and complicated of all, as they can be used in a large variety of different constructions. I'm not surprised that some constructions don't work right.

I'd love to teach you how to offer up fixes yourself, as you seem interested in this stuff. Unfortunately, this is in the middle of the biggest, messiest tangle, so it would be daunting.

linas commented 3 years ago

@stephenfrechette How goes it? I was hoping to tech you how to make corrections the the dictionary, yourself, because it seems like you understand these kinds of things (principles of grammar, that is...) ... let me know if you are interested ...