In this section, we give a feature-structure representation of
the English sentence Wash sinks., which has been
chosen because each of its words can be considered either a noun
or a verb each with different senses, because as a sentence it
is structurally ambiguous, being either a declarative or an
imperative sentence, and because the word Wash can
also be considered a proper noun. For purposes of this
illustration, we assume that this sentence has four
interpretations: two as a declarative sentence, and two as an
imperative sentence. The four interpretations are paraphrasable
as follows.
Laundry goes to the bottom.
Someone named Wash goes to the bottom.
I order you to clean basins used for washing.
I order you to clean depressions in a land surface.
The actual structure of the example is given in the
f.struct whose id is f1. This f.struct
contains one f.s.OR, which encloses pointers to the
analyses of the sentence as respectively declarative and
imperative. The f.struct for the declarative
interpretation does not itself contain an f.s.OR, but
it does have a pointer to one that does, namely to the
f.struct identified as f3. The f.s.OR in
this f.struct encloses subanalyses for Wash
as a proper noun phrase and as a common noun phrase. Similarly,
the f.struct for the imperative interpretation does
not contain f.s.OR. To find the alternative analyses,
one has to follow a chain of pointers from the
f.struct identified as f2 to f5 and from f5 to f9.
This f.struct contains a f.s.OR which
encloses the two glosses for the noun sinks. Note
that no single f.struct directly reveals the four-way
ambiguity assumed to be associated with the sentence, but the
ambiguity is nevertheless represented by the collection of
f.structs in the markup.
The illustration also makes use of a f.s.choice,
which has not yet been defined. Its purpose is to express the
disambiguation of an ambiguous subpart of a larger structure.
It occurs as part of the content model of f.ptr,
which means that the end tag for f.ptr cannot be
omitted if this mechanism is adopted. (The end tags in this
illustration have been omitted, but in the three places where
f.s.choice is used, a comment is inserted where an
end tag for f.ptr is crucial.) The basic idea is
that if a f.ptr points to an ambiguous structure (a
structure that has an f.s.OR in it), and one of its
interpretations is to be selected, then a f.s.choice
is enclosed within it, with an IDREF attribute (target), whose
value is the ID attribute of the f.s.OR inside the
ambiguous structure. The content model of f.s.choice
is one or more f.ptrs which specify which of the
alternative f.structs inside the f.s.OR
are the interpretations of the structure being pointed to by the
enclosing f.ptr. --TL
The illustration is broken down into text, a series
of f.structs and alignment.
The markup of the text presumably does not conform to the
recommendations of chapter 6, since I have not checked them for
conformity thereto. --TL
<![CDATA[
<!-- Here is the text markup. -->
<text id=sample1>
<sentence id=s1>
<word id=w1>
<character id=c1> W </character>
<character id=c2> a </character>
<character id=c3> s </character>
<character id=c4> h </character>
</word>
<character id=c5> ␣ </character>
<word id=w2>
<character id=c6> s </character>
<character id=c7> i </character>
<character id=c8> n </character>
<character id=c9> k </character>
<character id=c10> s </character>
</word>
<character id=c11> . </character>
</sentence>
</text>
<!-- Here begins the series of <tag>f.struct</tag>s. -->
<f.struct id=f1>
<f.s.name> Analysis of sentence 'Wash sinks.' </f.s.name>
<feature>
<f.name> Category </f.name>
<f.struct> Sentence </f.struct>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Alternative subanalyses </f.name>
<f.s.OR id=f1o>
<f.ptr target=f1a1>
<f.ptr target=f1a2>
</f.s.OR>
</feature>
</f.struct>
<!-- The next <tag>f.struct</tag> -->
<f.struct id=f1a1>
<f.s.name> One subanalysis of 'Wash sinks.' </f.s.name>
<feature>
<f.name> Mood </f.name>
<f.struct> Indicative </f.struct>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Voice </f.name>
<f.struct> Stative </f.struct>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Subject </f.name>
<f.ptr target=f3>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Predicate </f.name>
<f.ptr target=f6>
</feature>
</f.struct>
<!-- The next <tag>f.struct</tag> -->
<f.struct id=f1a2>
<f.s.name> Another subanalysis of 'Wash sinks.' </f.s.name>
<feature>
<f.name> Mood </f.name>
<f.struct> Imperative </f.struct>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Voice </f.name>
<f.struct> Active </f.struct>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Subject </f.name>
<f.struct id=f1a2f1>
<feature>
<f.name> Category </f.name>
<f.struct> NP </f.struct>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Number </f.name>
<f.struct> Unspecified </f.struct>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Person </f.name>
<f.struct> 2 </f.struct>
</feature>
</f.struct>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Predicate </f.name>
<f.ptr target=f2>
</feature>
</f.struct>
<!-- The next <tag>f.struct</tag> -->
<f.struct id=f2>
<f.s.name> Analysis of VP 'Wash sinks' </f.s.name>
<feature>
<f.name> Category </f.name>
<f.struct> VP </f.struct>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Head </f.name>
<f.ptr target=f8>
<f.s.choice target=f8o>
<f.ptr target=f8a2>
</f.s.choice>
<!-- </f.ptr> See <fnref refid=choice> -->
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Direct Object </f.name>
<f.ptr target=f5>
</feature>
</f.struct>
<!-- The next <tag>f.struct</tag> -->
<f.struct id=f3>
<f.s.name> Analysis of NP 'wash' </f.s.name>
<feature>
<f.name> Category </f.name>
<f.struct> NP </f.struct>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Alternative subanalyses of NP 'wash' </f.name>
<f.s.OR id=f3o>
<f.struct id=f3a1>
<feature>
<f.name> Proper </f.name>
<plus>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Number </f.name>
<f.struct> Singular </f.struct>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Object-type </f.name>
<f.struct> Person </f.struct>
</feature>
</f.struct>
<f.struct id=f3a2>
<feature>
<f.name> Mass </f.name>
<plus>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Number </f.name>
<f.struct> Singular </f.struct>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Head </f.name>
<f.ptr target=f7>
</feature>
</f.struct>
</f.s.OR>
</feature>
</f.struct>
<!-- The next <tag>f.struct</tag> -->
<f.struct id=f4>
<f.s.name> Analysis of VP 'wash' </f.s.name>
<feature>
<f.name> Category </f.name>
<f.struct> VP </f.struct>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Head </f.name>
<f.ptr target=f8>
<f.s.choice target=f8o>
<f.ptr target=f8a1>
</f.s.choice>
<!-- </f.ptr> See <fnref refid=choice> -->
</feature>
</f.struct>
<!-- The next <tag>f.struct</tag> -->
<f.struct id=f5>
<f.s.name> Analysis of NP 'sinks' </f.s.name>
<feature>
<f.name> Count </f.name>
<plus>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Number </f.name>
<f.struct> Plural </f.struct>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Head </f.name>
<f.ptr target=f9>
</feature>
</f.struct>
<!-- The next <tag>f.struct</tag> -->
<f.struct id=f6>
<f.s.name> Analysis of VP 'sinks' </f.s.name>
<feature>
<f.name> Category </f.name>
<f.struct> VP </f.struct>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Head </f.name>
<f.ptr target=f10>
<f.s.choice target=f10o>
<f.ptr target=f10a1>
</f.s.choice>
<!-- </f.ptr> See <fnref refid=choice> -->
</feature>
</f.struct>
<f.struct id=f7>
<f.s.name> Analysis of Noun 'wash' </f.s.name>
<feature>
<f.name> Category </f.name>
<f.struct> Noun </f.struct>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Inflected </f.name>
<minus>
</feature>
</f.struct>
<!-- The next <tag>f.struct</tag> -->
<f.struct id=f8>
<f.s.name> Analysis of Verb 'wash' </f.s.name>
<feature>
<f.name> Category </f.name>
<f.struct> Verb </f.struct>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Inflected </f.name>
<minus>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Alternative subanalyses of Verb 'wash' </f.name>
<f.s.OR id=f8o>
<f.struct id=f8a1>
<feature>
<f.name> Subcat </f.name>
<f.struct> Intransitive </f.struct>
</feature>
</f.struct>
<f.struct id=f8a2>
<feature>
<f.name> Subcat </f.name>
<f.struct> Transitive </f.struct>
</feature>
</f.struct>
</f.s.OR>
</feature>
</f.struct>
<!-- The next <tag>f.struct</tag> -->
<f.struct id=f9>
<f.s.name> Analysis of Noun 'sinks' </f.s.name>
<feature>
<f.name> Category </f.name>
<f.struct> Noun </f.struct>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Gloss
<f.s.OR id=f9o>
<f.struct id=f9a1> basins for washing </f.struct>
<f.struct id=f9a2> depressions in a land surface
</f.struct>
</f.s.OR>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Inflected </f.name>
<plus>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Number </f.name>
<f.struct> Plural </f.struct>
</feature>
</f.struct>
<!-- The next <tag>f.struct</tag> -->
<f.struct id=f10>
<f.s.name> Analysis of Verb 'sinks' </f.s.name>
<feature>
<f.name> Category </f.name>
<f.struct> Verb </f.struct>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Inflected </f.name>
<plus>
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Number-of-subject </f.name>
<f.struct> Singular
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Person-of-subject </f.name>
<f.struct> 3
</feature>
<feature>
<f.name> Alternative subanalyses of Verb 'sinks' </f.name>
<f.s.OR id=f10o>
<f.struct id=f10a1>
<feature>
<f.name> Subcat </f.name>
<f.struct> Intransitive </f.struct>
</feature>
</f.struct>
<f.struct id=f10a2>
<feature>
<f.name> Subcat </f.name>
<f.struct> Transitive </f.struct>
</feature>
</f.struct>
</f.s.OR>
</feature>
</f.struct>
<!-- The <tag>alignment</tag> follows. -->
<alignment>
<al.map>
<al.ptr id=s1>
<al.list>
<al.ptr id=f0>
<al.ptr id=f1>
</al.list>
</al.map>
<al.map>
<al.range al.start=w1 al.end=w2>
<al.ptr id=f2>
</al.map>
<al.map>
<al.ptr id=w1>
<al.list>
<al.ptr id=f3>
<al.ptr id=f7>
<al.ptr id=f8>
</al.list>
</al.map>
<al.map>
<al.ptr id=w2>
<al.list>
<al.ptr id=f6>
<al.ptr id=f9>
<al.ptr id=f10>
</al.list>
</al.map>
</alignment>
]]>