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Mike S., On 29/09/2012 20:52:
On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 2:48 PM, And Rosta <and.rosta@hidden.email <mailto:and.rosta@hidden.email>> wrote:
1. word-classes: Interjection, Unary-op, Binary-op, Formula (= Simple Formula), Formula-root
Why would Formula-root be among the word-classes? Isn't the
distinction between Formula-root and Formula somewhat analogous to
that between noun phrases and nouns in English?
Highly analogous. The 'structural head' of a 'noun phrase' beginning with an article is the article, and the noun itself can be deeply subordinated, e.g. [a [very [easy [book] [to read]] indeed]]. But the 'distributional head' is the noun; the noun triggers number concord on verbs; the full phrase can alternate with a bare noun. Similarly, in the phrase Jorge calls 'formula', the distributional head is the simple-formula. The reason why formula-root is a word class is that it captures the notion 'structural head of a phrase whose distributional head is a (simple) formula'.
2. A formula-root is a formula or a word whose complement is a formula-root
3. Interjections and Formula-roots have no complements.
Would it be more accurate to say:
2. A formula-root is a formula or (the ?combination of ) any word
with all its one or more complementary formula-roots>
?
It wouldn't be more accurate in the phrasing with "the combination of", since I was using a formulation that uses only terminal nodes. The phrasing "A formula-root is a formula or any word with all its one or more complementary formula-roots" seems to me to be equivalent to the wording I gave. --And.