Eckhard Bick - VISL

4.6.3 Tree structures for constituent analysis
Given the popularity of constituent grammars in present day linguistics, it is an
interesting question whether the flat structure of traditional CG can in some way be
transformed into a constituent tree structure, and, if so, - will information be lost, or
ambiguity added ?
Both, I suggest. First, in replacing functional tags by mere PSG constituent order,
information will be lost, especially on the sentence and clause levels, where the tag
system is richest, less in the ad-N and ad-A structures, where argument and modifier
function normally is expressed only in the head’s valency tags, not in the dependent
element’s syntactic tag. This problem can be remedied by enriching the mere constituent
tree by tagging its nodes with the original CG function tags.
On the other hand, certain attachment underspecifications will be brought to the
foreground when building an explicit tree structure from a CG-notation, as in the
following examples:
i) @N< after a postnominal which features a nominal head itself:
... o gigante Venceslau comedor de gente famoso ...
(‘the giant Venceslau, eater of men well-known’)
ii) co-ordination problems, like in the single/double attachment of the @N<
(postnominal) in:
... cinco homens e quatro mulheres do Rio ...
(‘five men and four women from Rio’)
iii) @