LING 567
Lab 2
Chris Curtis and David McHugh (write-up)
04.12.2013

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Question 1
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Word Order
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The words in Lakota typically appear in SOV order. As an agglutinative language where pronouns
are often represented as verb morphemes, it's common for the argument arrangement SOV to not
actually be observed in a sentence. The morphemic representation of the pronouns are not attached
in SOV order.

Examples:

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: pn
čhikhúwapi
čhi-khúwapi
2PlPat<1SgAgt-khuwá
2PL.PAT<1SG.AGT-chase
'I chase you (pl)'

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: pn
wičhákhuwa
wičhá-khuwá
3PlAnimPat-3SgAgt-khuwá
3PL.ANIM.PAT-3SG.AGT-chase
'It chases them'

More generally, the pronomic affixes are in Pat-Agt order, except that 'uŋ-' (1DU, 1PL) always
comes first, except it always follows 'wičha' (3PL.ANIM.PAT). Clearly, backing off to V-final
instead of SOV would be incorrect -- not only does this not reflect actual usage, since S and O
are unmarked the grammar would overgenerate. The approach we followd initially was to move the
pronouns (in the FST upper tape form) to the front of the verb so they would be picked up as
the subject and object without requiring  additional grammar changes. As was pointed out, however,
this is incorrect and will cause many additional problems later. Thus we attempted to implement
the pronomic affixes correctly as verb affixes and position classes; however the challenge
we saw there was that we don't currently have a mechanism for attaching person-number-gender
to a verb to specify features on an NP that does not actually exist. Therefore, the current
version of the grammar fails to generate correct readings for most of the pronoun examples. (In
particular, where the pronoun affixes are not in S-O order.)


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Number
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lakota has five different values of number agreement: singular, dual, plural, collective and
distributive. Collective and distributive can be considered subtype of plural, especially
considering that In many situations, there is no distinction between them. Third person stative
verbs and agentive active verbs exhibit the phenomena. The dual is only used in the first person.

Examples:

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: pn
igmú kiŋ wičhákhuwapi
igmú kiŋ wičhá-khuwa-pi
igmú kiŋ 3PlCollAgt-khuwá
cat DEF 3PL.COLL.AGT-chase
'They (coll.) chase the cat'

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: pn
igmú kiŋ khuwápi
igmú kiŋ khuwá-pi
igmú kiŋ 3PlAgt-khuwá
cat DEF 3PL.AGT-chase
'They chase the cat / the cat chases them'

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: pn
uŋkhúwa
uŋ-khúwa
3SgPat-1DuAgt-khuwá
3SG.PAT-1DU.AGT-chase
'We (du.) chase it'

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: u
Phenomena: pn
uŋmákhuwapi
uŋ-ma-khuwá-pi
1SgPat-1PlAgt-khuwá
1SG.PAT-1PL.AGT-chase
'We chase me'

In order to model this, we defined three types with the default super type "number": single,
dual, and plural. Two additional types were created (collective and distributive), with "plural"
as a super type. With this arrangement, we can constrain a third person agent to be plural, while
also allowing for it to be distributive or collective as well.

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Person
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lakota has three different person values: first, second and third. There is no evidence that
inclusivity plays a syntactic role in the language.

Examples:

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: pn
igmú kiŋ wakhúwa
igmú kiŋ wa-khúwa
igmú kiŋ 1SgAgt-khuwá
cat DEF 1SG.AGT-chase
'I chase the cat'

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: pn
igmú kiŋ yakhúwa
igmú kiŋ ya-khúwa
igmú kiŋ 2SgAgt-khuwá
cat DEF 2SG.AGT-chase
'You (sg) chase the cat'

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: pn
igmú kiŋ khuwá
igmú kiŋ Ø-khuwá
igmú kiŋ Ø-khuwá
cat DEF 3SgAgt-chase
'He chases the cat'

To model person in Lakota, we simply chose the standard First, second, and third option and
none for subtype.

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Gender
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The indefinite articles in Lakota exhibit five genders: animate, human, nonhuman, inanimate,
and non-countable (mass). The forms for human and nonhuman are sometimes distinguishable, but
often take on the same form. When the same, they can simply be considered animate. Verbs, for
example, do not take a different form for human vs. non-human--only a difference between
animate and inanimate.

Examples:

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: pn
wičháwakhuwa
wičhá-wa-khuwá
3PlAnimPat-1SgAgt-khuwá
3PL.ANIM.PAT-1SG.AGT-chase
'I chase them'

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: pn
wičhákhuwapi
wičhá-khuwá-pi
3PlAnimPat-3PlAgt-khuwá
3PL.ANIM.PAT-3PL.AGT-chase
'They chase them'

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: pn
wičháyakhuwapi
wičhá-ya-khuwapi
3PlAnimPat-2PlAgt-khuwá
3PL.ANIM.PAT-2PL.AGT-chase
'You (pl) chase them'

In our model, we chose to create three genders taking the default root super type "gender":
animate, inanimate, noncountable. Two additional genders were created with the super type
"animate": human and nonhuman. With this arrangement, we can specify nouns as human, taking
an indefinite article with gender human while the verb agreement is animate.

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Case
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Transitive verbs in Lakota always take two arguements: one agentive, one patientive. Intransitive
verbs always take on arguements, and it may be agentive or patientive. Its case determines
whether the verb is active or stative. There also exist impersonal verbs which take no arguments
and ditransitive verbs, which take two.

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: u
Phenomena: c
igmú kiŋ lowáŋ
igmú kiŋ Ø-lowáŋ
igmú kiŋ 3SgPat-lowáŋ
cat DEF 3SG.PAT-sing
'the cat sings'

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: c
igmú kiŋ lowáŋ
igmú kiŋ Ø-lowáŋ
igmú kiŋ 3SgAgt-lowáŋ
cat DEF 3SG.AGT-sing
'the cat sings'

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: pn
wakhúwa
wa-khúwa
3SgPat-1SgAgt-khuwá
3SG.PAT-1SG.AGT-chase
'I chase it'

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: c
igmú kiŋ sápe
igmú kiŋ Ø-sápe
igmú kiŋ 3SgPat-sápA
cat DEF 3SG.PAT-be_black
'the cat is black'

Because the vast majority of verbs are either transitive and intransitive, we decided to base our
case choice for the model on those. The intransitive accepts either of two cases, so split-s was
an appropriate fit for our model. The impersonal and ditransitive verbs can be addressed at a
later time in our tdl files.

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Directive-Inverse
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lakota is not a direct-inverse language. There is no grammatical gender, for example, on
agentive arguments.

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: pn
wičháwakhuwa
wičhá-wa-khuwá
3PlAnimPat-1SgAgt-khuwá
3PL.ANIM.PAT-1SG.AGT-chase
'I chase them'

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: pn
wičháyakhuwa
wičhá-ya-khuwá
3PlAnimPat-2SgAgt-khuwá
3PL.ANIM.PAT-2SG.AGT-chase
'You chase them'

We left this page blank in our model, because it does not apply.


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Lexicon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Noun Types
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Most nouns in Lakota behave the same with the exception of mass nouns and prouns. Mass nouns
simply have a specific gender agreement. Except for emphatic uses, pronouns are not distinct
words in Lakota. They are morphological phenomenon, appearing as affixes on the verb.

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: wo
šúŋka kiŋ igmú kiŋ khuwá
šúŋka kiŋ igmú kiŋ khuwá
šúŋka kiŋ igmú kiŋ khuwá
dog DEF cat DEF chase
'The dog chases/chased the cat.'

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: pn
igmú kiŋ wakhúwa
igmú kiŋ wa-khúwa
igmú kiŋ 1SgAgt-khuwá
cat DEF 1SG.AGT-chase
'I chase the cat'

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: pn
igmú kiŋ makhúwa
igmú kiŋ ma-khúwa
igmú kiŋ 1SgPat-khuwá
cat DEF  1SG.PAT-chase
'The dog chases me'

We created a main noun type with the person feature specified as 3rd. For mass nouns, we used
that main noun class as a supertype, and, as described above, defined the gender value noncountable.

However, mass nouns only are syntactically relevant when dealing with negative indefinite articles,
which the customization system cannot specify.

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Verb Types
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The verbs in Lakota can be categorized in three different ways. Active instransitive, stative
instransitive and active transitive. As a split-s language, the intransitive verbs may take
either an agentive or patientive cased argument. Those cases satisfy active and stative
verbs respectively. Transitive verbs always take two arguments: one argument each in the
agentive and patientive case. There also exist special transitive verbs that take two
patientientive arguements.

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: pn
igmú kiŋ wakhúwa
igmú kiŋ wa-khúwa
igmú kiŋ 1SgAgt-khuwá
cat DEF 1SG.AGT-chase
'I chase the cat'

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: pn
igmú kiŋ makhúwa
igmú kiŋ ma-khúwa
igmú kiŋ 1SgPat-khuwá
cat DEF  1SG.PAT-chase
'The dog chases me'

We created three verb types for our Lakota model. One type for transitive verbs that requires
two arguments: agentive and patientive. We did not created a type for the transitive verb that
requires two patientive arguments, because the customization tool did not allow it (discussed below).
Because we had designated our language a split-s case system, the intransitive verb types were
easy to implement. We created an itr-stative type that has a patientive argument, and a itr-active
that has an agentive argument.

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Determiners
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Lakota has only one definte article (except for semantic differences). The indefinite articles
are quite complex, on the other hand. Factors including number, person, time, gender, and negation
all play a role in the indefinite article's agreement.

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: pn
igmú kiŋ wakhúwa
igmú kiŋ wa-khúwa
igmú kiŋ 1SgAgt-khuwá
cat DEF 1SG.AGT-chase
'I chase the cat'

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: det
igmú eyá wakhúwa
igmú eyá wa-khuwá
igmú eyá 1SgAgt-khuwá
cat  IDF.PL 1SG.AGT-chase
'I am chasing cats'

Source: author
Vetted: f
Judgment: g
Phenomena: det
igmú waŋ wakhúwa
igmú waŋ wa-khuwá
igmú waŋ  1SgAgt-khuwá
cat  IDF.SG 1SG.AGT-chase
'I am chasing a cat'

For our Lakota model, only one definite article was implemented. As described below, most of
the variables in the indefinite article form were not able to be accounted for in the model.
For this reason, we created a separate indefinite article for singular and plural, as all
genders within those are identical.

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Question 2
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The primary phenomenon in our test suite that the customization system cannot handle correctly
is the system of pronoun affixes.

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Question 3
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Our overall coverage was 8.7, with no parse errors. Out of 46 positive examples, 4 were correctly
handled. This is entirely due to the pronoun handling problem, which will ultimately require agreement
and argument optionality to fully handle.

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Question 4
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One of the places where the customization system is not able to address the grammar of Lakota
is in the non-standard argument structures. As mentioned above, the core case marking system in
Lakota is type Split-S, which allows for one or two verb arguments. However, there are certain
verbs (called "impersonal") that take zero arguments. For example, the English sentence "It is night"
can be expressed in Lakota as one simple word, "Haŋhépi." This sentence does not parse with our
current grammar, as the customization system will not allow for additional argument structures.
Similarly, our grammar will not parse the (uncommon) ditransitive verbs that exist in Lakota.
The grammar can handle the unspecified transitive, that would cover our patientive-patientive
transitive verbs, however it would also allow other combinations of argument cases that we do
not want to allow. Of course there would also be an issue of overgeneration. All of these verb
types can later be added to our grammar by editing the appropriate tdl file.

A second phenomena that the customization system was not able to cope with was the negative
polarity of Lakota's indefinite articles. To further complicate matters, articles taking on
the negative form occur in complementary distribution with a semantic "time" feature (real
versus hypothetical), existing only in positive polarity. The following examples demonstrate
the negative and time paradigms of the indefinite article:

šuŋkawakȟáŋ waŋ bluhá.
horse            IDF have-1SG.AGT
'I have a (real) horse.'

šuŋkawakȟáŋ waŋží luhá he?
horse            IDF.HYP have-2SG.AGT Q
'Do you have a horse?'

šuŋkawakȟáŋ waŋžíni bluhá šni.
horse            IDF.NEG have.1SG.AGT NEG
'I do not have a horse.'
