Each ACE sentence has only one meaning. However, if interpreted in full English, an ACE sentence can have many meanings. The following interpretation rules specify which of the conceivable meanings a sentence has in ACE.
Notes: To clarify the scopes of a sentence we use {...}. This should not be confused with the notation used for sets. To explain anaphoric references we use [...] which should not be confused with the notation for lists. A sentence prefixed with * is not part of ACE, but serves as counter example.
By default, plural noun phrases have a collective reading; distributive reading is indicated by each of.
collective reading: A clerk enters two cards. distributive reading: A clerk enters each of two cards.
A collective plural, for instance two girls, denotes a group of two girls that is viewed as a whole. A distributive plural, for example each of two girls, denotes a set of two girls that are considered individually.
Two girls lift a table. (Note: There is one act of lifting in which two girls together lift a table. In other words, there is one relation between two girls and one table.) Each of two girls lifts a table. (Note: There are two acts of lifting in each of which one of the two girls individually lifts a table — not necessarily the same one. That is to say, there are two relations between each of the two girls and a table.)
A definite noun phrase followed by an of-construct, as in the father of John, does not introduce a functional relation between John and father, but is interpreted as the relation a father of John.
An of-construct followed by a noun phrase conjunction pertains to the complete noun phrase conjunction. Thus the following sentence
A man sees a dog of Mary and John.
that is ambiguous in English gets in ACE the unique interpretation that a man sees a dog that belongs to both Mary and John, i.e. as A man sees a dog of {Mary and John}. To express that the man sees John and a dog of Mary, one can write
A man sees John and a dog of Mary.
Prepositional phrases modify the verb not the noun.
A customer {enters a card with a code}.
If an adverb can modify the preceding or the following verb then it modifies the preceding one.
A customer who {enters a card manually} types a code.
Relative clauses modify the immediately preceding noun. In order to express coordination within the relative clause, the relative pronoun who/that/which must be repeated.
A customer enters {a card that carries a code} and opens an account.
A customer inserts {a card that is valid and that has a code}.
Binding order of coordinators is the following:
and > or > ,and > ,or
I.e. and binds stronger than or, but this can be reversed by prefixing and with a comma.
A client {enters a red card or enters a blue card}, and enters a code.
The scope of simple subordinated sentences, i.e. simple sentences following the word that extends to the end of the simple sentence. To express coordination within the scope of sentences subordination the word that has to be repeated.
{It is false that a man waits} and a dog barks.
{It is false that a man waits and that a dog barks}.
John believes {that Mary is tired} and she sleeps.
John believes {that Mary is tired and that she sleeps}.
In if-then-sentences, the scope of the then-part extends to the end of the coordination.
{If a man waits and a dog barks} {then a woman smiles and a cat sleeps}.
The determiner a means existential quantification, not universal quantification. To express universal quantification use, for example, every. Compare the following two sentences.
A cat is an animal. (= There is a cat that is an animal.) Every cat is an animal. (= If there is a cat then the cat is an animal.)
The textual position of a local quantifier (universal: every, each, ...; existential: a/an, some, ...) opens its scope that extends to the end of the sentence; in sentence coordinations the scope extends to the end of the respective coordinated sentence.
{A customer types {every code}}.
{Every customer types {a code}}.
{Every customer has a card} and {a customer has a code}.
The textual position of a global quantifier (universal: for every, for each, ...; existential: there is a/an, there is some, ...) opens its scope that extends to the end of the sentence, coordinated or not.
{For every customer the customer has a card and the customer has a code}.
Note that universally quantified sentences and conditional sentences are interpreted equivalently. E.g.
Every customer enters a card.
is equivalent to
If there is a customer then the customer enters a card.
Some nouns, for instance laundry, have both a countable interpretation (a laundry) and a mass interpretation (some laundry). Their use with no and their combination with Saxon genitives and possessive pronouns can introduce a lexical ambiguity between the countable and the mass interpretation. This ambiguity is resolved in ACE by preferring the countable interpretation. The mass interpretation can be enforced by using the of-prepositional phrase.
John's laundry (countable interpretation) his laundry (countable interpretation) no laundry (countable interpretation) some laundry of John/him (mass interpretation) a laundry of John/him (countable interpretation) the laundry of John/him (depends on the resolution of anaphor `the laundry') it is false that some laundry ... (mass interpretation) some laundry does not ... (mass interpretation)
The same verb can appear in the categories intransitive, transitive, and ditransitive. This can lead to ambiguities. To eliminate these ambiguities, ACE expects that the phrasal particle of a phrasal verb (e.g. look up, drop out, shut down) and the direct preposition of a prepositional verb (e.g. look at, apply for) are hyphenated to the verb.
A steward waits-on the table. (compare with: Some hot food waits {on the table}.)
John looks-up an entry. (compare with: John looks {up the hill}.)
What does John apply-for? (compare with: John applies {for the second time}.)
Hyphenation does not apply to ditransitive verbs since the prepositional complement is not adjacent to the verb.
John gives a card to a clerk. Who does John give a card to?
If a verb is defined as a transitive verb and as a ditransitive verb (i.e. regard something / regard something as something) then for sentences like
John regards a woman as a friend.
the ditransitive reading has precedence. Thus, a friend is interpreted as the indirect object of the ditransitive verb regards.
Numbers, expressions, lists, sets and strings cannot be anaphorically referred to.
Proper names are always accessible for anaphoric reference.
John does not see Mary. Mary waits for him.
A noun phrase antecedent other than a proper name is not accessible if it occurs in a negated sentence, in a sentence with a modal auxiliary, in a subordinated sentence, in an interrogative sentence, or in a command.
John does not enter a card. *It is correct. (use instead: John does not enter a card that is correct.) John can enter a card. *It is correct. (use instead: John can enter a card that is correct.) It is necessary that John enters a card. *It is correct. (use instead: It is necessary that John enters a card that is correct.) Mary believes that John enters a card. *It is correct. (use instead: Mary believes that John enters a card that is correct.) Does John see a car? *The car is red. (use instead: Does John see a car that is red?) (use instead: A car is red. Does John see the car?) John, identify a car! *The car is red. (use instead: John, identify the car that is red!) (use instead: A car is red. John, identify the car!)
A noun phrase antecedent other than a proper name is not accessible if it occurs in a universally quantified or if-then-sentence.
Every customer has a card. *It is correct. (use instead: Every customer has a card that is correct.) If there is a customer then he has a card. *It is correct. (use instead: If there is a customer then he has a card that is correct.)
However, a noun phrase antecedent in the if-part of a conditional sentence is accessible in the then-part.
If a customer has a card then he enters it.
A noun phrase antecedent in a disjunction is only accessible in subsequent disjuncts.
A customer enters a card or drops it. *It is dirty.
Each occurrence of a proper name like John denotes the same entity. Thus anaphoric reference to a proper name is possible using the proper name itself.
John likes Mary and Mary likes John.
If the anaphor is a non-reflexive personal pronoun (he, him, ...), or a non-reflexive possessive pronoun (his, ...), then the anaphor is resolved with the most recent accessible noun phrase that agrees in gender and number, and that is not the subject of the verb phrase in which the anaphor occurs.
John has a card. Bob sees him and takes it. John and Mary wait. They are tired. *John sees his wife. (use instead: John sees his own wife.)
The non-reflexive personal pronoun they can refer to a noun phrase conjunction.
John and two friends walk. They are tired. (Note: The pronoun they refers to John and two friends.)
If the anaphor is a reflexive personal pronoun (herself, ...) or a reflexive possessive pronoun (her own, ...), then the anaphor is resolved with the subject of the sentence in which the anaphor occurs provided that the subject agrees in gender and number with the anaphor.
Mary takes her own card and gets some money for herself. John and Mary admire themselves. John sees a man that sees himself. John sees a man that is seen by himself.
If the anaphor is a definite noun phrase then it is resolved with the most recent and most specific accessible noun phrase antecedent that agrees in gender and number.
There is a blue ball. There is a red ball. John sees the ball [= the red ball]. Mary sees the blue ball. There is a ball of a boy. There is a ball of a girl. John sees the ball [= the ball of a girl]. Mary sees the ball of a boy. There is a ball that is blue. There is a ball that is red. John sees the ball [= the ball that is red]. Mary sees the ball that is blue.
Notice that specificity means that a definite noun phrase anaphor can also be resolved if the sentence in which the antecedent noun phrase occurs contains all the constituents of the anaphor.
There is a man. His dog barks. The man whose dog barks is irritated. (use alternatively: There is a man whose dog barks. The man whose dog barks is irritated.) A man owns a dog. John sees the man who owns a dog. (use alternatively: There is a man who owns a dog. John sees the man who owns a dog.)
If a definite noun phrase cannot be resolved then it is interpreted as an indefinite noun phrase introducing a new entity.
John goes to the bank. (Note: The definite noun phrase the bank does not have an antecedent and introduces a new entity.)
If the anaphor is a variable then it is resolved with an accessible noun phrase that has the variable as apposition, or with the respective "bare" variable.
John has a card X and a card Y. Mary takes the card. Bob takes the card X. Harry takes Y. X is heavy. John lifts X. (= Something X is heavy. John lifts X.)
An undefined word starting with a capital letter and occurring in a noun phrase position is interpreted as a singular proper name with undefined gender. Referring later to the word with a pronoun determines its gender.
Leonino sleeps. (Note: The gender of Leonino is undefined.) Leonino sleeps. Her fur is wet. (Note: The pronoun her assigns to Leonino the female gender. Later references must respect this.)
Passive sentence have the same meaning as their active counterparts.
A card is entered by John. (= John enters a card.) A customer is given a card by John. (= John gives a customer a card.)Note that a passive sentence always needs an agent denoted by by ... . If the lexicon happens to contain the same word as participle perfect — used in a passive construct — and as intransitive adjective then users could get the mistaken impression that it is possible to build passive sentences without the by-construct. Assuming that entered occurs in the lexicon both as participle perfect and as intransitive adjective then the sentence A card is entered. is not a passive sentence, and entered is interpreted as adjective.
Arithmetic expressions are built from numbers, variables and proper names with the help of the operators +, -, *, /, ^. All operators are left-associative. Standard operator precedence applies: ^ precedes * and / that precede + and -. Sub-expressions can be put in parentheses to modify the precedence of the operators. This applies specifically to iterated occurrences of the exponentiation operator ^. For example, the expression 2^3^4 stands for (2^3)^4. Use brackets to achieve 2^(3^4). Arithmetic operators have types, meaning that all arguments must eventually stand for numbers.
Note: The ACE parser APE does not evaluate expressions.
Strings consists of a sequence of Unicode characters enclosed in double quotes "...". Quotation marks and backslashes within strings have to be escaped by a backslash. Strings, variables, proper names and bracketed strings can be concatenated by the left-associative operator &. The operator & has a type, meaning that all arguments must eventually stand for strings.
Note: The ACE parser APE does not perform concatenations.
2013-08-01