[Attempto] Warnings about noun phrases and anaphora in relative sentences

[Kaarel Kaljurand]

Hi,

On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 23:24, Joshua TAYLOR <tayloj at cs.rpi.edu> wrote:
> One of the examples from the 6.6 DRS Report is
>
> "Every card the code of which is correct is valid."
>
> The webservice parses this and produces the DRS described by the
> report, but also produces a warning:
>
> "The definite noun phrase 'the code' does not have an antecedent and
> thus is not interpreted as anaphoric reference, but as a new
> indefinite noun phrase."
> "If the definite noun phrase 'the code' should be an anaphoric
> reference then you must introduce an appropriate antecedent."
>
> Is this warning appropriate for this case?

I believe it's not appropriate for the reason that the above sentence
should be parsed in the same way as "Every card _a_ code of which is
correct is valid." no matter what the preceding context is, and one
cannot actually introduce an appropriate antecedent. Thus advising the
user to do so is a bug.

Trying to introduce an "antecedent" I've found another bug: the sentences

    There is a code of a card. Every card the code of which is correct is valid.

are parsed as if they stood for:

   There is a code X1 of a card.
   If there is a card X2 and the code X1 is correct then the card X2 is valid.

--
kaarel