Syntactic annotation – expletive constructions

As is standard for Penn-style treebanks, the expletive (whether overt or null) is contained within an NP-SBJ. Note that this is not necessarily a statement on the status of the expletive as a subject.

Overt expletives

Note that overt expletives do not have a special POS tag in the corpus: they are just tagged as an ordinary demonstrative pronoun (DPDS). That said, in CHLG-1.0-PRAG which annotates all NP arguments for information status, expletive NPs are annotated at the noun phrase level: see documentation on the pragmatic annotation here.

Overt expletives occur in four main contexts:

• With an extraposed clausal subject; expletive is coindexed with the clausal subject.

(IP-MAT (NP-SBJ-1 (DPDS Dit))                   ← expletive
        (VVFIN is)
        (NP-PRD (DDARTA de)
                (ADJA erste)
                (NA punt)
                (PP (APPR van)
                    (NP (NA viuen))))
        (CP-THT-1 (KOUS)                        ← clausal subject
                  (IP-SUB (NP-SBJ (PPER wi))
                          (ADVP (ADJV lancge))
                          (VVFIN menen)
                          ...))
)

 

• With an extraposed clausal object; expletive is coindexed with the clausal object.

    (IP-MAT (NP-SBJ *con*)
            (KON vnde)
            (VVFIN betugede)
            (NP-OB1-1 (PPER et))                       ← expletive
            (CP-THT-1 (KOUS wente)                     ← clausal object
                      (IP-SUB (NP-SBJ (DPDS dit))
                              (VVFIN is)
                              (NP-PRD (NP-POS (NA godes))
                                      (NA sone)))))

 

• In existentials/presentationals: expletive is coindexed with the associated NP

(IP-SUB (VVFIN is)
        (NP-SBJ-1 (PPER s))
        (NP-1 (DIARTA eyn)
                  (ADJA rot)
                  (NA steyn))              
)

 

• In impersonals: expletive is not coindexed with anything.

(IP-MAT (NP-SBJ (PPER Et))
        (VVFIN was)
        (PP (APPR by)
            (NP (DDARTA der)
                (ADJA teynden)
                (NA stunde)))              
)

 

Null expletives

Null expletives (\*exp\*) are inserted in those contexts (with the exception of the object expletive type) where an expletive could in principle appear but where it is not attested. The same rules for coindexing as with overt expletives apply.

• Null expletive with an extraposed clausal subject:

(IP-SUB (NP-SBJ-1 *exp*)                      ← null expletive
        (ADVP (AVD dar))
        (VVPP ghescreuen)
        (VAFIN staet)
        (CP-THT-1 (KOUS Dat)                  ← clausal subject
                  (IP-SUB (NP-SBJ (DPIS men))
                          (PP (APPR in)
                              (NP (CARDA vier)
                                  (NA manieren)
                                  (NA sunde)))
                          (VVFIN begaet)))
)

 

• Null expletive in impersonal constructions:

(IP-MAT (NP-SBJ *exp*)    ← null expletive
        (KON Vnde)
        (PP (ADVP (PAVD hijr))
            (PAVAP vp))
        (VVFIN staet)
        (PP (APPR in)
            (NP (DDARTA der)
                (NA glosen)))
        (VVPP gheschreuen)
)

 

• Note that no null expletive is inserted in sentences with a clausal object which lack an expletive in the matrix clause:

(IP-MAT (PP (ADVP (PAVKO dar))
            (PAVAP von))
        (VVFIN screif)
        (NP-SBJ (DPIS me))
        (CP-THT (KOUS dat)                   ← clausal object
                (IP-SUB (NP-SBJ (PPER he))
                        (NP-OB1 (DDARTA dem)
                                (NA himmel)
                        (VVFIN vphelde)
                        (PP (ADVP (PAVD dar)
                            (PAVAP vmme))))))
)