The Representation Of Syntactically Unexpressed Complements To Nouns

We address the representation of nouns having complex argument structures like deverbal nominalisations. In particular we address the semantic representation of syntactically unexpressed arguments.We put forward a treatment of this kind of optional complements in a framework that combines HPSG syntax and the semantic approach in GL (Pustejovsky, 1995). 1 I n t r o d u c t i o n In this paper we address the representation of nouns having complex argument structures like deverbal nominalisations (and other nouns with complements). These classes of nominals very often appear in the surface string without their complements, even if they are semantically implied. Such semantic implications are often shown in discourse, so that anaphoric references cannot be accounted for without taking them into account. We put forward a treatment of unexpressed complements to nouns in a framework that combines HPSG syntax and the semantic approach in GL (Pustejovsky, 1995). In the next section we present some data concerning the semantic implications of syntactically unexpressed complements. Our data are basically from Catalan, but the discussion is clearly applicable to other languages including English. In the third section we discuss the deficiencies of the standard treatments of optionality of complements. Finally, in section four we put forward our proposal. We concentrate on the representation of deverbal nominalisations, but we discuss some o ther kinds of optional complements to nouns.