2.4.3 ``Special'' Words

There are two classes of words that get a special treatment in our framework:

1. First, look at the following lexicon/4 facts for determiners:

   lexicon(det,_,[every],uni).

   lexicon(det,_,[a],indef).

   Note that these entries contain no semantic information whatsoever. This is because the semantic contribution of determiners is not simply a constant or predicate symbol, but rather a relatively complex expression that is expressed differently in different formalisms. Hence we shall specify the semantics of these categories in the semantic macros alone.

2. Secondly, a small number of important words - in particular, copula and the verb phrase modifier construct ``does not'' - are not listed in the lexicon at all. This is because they are not associated with either a relation symbol or a constant, and there's no additional information we would like to list for them. For such words, a lexicon/4 fact would simply list the word form as Phrase entry. Instead, we will check their word form directly in our lexical rules (or as one also says: we treat them syncategorematically ). For example, the following rule handles verb phrase negation:

   neg(Neg)--> [not], {modSem(neg,Neg)}.

   Thus in these cases the semantic macros will be the sole source of semantic information.