remnant: remnant in ellipsis
The remnant relation is used to provide a satisfactory treatment of ellipsis (in
the case of gapping and stripping, where a predicational or verbal
head gets elided) without having to postulate empty nodes in the basic representation. This is something that was lacking in earlier versions
of SD and provides a basis for being able to reconstruct dependencies
in the enhanced representation of SD.
USD adopts an analysis that notes that in ellipsis a remnant corresponds to a correlate in a preceding clause. The remnant relation connects each remnant to its correlate in the basic dependency representation. This is then a sufficient representation to reconstruct the predicate-argument structure in the enhanced representation.
Marie went to Paris and Miriam to Prague
nsubj(went-2, Marie-1)
root(root-0, went-2)
nmod(went-2, Paris-4)
case(Paris-4, to-3)
cc(went-2, and-5)
remnant(Marie-1, Miriam-6)
case(Prague-8, to-7)
remnant(Paris-4, Prague-8)
Even in the more complex example below, the remnant
relations enable us to correctly retrieve the subjects and objects in
the clauses with an elided verb.
John won bronze , Mary silver , and Sandy gold
nsubj(won-2, John-1)
dobj(won-2, bronze-3)
remnant(John-1, Mary-5)
remnant(Mary-5, Sandy-9)
remnant(bronze-3, silver-6)
remnant(silver-6, gold-10)
Note in particular that (unlike for conj), remnant uses a chaining analysis where each subsequent remnant depends on the immediately preceding remnant/correlate. The reason for this is that otherwise in a sentence with 2 or more chained ellipses the dependency structure would no longer track which remnants go together. It would become impossible to determine whether Mary won silver and Sandy gold, or Mary won gold and Sandy silver.
Instances of stripping typically occur when there is only one argument in the second clause, but with an accompanying adverbial modifier such as not or only. We model these sentences with the remnant relation as well.
Marie went to Paris , not Miriam
nsubj(went-2, Marie-1)
root(root-0, went-2)
nmod(went-2, Paris-4)
case(Paris-4, to-3)
remnant(Marie-1, Miriam-7)
neg(Miriam-7, not-6)
Marie did go to Europe , but only to Paris .
nsubj(go-3, Marie-1)
aux(go-3, did-2)
root(root-0, go-3)
case(Europe-5, to-4)
nmod(go-3, Europe-5)
cc(go-3, but-7)
advmod(Paris-10, only-8)
case(Paris-10, to-9)
remnant(Europe-5, Paris-10)
Sometimes in these constructions adverbials will be “sprouted”, and have no correlate in the precedeing clause. In such a situation, the adverbial should attach to one of the remnants; in principle it shouldn’t matter which remnant it attaches to, since all remnants at a particular depth of embedding point back to the same semantic event (which the adverbial is a part of). However, to enforce a regular system, the adverbial should depend on the nearest leftmost dependent.
Mary will come today and Tom tomorrow , if he finds a ticket .
nsubj(come-3, Mary-1)
aux(come-3, will-2)
root(root-0, come-3)
advmod(come-3, today-4)
cc(come-3, and-5)
remnant(Mary-1, Tom-6)
remnant(today-4, tomorrow-7)
mark(finds-11, if-9)
nsubj(finds-11, he-10)
advcl(tomorrow-7, finds-11)
det(ticket-13, a-12)
dobj(finds-11, ticket-13)
Mary will come today and , if he finds a ticket , Tom tomorrow .
nsubj(come-3, Mary-1)
aux(come-3, will-2)
root(root-0, come-3)
advmod(come-3, today-4)
cc(come-3, and-5)
mark(finds-9, if-7)
nsubj(finds-9, he-8)
advcl(Tom-13, finds-9)
det(ticket-11, a-10)
dobj(finds-9, ticket-11)
remnant(Mary-1, Tom-13)
remnant(today-4, tomorrow-14)
The remnant relation is used when no predicational material is present. In contrast, in right-node-raising (RNR) and VP-ellipsis constructions in which some kind of predicational or verbal material is still present, the remnant relation is not used. In RNR, the verbs are coordinated and the object is a dobj of the first verb:
John bought and ate an apple
nsubj(bought-2, John-1)
cc(bought-2, and-3)
conj(bought-2, ate-4)
det(apple-6, an-5)
dobj(bought-2, apple-6)
In VP-ellipsis, we keep the auxiliary as the head, as shown below:
John will win gold and Mary will too
nsubj(win-3, John-1)
aux(win-3, will-2)
dobj(win-3, gold-4)
cc(win-3, and-5)
conj(win-3, will-7)
nsubj(will-7, Mary-6)
advmod(will-7, too-8)
Treebank Statistics (UD_English)
This relation is universal.
96 nodes (0%) are attached to their parents as remnant.
96 instances of remnant (100%) are left-to-right (parent precedes child).
Average distance between parent and child is 5.82291666666667.
The following 23 pairs of parts of speech are connected with remnant: en-pos/NOUN-en-pos/NOUN (35; 36% instances), en-pos/PROPN-en-pos/PROPN (10; 10% instances), en-pos/ADJ-en-pos/ADJ (9; 9% instances), en-pos/ADV-en-pos/ADV (7; 7% instances), en-pos/NUM-en-pos/NUM (6; 6% instances), en-pos/VERB-en-pos/VERB (5; 5% instances), en-pos/DET-en-pos/NOUN (3; 3% instances), en-pos/VERB-en-pos/NOUN (3; 3% instances), en-pos/NOUN-en-pos/ADJ (2; 2% instances), en-pos/NOUN-en-pos/NUM (2; 2% instances), en-pos/NOUN-en-pos/PROPN (2; 2% instances), en-pos/ADJ-en-pos/NOUN (1; 1% instances), en-pos/ADJ-en-pos/VERB (1; 1% instances), en-pos/ADJ-en-pos/X (1; 1% instances), en-pos/ADV-en-pos/PROPN (1; 1% instances), en-pos/NOUN-en-pos/ADV (1; 1% instances), en-pos/NOUN-en-pos/VERB (1; 1% instances), en-pos/NUM-en-pos/DET (1; 1% instances), en-pos/PART-en-pos/ADV (1; 1% instances), en-pos/PRON-en-pos/ADJ (1; 1% instances), en-pos/PRON-en-pos/PRON (1; 1% instances), en-pos/PUNCT-en-pos/CONJ (1; 1% instances), en-pos/VERB-en-pos/PROPN (1; 1% instances).
# visual-style 10 bgColor:blue
# visual-style 10 fgColor:white
# visual-style 7 bgColor:blue
# visual-style 7 fgColor:white
# visual-style 7 10 remnant color:blue
1 Birds bird NOUN NNS Number=Plur 2 nsubj _ _
2 eat eat VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _
3 and and CONJ CC _ 2 cc _ _
4 sleep sleep VERB VBP Mood=Ind|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 2 conj _ _
5 with with ADP IN _ 7 case _ _
6 their they PRON PRP$ Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 7 nmod:poss _ _
7 flock flock NOUN NN Number=Sing 2 nmod _ SpaceAfter=No
8 , , PUNCT , _ 7 punct _ _
9 not not ADV RB _ 10 neg _ _
10 predators predator NOUN NNS Number=Plur 7 remnant _ SpaceAfter=No
11 . . PUNCT . _ 2 punct _ _
# visual-style 10 bgColor:blue
# visual-style 10 fgColor:white
# visual-style 6 bgColor:blue
# visual-style 6 fgColor:white
# visual-style 6 10 remnant color:blue
1 Four four NUM CD NumType=Card 6 nsubj _ _
2 of of ADP IN _ 3 case _ _
3 these these PRON DT Number=Plur|PronType=Dem 1 nmod _ _
4 were be VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 6 cop _ _
5 under under ADP IN _ 6 case _ _
6 Clinton Clinton PROPN NNP Number=Sing 0 root _ _
7 and and CONJ CC _ 6 cc _ _
8 6 6 NUM CD NumType=Card 1 remnant _ _
9 under under ADP IN _ 10 case _ _
10 Bush Bush PROPN NNP Number=Sing 6 remnant _ SpaceAfter=No
11 . . PUNCT . _ 6 punct _ _
# visual-style 11 bgColor:blue
# visual-style 11 fgColor:white
# visual-style 6 bgColor:blue
# visual-style 6 fgColor:white
# visual-style 6 11 remnant color:blue
1 But but CONJ CC _ 3 cc _ _
2 I I PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs 3 nsubj _ _
3 found find VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _
4 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 5 det _ _
5 location location NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 dobj _ _
6 wonderful wonderful ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 3 xcomp _ _
7 and and CONJ CC _ 6 cc _ _
8 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 9 det _ _
9 neighbors neighbor NOUN NNS Number=Plur 5 remnant _ _
10 very very ADV RB _ 11 advmod _ _
11 kind kind ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 6 remnant _ SpaceAfter=No
12 . . PUNCT . _ 3 punct _ _
remnant in other languages: [bg] [cs] [de] [el] [en] [es] [eu] [fa] [fi] [fr] [ga] [he] [hu] [it] [ja] [ko] [sv] [u]