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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	_	_


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