Re: possible readings of "John seeks a bike or a fish"

[phri!sci.ccny.cuny.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!munnari.oz.au!uhccux!lee]

From article <3320@ruuinf.cs.ruu.nl>, by jagversm@praxis.cs.ruu.nl (Koen Versmissen):

>What are the possible readings of the sentence
>>John seeks a bike or a fish< in natural language?
>
>Technically there are, I think, eight readings: ...

As to what senses are actually possible in English, I couldn't say.
I recall that Montague argued in "A Proper Theory of Quantification
in English" that `seek' is not the same as `try to find', but I
can't remember how that went.

Approaching the matter transformationally, one would make somewhat
different predictions from yours.  I think some of your senses would
violate movement constraints.  Here are the possible forms I've
come up with so far, using conjunction-reduction or a kind of
pseudo-combinatory notation:

(a)= 2	a bike John-tries John-finds or a fish John-tries John-finds
(b)= 7	John-tries( (a bike John-finds) or (a fish John-finds) )
(c)= 8	John-tries(a bike John-finds) or John-tries(a fish John-finds)
(d)	John-tries(a bike John-finds) or a fish John-tries John-finds
(e)	a bike John-tries John-finds or John-tries(a fish John-finds)
(f)	John-tries(a (bike or fish) John-finds)
(g)	a (bike or fish) John-tries John-finds

Only the first 3 correspond to senses you enumerated.  The others
are:
 (d) John is trying to find a possibly non-existent bike, or there is
     a fish that John is trying to find.
 (e) There is a bike that John is trying to find, or John is trying
     to find a possibly non-existent fish.
 (f) John is trying to find a possibly non-existent thing which, to
     him is either a bike or a fish, he's not sure.
 (g) There is a bike or a fish, I'm not sure which it is, that John
     is trying to find.

There follows a key to the reductions from more standard logical
forms to the above, and a couple of sample reductions:

John-finds(x), bike(x), fish(x)
John-tries(f(x)) -> (John-tries(f))(x)
(Ex)f(x) -> some f
some(f and g) -> a (f g)
f(x) & g(x) -> (f and g)(x)
f(x) v g(x) -> (f or g)(x)

"There is a bike John finds or there is a fish John finds."
(Ex)(bike(x) & John-finds(x)) v (Ey)(fish(y) & John-finds(y))
-> (Ex)(bike and John-finds)(x) v (Ey)(fish and John-finds)(y)
-> (some and bike John-finds) v (some and fish John-finds)
-> (a bike John-finds) v (a fish John-finds)
-> (a bike John-finds) or (a fish John-finds)

"There is either a bike or fish that John finds."
(Ex)((bike(x) v fish(x)) & John-finds(x))
-> (Ex)((bike or fish)(x) & John-finds(x))
-> (Ex)((bike or fish) and John-finds)(x))
-> some ((bike or fish) and John-finds)
-> a (bike or fish) John-finds

				Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu