The Theory of Control Applied to the Prague Dependency Treebank (PDT)

Sep 17, 2026

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Research on corpus annotation addresses the restoration of syntactic nodes that are omitted on the surface but required at the underlying or deep syntactic level. This paper focuses on omitted nodes created by grammatical control and extends control to nominalization, showing how these relations are encoded in the Prague Dependency Treebank (PDT). It explains control as referential dependency between a controller and a controllee, discusses valency-frame participation, and describes PDT strategies for recovering deletions and marking coreferential links.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages6

Reading Time15 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Capturing of “control” phenomena in the PDT

Restoration of deletions and capturing of coreferential relations in the PDT

Survey of views on “control” phenomena with verbs in the FGD

The Theory of Control Applied to the Prague Dependency Treebank (PDT) Jarmila Panevov·, Veronika ŘeznÌčkov·, and Zdeňka Ureöov· Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic {panevova,rez,[uresova}@ufal.mff.cuni.cz](uresova}@ufal.mff.cuni.cz) 1. Introduction One of the most difficult issues within corpora annotation on an underlying syntactic level is the restoration of nodes omitted in the surface shape of the sentence, but present on the ìunderlyingî or ìdeepî syntactic level. In the present paper we concentrate on such type of nodes which are omitted due to the phenomenon usually called grammatical ìcontrolî with regard to their respective anaphoric relations. In particular, we extend the notion of control to nominalization and demonstrate how this relation is captured in the Prague Dependency Treebank. The theory of control is present within Chomskyís framework of Government and Binding (using the terms verb of control, controller and controllee, cf. Chomsky, 1980), but also within many other formal frameworks, e.g. GPSG (Sag and Pollard, 1991) or categorial grammar (Bach, 1979) . We analyse this phenomenon within the framework of the dependency grammar, theoretically based on the Functional Generative Description (FGD, cf. Sgall, Hajičov and Panevov , 1986) . In FGD, on the ìunderlyingî or ìtectogrammaticalî level, control is a relation of an obligatory or an optional referential dependency between a controller (antecedent) and a controllee (empty subject of thenonfinite complement ( = controlled clause)) . The controller is one of the participants in the valency frame of the governing verb (Actor (ACT), Addressee (ADDR), or Patient (PAT)) . The controlled clause functions also as a filler of a dependency slot in the valency frame of the governing verb, being labeled as Patient or Actor. The empty subject of the controlled clause may have the function of different dependency relations to its head word (the infinitive): Actor, or, with passivization of the controlled clause, Addressee or Patient (cf. Koktov , 1992) . 2. Capturing of “control” phenomena in the PDT In the present section we focus on the capturing of the phenomenon of control in the Prague Dependency Treebank (PDT), a three-layer annotated corpus of Czech, basically conceived of in accordance with the theoretical assumptions of the FGD (for more information about PDT cf. Hajič: Tectogrammatical Representation: Towards a Machine Transfer in Machine Translation, this volume) . 2.1. Restoration of deletions and capturing of coreferential relations in the PDT One of the basic principles of annotation of the PDT at the tectogrammatical level concerns also restoration of deletions: in the cases of deletion in the surface sentence, nodes are introduced into the tectogrammatical tree to 'recover' a deleted word. It includes also a restoration of deleted participants of valency frames of verbs. When the nodes deleted in constructions of control are restored, annotators should indicate coreferential relations between the arguments in positions ofthe controller and the controllee. For labeling these coreferential relations the following attributes (grammatemes) of the general scheme are relevant: COREF(erence) - the value of this attribute is the lexical value of the antecedent of the given anaphoric node (this node itself may be present on the surface, or deleted) ANTEC(edent) ñ the value of this attribute corresponds to the functor of the antecedent with grammatical coreference1 CORNUM ñ refers to the antecedent of the given node2. The Controllee gets the special lemma Cor. Let us present here some illustrative examples of rather complicated sentences from our annotated corpus that exhibit relations between the arguments in positions ofthe controller and the controllee. * Supported by the Ministry of Education of the ČR Project LN00A0063 . 1. For the difference between the textual and the grammatical coreference see Hajičov·, Panevov

FAQs

What syntactic problem does the paper address in corpus annotation?

It addresses the restoration of nodes omitted in surface sentence structure but present at the underlying/deep syntactic level, especially those omitted due to grammatical control.

How does the paper define control in the underlying tectogrammatical framework?

Control is defined as an obligatory or optional referential dependency between a controller and a controllee, where the controllee corresponds to an empty subject of a nonfinite complement.

How does the Prague Dependency Treebank capture control phenomena?

It restores deleted tectogrammatical nodes and marks coreferential relations between controller and controllee arguments using relevant attributes, including COREF, ANTEC, and CORNUM, with the controllee given the special lemma Cor.

Sep 17, 2026

Uploaded by Himbo