Exercise 13.1

1 The boy stroked the cat
 

a) In this case the subject-verb-object (SVO) ordering should be easily matched to a picture of a boy stroking a cat.
b) If no grammatical information is used, i.e. not even word order, it should still be possible to match the sentence to the correct picture, because our world knowledge would lead to a preference for the correct picture, since cats typically do not stroke boys.
2 The dog chased the cat
 

a) Again, SVO ordering would be sufficient to chose the correct picture.
b) Without any grammatical information, i.e. including not being able to use word order, the sentence would be truly ambiguous, in that dogs chase cats and cats can also (though perhaps not as usually) chase dogs.
 
3 The parcel was opened by the teacher
 

a) If the analysis is based on SVO word order and no other grammatical features, then this sentence would be interpreted as the parcel opening the teacher, but that is not readily interpretable and so world knowledge and common sense would lead to a match with the correct picture.
b) If anything, this would be easier to interpret if the processor did not use word order or any grammatical features, since it would simply look for meaningful relationships between the verb and the arguments (open, parcel, teacher)

4 The woman read the book
 

a) SVO word order easily makes sense of this and should lead to a quick match with the correct picture.
b) Even if word order is not useful, the fact that book is inanimate and non-sentient should lead to the correct interpretation.
5 The table was polished by the cleaner
  a) SVO order would lead to an odd interpretation (a table polishing a cleaner), but as with the sentence in 3, we would expect world knowledge to quickly lead to the correct interpretation.
b) With no grammatical information being used, i.e. no misleading information from word order, world knowledge should lead more rapidly to the correct interpretation.
6 The tailor mended the coat
  a) SVO word order easily makes sense of this and should lead to a quick match with the correct picture.
b) Even if word order is not useful, the fact that coat is inanimate and doesn't carry out mending should lead to the correct interpretation.

In summary, some of these sentences would be relatively easy to interpret regardless of whether the processor can make use of grammatical information, some of them would be more easily interpreted if there was absolutely no grammatical information being used than if just the order of arguments is used, and some of them could easily lead to the wrong interpretation if no grammatical information is used.