Shared constituents

By shared constituents, we mean constituents that are common to all the conjoints, in general, or to one of the child nodes, in particular,  of a given compound unit, being both the shared constituents and compound unit at the top level.
The problem concerning shared constituents is related to a terminologic point of view rather than a linguistic problem itself. VISL does not conceive the term predicate, which would include the predicator and the other constituents, if transitivity occurs (cf. grammatical conventions).

Three situations concerning shared constituents were found:
    1. Shared subject(s)

        As a consequence of the grammatical conventions used by VISL, Subject, Predicate, and the other constituents, at the clausal level, are at the same level. The problem then arises when there are two coordinated predicates and only one and shared subject because there is no syntactic tag for predicate. The notation used for these cases is described in notation for underspecified function/form in Notational and terminological guide-lines

         As an example of shared subjects is:

            (1.1.)  Alice não sabia o que era um fato-macaco, mas não teve coragem de perguntar.

           The tree would, then, be:
 

STA:fcl
SUBJ:prop('Alice' F S) Alice
?:cu
=CJT:?
==ADVL:adv('não') não
==P:v-fin('saber' IMPF 3S IND) sabia
==ACC:fcl
===SUBJ:pron-indp('o_que' <interr> M S) o_que
===P:v-fin('ser' IMPF 3S IND) era
===SC:np
====>N:art('um' <arti> M S) um
====H:n('fato' M S) fato-
====N<:n('macaco' M S) macaco
=,
=CO:conj-c('mas' <co-vfin> <co-fmc>) mas
=CJT:?
==ADVL:adv('não') não
==P:v-fin('ter' PS 3S IND) teve
==ACC:np
===H:n('coragem' F S) coragem
===N<:pp
====H:prp('de') de
====P<:v-inf('perguntar') perguntar
.

    2. Shared adverbial(s)

        The question of the shared adverbial(s) is tackled in the same way of the shared subject(s).
 

In relation to the syntactic function, there is no question as to consider the coordination as having an underspecified syntactic function. However, one could argue that the syntactic form of the conjoints isn't entirely underspecified, and the syntactic form of finite clause (fcl) could be a possible analysis, especially  if one bears in mind that in order to have a finite clause, the presence of a finite main verb is enough, and the presence of subject is not obligatory (for instance, Chove.) and certainly not of the adverbial.
If one might consider that in the case of the shared adverbials, the syntactic form of finite clause might apply, as the boundaries between the predicator and the adverbial are more loose, the same would hardly apply to the case of the shared subject(s), where the there is a tighter relation between the predicator and the subject, not only syntactically (subject- verb agreement) but also semantically (thematic roles). Therefore, and in order to be consistent, the syntactic form of the conjoints remains  underspecified as well.
 
 

    3. Apposition or regular post nominal dependency

    This is a different case from the previous two. The underspecified notation does not apply in this case, as all the constituents are suitably tagged.
     Looking at a particular example:

            E apelava ao "idealismo e ao pioneirismo" da América como antídoto capaz de dar sentido ao seu enorme poder.

    In the CG format, because the syntactic analysis is flat, the question of the attachment is not visible. However, when looking at the   tree representation,  the post nominal da América (N<:pp) has to attach to the complement of the preposition, which is not coordinated itself. If such was the case (E apelava ao "idealismo e pioneirismo" da América....), a complex Head of the complement of the preposition would have as its dependent the prepositional phrase da América (N<:pp):

STA:fcl
CO:conj-c    e
P:v-fin    apelava
PIV:pp
=H:prp    a
=P<:np
==H:cu
===CJT:np
====>N:art    o
====H:n    idealismo
===CO:conj-c    e
===CJT:np
====>N:art    o
====H:n    pioneirismo
==N<:pp
===H:prp    de
===P<:np
====>N:art    a
====H:prop    América
 
 

But, actually, what is coordinated is the prepositional object (PIV:cu), being the post nominal dependent on both complements of the preposition 'a'.
The solution for this case was to consider the constituents discontinuous, as to allow a similar coordinated complex head and the attachment of the dependent to it (the solution above), which had to lead to a discontinuos preposition:

A1
STA:fcl
CO:conj-c('e') E
P:v-fin('apelar' IMPF 1/3S IND) apelava
PIV:pp
=H:prp-('a' <sam->) a        (discontinuous preposition)
=P<:np-
==H:cu-    (complex HEAD)
===CJT:np
====>N:art('o' <-sam> M S) o
===="«
====H:n('idealismo' M S) idealismo
===CO:conj-c('e' <co-advl>) e
=-H:prp('a' <sam->) a
=-P<:np
==-H:cu
===CJT:np
====>N:art('o' <-sam> M S) o
====H:n('pioneirismo' M S) pioneirismo
==="»
==N<:pp           (at the same level of the complex head)
===H:prp('de' <sam->) de
===P<:np
====>N:art('a' <-sam> F S) a
====H:prop('América' F S) América
(...)
 

The same solution was encountered for appositions.