Proceedings of the International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar
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Tense and honorific interpretations in Korean gapping construction: A constraint- and construction-based approach
Get PDFChung (2001) claims that non-final conjuncts without overt tense morphemes which produce asymmetric
tense interpretations are to be analyzed as TP; and Lee (2005) argues that the verbal honorific
affix -si- never occurs in non-final conjuncts so honorific agreement between the subject and the
verb takes place in the final conjunct only and thus the Korean gapping constructions should be
analyzed as vP coordination. However, these two previous analyses seem to fail to make the
generalizations on the distributional behaviors of gapping constructions, facing theoretical and
empirical difficulties. To solve the problems they face, we claim that verbal gapping in Korean is
allowed to occur in all non-final conjuncts when the covert predicates of the non-final conjuncts
have an identical semantic relation value with that of the overt verb in the final conjunct,
regardless of the consistency of the honorific and tense values between conjuncts
Eliding the derivation: A minimalist formalization of ellipsis
Get PDFIn this paper I use the formal framework of minimalist grammars to implement a version of the
traditional approach to ellipsis as ‘deletion under syntactic (derivational) identity’, which, in
conjunction with canonical analyses of voice phenomena, immediately allows for voice mismatches in
verb phrase ellipsis, but not in sluicing. This approach to ellipsis is naturally implemented in a
parser by means of threading a state encoding a set of possible antecedent derivation contexts
through the derivation tree. Similarities between ellipsis and pronominal resolution are easily
stated in these terms. In the context of this implementation, two approaches to ellipsis in the
transformational community are naturally seen as equivalent descriptions at different levels: the
LF-copying approach to ellipsis resolution is best seen as a description of the parser, whereas the
phonological deletion approach a description of the underlying relation between form and meaning
Syntactic types of as-parentheticals in Korean
Get PDFThis paper is intended to investigate the linguistic behaviors of the Korean as-parenthetical
constructions with the aim of devoting to distinguishing universal properties of
as-parentheticals. This paper shows three prominent behaviors in Korean as-parenthetical
constructions. First, the Korean as-clause displays that the syntactic gap in as-clauses must be
realized as CP, through the variations on case marker. Secondly, the Korean as-parentheticals tend
to have two types of as-clauses; CP or VP as-clause types. In addition, they are sensitive to the
syntactic restrictions which can be noticed in as-parenthetical constructions: the sisterhood
restriction and the Island boundary. Thirdly, the Korean as-parenthetical constructions reveal that
they would require some pragmatic information which is combined with semantic meaning, in the
process of getting the interpretation of as-clauses
Adjuncts and the HPSG binding theory
Get PDFThe HPSG binding theory in Pollard and Sag (1994) cannot account for the binding-theoretic
interaction between main clause and adjunct-internal elements. Following Hukari and Levine (1995), I
claim that structural configurations must be taken into account. In this article, I present a
revised version of Hukari and Levine\u27s configurational relation called v(alence-based)-c-command and
propose that Principle C must involve this relation in addition to the obliqueness-based relation of
o-command. New data are provided that strongly support the proposed revision of the HPSG binding
theory. Finally, I argue that Principle C is syntactic rather than pragmatic in nature
Analyzing interacting phenomena: Word order and negation in Basque
Get PDFWe explore the interaction of sentential negation and word order in Basque using a small
experimental implemented grammar based on the Grammar Matrix (Bender et al., 2002, 2010) to test the
analyses. We find that the analysis of free word order (Fokkens, 2010) provided by the Grammar
Matrix customization system can be adapted to handle the Basque facts, and that the constructional
approach taken in that analysis supports the integration of negation
A construction-based cross-linguistic analysis of V2 word order
Get PDFVerb second (V2) word order is determined by considering the absolute position of clausal
constituents. Previous accounts of such word order in HPSG have been developed for individual V2
languages (predominantly German) but are often not cross-linguistically applicable. I propose a
set of generalized mechanisms in linearization-based SBCG which accounts for cross-linguistic V2
data by use of: (1) a simple two-valued feature rather than many-typed topological domains, (2)
domain compaction, and (3) constructionally-determined domain positions. Not only does this
analysis account for V2 placement, but it can also model verb third (V3) placement and other
positionally-stipulated word orders
Using information structure to improve transfer-based MT
Get PDFThis paper hypothesizes that transfer-based machine translation systems can be improved by encoding
information structure in both the source and target grammars, and preserving information structure
in the transfer stage. We explore how information structure can be represented within the HPSG/MRS
formalism (Pollard and Sag, 1994; Copestake et al., 2005) and how it can help refine multilingual
MT. Building upon that framework, we provide a sample translation between English and Japanese and
check the feasibility of the proposals in small-scale translation systems built with the
HPSG/MRS-based LOGON MT infrastructure (Oepen et al., 2007). Our experiment shows the information
structure-based MT system that we propose in this paper reduces the number of translations 75.71%
for Japanese and 80.23% for Korean. The dramatic reductions in the number of translations is
expected to make a contribution to our HPSG/MRS-based MT in terms of latency as well as accuracy
The English binominal NP construction: A construction-based perspective
Get PDFEnglish Binominal NPs (BNP) (e.g., a hell of a problem) are of empirical and
theoretical interest due to their complex syntactic and semantic properties. In
this paper, we review some basic properties of the BNP construction, focusing
on its headedness, semantic relations, and the role of the preposition of.
We argue that these properties suggest an account in the spirit of construction
grammar. In particular, we show that English BNP is a nominal juxtaposition
construction whose special syntactic constraints are linked to semantic
relations like a subject-predicate relation
Topic and focus in local subject extractions in Danish
Get PDFThe present paper proposes an analysis of the asymmetrical distribution of der, \u27there\u27, in embedded
interrogative and relative clauses, respectively, in standard Danish. The analysis sets itself apart
from previous analyses in integrating information structural constraints. We will show that the
discourse function of the extracted subject in the clauses in question determines whether der
insertion takes place in standard Danish. The analysis will further be shown to support the position
that der in interrogative and relative clauses is an expletive subject filler, and that from an
information structural point of view, the der in existential, presentational, passives and relative
clauses is indeed the same der
Linearization and its discontents
Get PDFMuch recent work on coordination in the HPSG
framework seeks to deal with some of the most intractable issues this
phenomenon poses for a constraint-based phrase structure architecture
by appealing to the linearization mechanism introduced in
Reape 1993. The research in question utilizes the mismatch between
linear phonological sequences on the one hand and phrasal
configuration on the other to underwrite a particular interpretation
of ellipsis in which multiple structural objects with identical or
near-identical descriptions are mapped to a single dom-object
token. This mapping apparently allows a variety of problematic cases,
such as right node raising, dependent cluster coordination, and unlike
category coordination to be reinterpreted as instances of ordinary
coordination in which structurally present elements receive no
prosodic expression, creating the impression that strings which do not
correspond to constituents of the same category have nonetheless been
conjoined or disjoined. I argue in this paper that such
linearization-based ellipsis (LBE) analyses, though plausible when
confined to a narrow class of simplest-case data, prove untenable in
the face of data sets in which the LBE approach must account for the
interaction of nonconstituent coordination and quantification or
symmetric predication, symmetrical modification of nominal heads, and
a large and varied class of unlike category coordinations that do not
admit of any ellipsis-based solutions. I show in addition that various
objections offered in the LBE literature to categorial grammar
treatments of the problems posed by noncanonical coordinations do not
take into account techical resources available to CG which permit
straightforward and unproblematic solutions to these problems. One
must conclude that despite the general poplularity of LBE accounts of
conjunction, there is at the moment no satisfactory HPSG treatment of
noncanonical coordinations