Proceedings of the International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar
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A new HPSG approach to Polish auxiliary constructions
Get PDFThis paper presents an analysis of constructions involving the
l-form of the verb in Polish, including primarily the past
tense, the conditional mood, and the future tense. Previous approaches
have attempted to treat these uniformly as auxiliary verb
constructions. We argue against a unified treatment, however, in light
of synchronic and diachronic evidence that indicates that only the
future tense and the conditional still involve auxiliaries in
modern Polish. We show that the past tense is now a simple tense,
although the l-forms appear in combination with agreement
affixes that can appear in different places in the sentence. We
provide an account of the common linearization properties of the past
tense markings and the conditional auxiliary. We present a detailed
HPSG analysis of the past tense construction that relies on the
introduction of two interacting agreement features. We then discuss
the consequences of our proposals for the analysis of the conditional
and future auxiliary constructions, and finally, we offer a treatment
of constructions involving inflected complementizers in Polish
Verifying binding constraints for anaphor resolution
Get PDFAlgorithmic approaches to anaphor resolution are known to benefit
substantially from syntactic disjoint reference filters.
Typically, however, there is a considerable gap between the scope of the
formal model of grammar employed for deriving referential evidence and its
implementation. While accounting for many subtleties of language,
such formal models at most partially address the algorithmic aspects
of referential processing. This paper investigates the issue of implementing
syntactic disjoint reference for robust anaphor resolution. An algorithmic
account of binding condition verification will be developed that, on one hand,
captures the theoretical subtleties, and, on the other hand, exhibits
computational efficiency and fulfils the robustness requirements. Taking
as input the potentially fragmentary parses of a robust state-of-the-art
parser, the practical performance of this algorithm will be evaluated with
respect to the task of anaphor resolution and shown to be nearly optimal
The syntax and semantics of multiple degree modification in English
Get PDFFocusing on the examples of multiple degree modification, this paper
argues that the class of degree expressions in English is syntactically
and semantically diverse, subdivided both according to the semantic
effects of its members and according to the extent to which they permit,
and participate in, multiple layers of modification. We argue that
these two factors are linked, and result in (at least) a three-way
distinction between ˋtrue degree morphemes\u27, which map gradable
adjectives to properties of individuals and combine with their arguments
in a Head-Specifier structure; ˋintensifiers\u27, which are syntactic and
semantic modifiers of properties constructed out of gradable adjectives;
and ˋscale modifiers\u27, which are also syntactic and semantic modifiers,
but which combine with ˋbare\u27 gradable adjectives (relations between
individuals and degrees) rather than properties formed out of gradable
adjectives
A raising analysis of the Dutch passive
Get PDFThis paper focuses on passive constructions in Dutch. Specifically, we focus on
worden, as well as krijgen passives in Dutch, for which we
propose a uniform, raising analysis in HPSG. We also show that such an analysis
can be carried over to account for passives cross-linguistically. Specifically,
we look at corresponding structures in German and show that there is no need
for a dual raising and control analysis for the German ˋˋagentive\u27\u27
(werden) and the German ˋˋdative\u27\u27 (kriegen) passives,
respectively, as has been proposed in Müller (2002)
and Müller (2003)
A trace analysis of Korean UDCs
Get PDFIn this paper, we claim that the filler-gap linkage in Korean UDCs
needs to be handled at the level of syntax and that unbounded
dependencies represented by traces, resumptive pronouns, and
resumptive reflexives in Korean can be simply captured – without
posing any extra mechanisms
Persian free relatives
Get PDFFree relatives (FRs) in Persian are Unbounded Dependency Constructions,
containing gaps or resumptive pronouns (RPs). In some positions only gaps are
allowed, and in some other positions only RPs. The structure of Persian FRs is
bipartite, containing two constituents: a phrasal part and a
sentential. Persian FRs are sensitive to the matching effect and show distinct
properties from noun phrases, ordinary relative clauses, and interrogative
complements. This paper proposes a unified HPSG account which assumes that the
phrasal part of a FR is the head and the filler at the same time. The propped
approach is presented in two versions (with and without traces) and can take
care of the dependency between the gap or the RP and the licencing constituent
with a truly single mechanism
Remarks on Binding Theory
Get PDFWe propose some reformulations of binding principle A that build on recent
work by Pollard and Xue, and by Runner et al. We then turn to the
thorny issue of the status of indices, in connection with the seemingly
simpler Principle B. We conclude that the notion of index is fundamentally
incoherent, and suggest some possible approaches to eliminating
them as theoretical primitives. One possibility is to let logical variables
take up the explanatory burden borne by indices, but this turns out to
be fraught with difficulties. Another approach, which involves returning
to the idea that referentially dependent expressions denote identity functions
(as proposed, independently, by Pollard and Sag and by Jacobson)
seerms to hold more promise
A new well-formedness criterion for semantics debugging
Get PDFWe present a novel well-formedness condition for underspecified semantic
representations which requires that every correct MRS representation must be a
net. We argue that (almost) all correct MRS representations are indeed nets,
and apply this condition to identify a set of eleven rules in the English
Resource Grammar (ERG) with bugs in their semantics component. Thus we
demonstrate that the net test is useful in grammar debugging
Plural comitative constructions in Polish
Get PDFThis paper provides a treatment of Polish Plural Comitative Constructions
in the paradigm of HPSG in the tradition of Pollard and Sag (1994).
Plural Comitative Constructions (PCCs) have previously been treated in terms of
coordination, complementation and adjunction. The objective of this paper is to show
that PCCs are neither instances of typical coordinate structures nor of typical complement or
adjunct structures. It thus appears difficult to properly describe them by means of the
standard principles of syntax and semantics. The analysis proposed in this paper accounts for the
syntactic and semantic properties of PCCs in Polish by assuming an adjunction-based syntactic
structure for PCCs, and by treating the indexical information provided by PCCs not as subject to
any inheritance or composition, but as a result of applying a set of principles on number, gender and
person resolution that also hold for ordinary coordinate structures
Binding in picture noun phrases: Implications for Binding Theory
Get PDFThis paper investigates the binding of pronouns and reflexives in picture
noun phrases, and focuses on data showing that reflexives and pronouns are not
in complementary distribution in picture NPs with possessors. In particular, we
discuss data showing that whereas reflexives can take either the possessor or
the subject of the sentence as antecedent, pronouns are restricted to an
antecedent other than the possessor phrase. We suggest that this asymmetry can
be straightforwardly explained if we assume that (1) the possessor of a picture
NP is not part of the head noun\u27s argument structure and (2) Binding Theory is
stated over dependents structure, the representation encompassing both a
head\u27s argument structure and other phrases dependent on it in various ways. If
the possessor of a picture NP (PNP) is not part of the head\u27s argument
structure, it follows that reflexives in PNPs with possessors will be exempt
from Binding Theory, which paves the way for an analysis of the reflexive
data. Furthermore, we also show that if BT is regarded as defined over
dependents structure, it follows that a pronoun in a picture NP with a
possessor must be disjoint from that possessor phrase