Proceedings of the International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar
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Clarifying noun phrase semantics in HPSG
Get PDFThis paper examines reprise questions: questions which request clarification of
the meaning intended by a speaker when uttering a word or phrase. As such they
can act as semantic probes, providing information about what meaning can be
associated with word and phrase types. We present corpus evidence regarding the
meaning of nouns and noun phrases, and argue that this evidence runs contrary
to the usual treatments of semantics in HPSG, and to the traditional
generalised quantifier view of NPs as sets of sets. Instead we outline an
analysis of NPs as (possibly functional) sets of individuals
Noun incorporation and rule interaction in the lexicon
Get PDFWasow (1977) argues that linguistic theory should recognize two qualitatively
distinct types of rules: syntactic rules, which can affect more "superficial"
grammatical function properties; and lexical rules, which affect deeper lexical
semantic properties of lexical items. However, lexicalist theories of grammar
have replaced syntactic rules with lexical rules leaving Wasow\u27s dichotomy
potentially unexplained. Our goal in this paper is to recapture Wasow\u27s insight
within a lexicalist framework such as HPSG. Building on Sag & Wasow\u27s (1999)
distinction between lexeme and word, we claim that there is a contrast between
lexical rules that relate lexemes to lexemes (L-to-L rules) and lexical rules
that relate words to words (W-to-W rules) and that these differences follow
from the architecture of the grammar. In particular, we argue that syntactic
function features (ARGST, VALENCE, etc.) are not defined for lexemes, while
lexical semantic features (CONTENT) are. From this it follows that L-to-L rules
can affect lexical semantic features, and not syntactic function features. In
addition, since words are defined for syntactic function features, W-to-W rules
can change them. In this paper, we support this hypothesis by examining certain
differences between two types of Noun Incorporation construction, and their
relation to other rules in the grammar. We argue that Compounding Noun
Incorporation is an L-to-L type and that Classifier Noun Incorporation is a
W-to-W type; we base our argument on the interaction of Noun Incorporation and
Applicative Formation in the Paleo-Siberian language Chukchi and the isolate
language Ainu
More heads and less categories: A new look at noun phrase structure
Get PDFMuch literature in syntax has assumed that all noun phrases are
categorically headed by the determiner or the noun, with well-formedness
categorial in nature. In this paper I develop a theory of noun phrase
structure in which both categories project noun phrases, arguing that this
better fits the indeterminacy of the criteria often cited for determining
headedness (Zwicky, 1985, inter alia). The only categorial differences
between determiners and nouns are their semantics and selectional
restrictions, and the conditions that determine well-formedness are
semantic in nature. Specifically, a well-formed noun phrase must have
some restrictive semantics associated with nouns coupled with some
operational semantics associated with determiners (e.g. as a generalized
quantifier), and from this I show how we can derive structural
well-formedness. Thus the need for categorial well-formedness is
nullified, providing an analysis with greater cross-linguistic import,
being compatible with languages without determiners
Bulgarian vocative in HPSG
Get PDFCrosslinguistically vocatives are an underexplored linguistic phenomenon and in different languages they can be highly idiosyncratic and complex (Levinson, 1987, p.71). Therefore, the problem, which is discussed in this paper, is not a language-specific one, in spite of the fact that most of the languages have their own repositories for marking the role of the addressee in the communicative utterances. In our opinion this linguistic phenomenon needs its adequate treatment in HPSG because of three main reasons:
The vocative is supposed to be present on two levels: syntax and pragmatics. Therefore it needs more elaborate interpretation on the interface side, which, in HPSG, is more developed for morphology/syntax and syntax/semantics than syntax/pragmatics. Note that a challenge for the theory is the semantic weight of the vocatives with respect to the head sentence.
It will be useful for HPSG-oriented implementations, especially treebanks and dialogue systems.
On prosodic grounds the vocatives are often viewed as being \u27side or extended parts\u27 of the sentence and therefore - very close to the parenthetical constructions. From our point of view, both phenomena are pragmatic and hence, the treatment of vocative, presented here, could be generalized to cover other phenomena of pragmatic nature.
In our work the vocatives are viewed through the possibility of the integration/separation of their pragmatic, syntactic and semantic properties
Korean resultative constructions
Get PDFThis paper aims to investigate the typology of resultative constructions (henceforth RC) in Korean, to provide their relevant constraints and finally to propose formal structures of RCs in a unified way
Gender mismatches in Spanish and French N1/A de N2 affective constructions: Index agreement vs. morphosyntactic concord
Get PDFI examine Spanish and French agreement in sentences with "affective" N/A de N constructions, in terms of an agreement theory growing out of Pollard and Sag (1994, §2) and Kathol (1999), with a distinction between two kinds of agreement relations: index agreement and morphosyntactic concord. The application of this theory to hybrid nouns (Wechsler and Zlati´c, 2000) extends straightforwardly to affective constructions. Furthermore, Kathol\u27s characterization of the difference between hybrid nouns in Spanish and French, which I pair with an interpretation in terms of the default unification mechanism of Lascarides and Copestake (1999), turns out to make correct predictions about subtle differences in predicate agreement with affective constructions in the two languages
A lexicon- and construction-based approach to coordinations
Get PDFLeaving aside elliptical coordinations, it is striking that no agreement
has been reached on the structure of basic coordinate constructions. We
propose that:
coordinate constructions are structurally asymmetric: the conjunction
makes a subconstituent with one of the conjuncts.
such constituents can have several functions: coordinate daughter,
adjunct daughter or main clause.
In order to show that some conjuncts should be analysed as adjuncts, we
focus on asymmetric cases of coordination, in which the order of the
conjuncts cannot be reversed, taking examples from French, Welsh and Korean.
We present an HPSG analysis which treats the coordinating conjunctions as
weak heads, with lexical subtypes, and coordinate phrases as multi-headed
constructions, with different subtypes
Dealing with optional complements in HPSG-based grammar implementations
Get PDFThis paper discusses how the English Resource Grammar (ERG)
captures the optionality of certain complements of verbs based on
a single lexical entry coupled with an ontology of markings
distinguishing optional from obligatory as well as unrealized from
realized elements. Subject-head and head-complement structures
are modified accordingly, but due to the lack of a possibility to
express and use relational goals in grammars implemented in the
LKB system, the ERG encoding falls short of the goal of treating
optional complements in a general way. Instead, it requires two
new types of ˋauxiliary\u27 phrases which are otherwise unmotivated.
We show that the problem can be overcome by using a recursive
relation selecting a member from a list. The use of a lean
implementation platform not supporting such relational goals, such
as the LKB, thus results in a loss of generality of the grammars
that can be expressed, which undermines the closeness of the
implemented grammar to current linguistic analyses as one of the
hallmarks of HPSG-based grammar implementation. The case study
presented in this paper thus supports the position argued in Götz
and Meurers (1997) that a system for the implementation of
HPSG-based grammars should include both universal implicational
principles as well as definite clauses over feature terms
Information structure and referential givenness/newness: How much belongs in the grammar?
Get PDFThis paper is concerned with such concepts as topic, focus and cognitive
status of discourse referents, which have been included under the label
information structure (alternatively information status), as they are related
in some sense to the distribution of given and new information. It addresses
the question of which information structural properties are best accounted for
by grammatical constraints and which can be attributed to non-linguistic
constraints on the way information is processed and communicated. Two logically
independent senses of given-new information are distinguished, one referential
and the other relational. I discuss some examples of linguistic phenomena that
pertain to each of these different senses and show that both are linguistically
relevant and must be represented in the grammar. I also argue that phenomena
related to both senses have pragmatic effects that do not have to be
represented in the grammar since they result from interaction of the language
system with general pragmatic principles that constrain inferential processes
involved in language production and understanding