Proceedings of the International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar
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Remarks on marking
Get PDFThis paper calls for a reexamination of the Marking Theory of HPSG, which in its standard form involves a considerable amount of dedicated formal machinery, but which proves to be inapplicable for most types of grammatical marking. As an alternative, it is demonstrated that head-marker phrases can be reanalyzed as head-complement structures, with the marking element treated as the syntactic head. This approach allows the elimination of all marking-specific formal apparatus, with the exception of the attribute MARKING, which percolates as an ordinary HEAD feature, and whose function is significantly expanded.
The proposed approach allows marking elements to be related to other lexical heads (prepositions, in particular), and marking constructions are better integrated in the grammar, rather than being grouped into an exceptional class of head-marker phrases
Clausal complement or adverbial clause? Toward an integral account of the Japanese internally-headed relative clause
Get PDFThis paper proposes a constraint-based, comprehensive analysis of the Internally-Headed Relative Clause (IHRC) in Japanese which is able to accommodate the synchronic properties as well as the diachronic change that IHRC went through. This paper claims that IHRC should be defined as a special type of non-head daughter of the main predicate. The predicate is subcategorized for a clause, while it calls for an entity-like argument. The multi-level architecture of HPSG accommodates the apparent syntax-semantic mismatch. The IHRC is syntactically a clausal complement, while it is not semantically selected by the main predicate. The main predicate, on the other hand, selects an entity as its argument, but the entity is not syntactically given. I claim that the syntax of IHRC specifies this much. The rest, or the actual linkage between the predicate and the semantically required target entity is semantically or pragmatically achieved. Drawing on the ideas of Argument Realization and Argument Extension with the postulation of the interface level DEPENDENTS proposed in Bouma et al. (2001), I have demonstrated how the present proposal can connect the clausal complement, IHRC, and adverbial clauses, thus providing the structural aspect of the motivation for the diachronic change
A compositional account of VP-ellipsis
Get PDFWe present an approach to VP ellipsis that allows the direct derivation of source and target sentences (the former need not be unique) during semantic construction. Specific syntactic constituent structures are associated with ellipsis potential, which can then be discharged by pro-verbs like did (too). The determination of source and target sentence, which is done with semantic features in an HPSG framework, is coupled with a comprehensive analysis of ellipsis, which also handles its interaction with scope and anaphora
Shape conditions and phonological context
Get PDFThis paper builds on Zwicky\u27s (1986) notion of shape condition, that is, a rule that specifies the phonological shape of inflected forms "by reference to triggers at least some of which lie outside the syntactic word". Zwicky observes that "many rules traditionally classified as external sandhi rules are [shape conditions]". They are not phonological rules in the usual sense, since they only apply to specific lexical items and are active within syntactic rather than phonological domains.
Shape conditions are problematic in many standard grammar architectures. On the one hand, they seem to be constraints on lexical entries, while on the other hand, they make reference to the syntactic context. Hayes (1990) has sketched a theory of "precompiled phrasal phonology" in which allomorph choice is conditioned by subcategorization frames in lexical entries. However, his approach is not formalized in any detail, and moreover makes the implicit claim that the relation between a shape condition target and its triggers can be equated with the syntactic relation between a lexical head and its complement. Although this assumption holds good for the Hausa phenomena he addresses, we do not believe that it holds in general.
HPSG appears to offer promising framework for formalizing something like Hayes\u27 approach, but the standard machinery also makes it hard to distinguish a shape condition trigger from a complement. In order to overcome this difficulty, we develop the notion of phonological context: a feature of signs which allows us to condition allomorphic alternation in terms of (i) the phonological edges, and (ii) the syntactic properties of an expression\u27s immediate syntactic sisters. We show how our analysis deals with four illustrative cases: the indefinite article alternation in English, syncretic liaison forms for possessive pronouns in French, Hausa verb-final vowel shortening, and soft mutation in Welsh nouns
The morphology of German particle verbs: Solving the bracketing paradox
Get PDFThe fact that inflectional affixes always attach to the verbal stem leads to the bracketing paradox in the case of particle verbs since the semantic contribution of the inflectional information scopes over the complete particle verb. I will discuss nominalizations and adjective derivation, which are also problematic because of various bracketing paradoxes. I will suggest a solution to these paradoxes that assumes that inflectional and derivational prefixes and suffixes always attach to a form of a stem that contains the information about particles already, but without containing a phonological realization of the particle. The particle is a dependent of the verb and is combined with its head after inflection and derivation. With such an approach no rebracketing mechanisms are necessary
Mixed categories and argument transfer in Korean light verb constructions
Get PDFThe Korean Light Verb Construction (LVC) contains a Sino-Korean main predicate (tayhwa-lul), a Light Verb (ha-ta), and semantic arguments of the main predicate (John-i, Tom-kwa):
John-i Tom-kwa tayhwa-lul ha-yess-ta. John-Nom Tom-with talk-Acc do-Pst-Dc \u27John talked with Tom.\u27
We defend a three-part analysis: (i) The subject of the main predicate is thematically controlled by the LV\u27s subject. Evidence: Korean verbs assigning Accusative take an external argument (Wechsler/Lee 1996; Burzio\u27s Generalization). Since the main predicate is Accusative, ha-ta must theta-mark its subject. Moreover ha-ta selects a non-stative Verbal Noun (VN) (cp. *kyumson-ul ha-ta \u27humble-Acc do-Dc\u27); non-stative theta-structures typically take an external argument (Kang 1986). This control arises through complex predicate formation. (ii) Oblique arguments (PPs) are optionally transferred (cp. Grimshaw/Mester 1988) — but Accusative NPs are not. Evidence comes from relativization and pronoun replacement. (iii) Accusative is assigned by a mixed category Verbal Noun. This can be supported by adverbial clauses with VN\u27s assigning Accusative without LV\u27s. We review cross-linguistic evidence for both argument transfer (German; Hinrichs & Nakazawa; i.a.) and mixed categories (many languages, Malouf; i.a.) and show that Korean LVCs provide the right environment for both to occur
Glue semantics for HPSG
Get PDFThe glue approach to semantic interpretation has been developed principally for Lexical Functional Grammar. Recent work has shown how glue can be used with a variety of syntactic theories and this paper outlines how it can be applied to HPSG. As well as providing an alternative form of semantics for HPSG, we believe that the benefits of HPSG glue include the following: (1) simplification of the Semantics Principle; (2) a simple and elegant treatment of modifier scope, including empirical phenomena like quantifier scope ambiguity, the interaction of scope with raising, and recursive modification; (3) an analysis of control that handles agreement between controlled subjects and their coarguments while allowing for a property denotation for the controlled clause; (4) re-use of highly efficient techniques for semantic derivation already implemented for LFG, and which target problems of ambiguity management also addressed by Minimal Recursion Semantics.
Nominal head-marking constructions: Two case studies from Luiseño
Get PDFThis paper investigates the syntax of head-marking constructions, specifically those with nominals heads. The data are drawn from Luiseño, a Uto-Aztecan language from Southern California. The first construction involves the morphological marking of possessors on possessed nouns. I show that a natural account can be given if possessed nouns are considered lexeme-level expressions derived from underspecified nominal lexemes. A separate mapping is responsible for relating nouns (possessed or unpossessed) to fully case-inflected word-level expressions. I then show how elements of this analysis can be adapted to account for periphrastic expressions of oblique cases with animate nouns. In such cases, the head is a case-inflected pronominal head that takes a full noun phrase as an optional specifier. I conclude with some remarks on the relationship between the proposed analysis for nominal head-marking constructions and the treatment of nonconfigurational properties more generally
Without an index: A lexicalist account of binding theory
Get PDFDeparting from the exhaustive indexation, syntax-driven approach to binding, we argued for an alternative, semantics-oriented rationale for binding principles. Under this new understanding of the nature of grammatical constraints on anaphoric binding, these principles are viewed as contributing to circumscribe the contextually determined semantic value of anaphoric nominals. This conceptual shift helps to find a fully fledged formal specification of binding principles with the HPSG lean description formalism where these constraints are entered in the grammar as part of the information kept at the lexical entries of anaphoric expressions
The morphosyntax of 2P pronouns in Tongan
Get PDFA number of the languages of Polynesia, including Tongan and Samoan, display a process whereby a pronominal argument of the main predicate of a clause appears to be realized as a preverbal \u27second position\u27 (2P) pronoun. All other arguments, if overt, are realized postverbally, the languages being rigidly predicate-initial. This paper examines the characteristics of these pronouns in Tongan arguing that in most cases they are best treated as distinct words in their own right (though often phonologically deficient) while in a handful of cases they are affixal material composed morphologically with a preceding preverbal Tense/Aspect Marker (TAM). Despite the fact that Tongan preverbal pronouns clearly do not appear in a typical argument position, standard approaches to 2P pronominal elements (e.g. \u27clitic climbing\u27 and \u27prosodic inversion\u27) do not seem naturally applicable to the Tongan data. The relation-based analysis provided here exploits a natural consequence of various potential definitions of \u27subjecthood\u27 within HPSG, treating the preverbal pronouns as the (unique) instantation of the valence feature SUBJ and correctly blocking the possibility of the pronoun appearing in true second position above the TAM when a clause-initial conjunction is present, except in particular specified circumstances. Thus the Tongan pronouns are not strict \u272P\u27 elements despite the fact that they most often appear in second position in a clause