Proceedings of the International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar
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A Smurf-based approach to placeholder expressions
Full text linkThe Smurf comics series is, among others, famous for the so-called "smurf language", in which words or parts of words can be replaced by "smurf". We will argue that this "smurfing" has the properties of placeholding. Based on data from German translations of Smurf comics, we will provide a formalization of smurfing in German which can be generalized to a theory of placeholder expressions
Challenges in Kazakh auxiliary selection
Full text linkThis paper proposes an account for the four auxiliaries in Kazakh that express the imperfective
aspect. The main factors – the auxiliary, the main verb, their inflections and the aspectual
specifications reveal a complicated system, which can be captured with an appropriate monotonic, multiple inheritance type hierarchy using online-type construction with the implementation of Pāṇinian competition. This analysis sheds light to a very different auxiliary system that we find in Indo-European languages
Multiple question fronting without relational constraints: An analysis of Russian as a basis for cross-linguistic modeling
Full text linkWe present an analysis of multiple question fronting in a restricted variant of the HPSG formalism (DELPH-IN) where unification is the only natively defined operation. Analysing multiple fronting in this formalism is challenging, because it requires carefully handling list appends, something that HPSG analyses of question fronting heavily rely on. Our analysis uses the append list type to address this challenge. We focus the testing of our analysis on Russian, although we also integrate it into the Grammar Matrix customization system where it serves as a basis for cross-linguistic modeling. In this context, we discuss the relationship of our analysis to lexical threading and conclude that, while lexical threading has its advantages, modeling multiple extraction cross-linguistically is easier without the lexical threading assumption
An incremental approach to verb clusters in German
Full text linkThis paper presents an incremental approach to verb clusters in German which radically differs from standard HPSG accounts. While the common assumption is that the verbs in subordinate clauses form clusters and accumulate all their valence requirements on a SUBCAT list, the assumption in this paper is that the arguments in verb final clauses are encapsulated incrementally into syntactic and semantic structures before the verbs are attached. The proposed analysis is in line with psycholinguistic findings. A grammar fragment of German demonstrating an implementation of the analysis is presented
Unrealized arguments in SBCG
Full text linkIn null instantiation (NI) an optionally unexpressed argument receives either anaphoric or existential interpretation (Fillmore, 1986; Mauner & Koenig, 2000; Kay, 2002; Ruppenhofer & Michaelis, 2010, 2014).
Examples include Lexically licensed NI (Nixon resigned.), Contextual accessibility NI (Can I see?), Labelese (Contains alcohol), Diary NI (Got up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head), Generic-habitual NI (The police only arrest (people) when there\u27s probable cause). We think of a predicator as having NI potential when
one or more of its frame elements may remain unexpressed under certain conditions. While one cannot accurately predict a predicator\u27s NI potential based either on semantic factors (e.g., Aktionsart class of
the verb, as in Hovav & Levin (1998)) or pragmatic factors (e.g., relative discourse prominence of arguments, as in Goldberg (2006)), NI potential, while highly constrained, is not simply lexical
idiosyncrasy, but is instead the product of both lexical and constructional licensing. In the latter case, a construction can endow a verb with NI potential that it would not otherwise have. Using
representational tools of Sign Based Construction Grammar (Sag 2012, a.o), we offer a lexical treatment of null instantiation that covers both distinct patterns of construal of null instantiated arguments and the difference between listeme-based and contextually licensed, thus construction-based, null complementatio
Recursive adjectival modification in CLLRS
Full text linkThis paper sketches an analysis in Lexical Resource Semantics of adverbial and
adjectival modification in nominal projections which is extensible to modification of other syntactic categories. It combines insights into the syntax-semantics interface of recursive modification in HPSG with underspecified semantics and type-logical meaning representations in the tradition of Montague grammar. The analysis is phrased in such a way that it receives a direct implementation in the Constraint Language of Lexical Resource Semantics as part of the TRALE system
An inside-out approach to French causatives
Full text linkIn this paper, we provide a novel account of French causatives that crucially derives the core
properties of the construction inside-out from the downstairs lexical verb to the causative verb, rather than outside-in, as is commonly assumed by argument composition (Miller & Sag, 1997; Abeillé & Godard,
1997; Abeillé et al., 1998). We shall argue on the basis of clitic trapping (Miller & Sag, 1997), as well as marking of the downstairs subject (Koenig, 1998) that the downstairs verb assumes a more active role than what is suggested by an argument composition approach and, conversely, we shall show that argument composition leads to problems with coordination and with en-cliticisation. The analysis we are going to propose combines an inversion analysis of the downstairs subject as a downstairs complement, accounting for scrambling and case marking, with an analysis of clitic climbing in terms of inflectional periphrasis (Aguila-Multner & Crysmann 2020)
Representing scales: Degree result clauses and emphatic negative polarity items in Romanian
Full text linkThe paper proposes a representational re-encoding of the scalar, pragmatic accounts of NPI licensing within the framework of Lexical Resource Semantics (LRS). The analysis focuses on a less researched distribution pattern: emphatic NPIs occurring in result clause constructions that receive an intensification reading. We will provide a scalar extension of a standard semantic account of result clauses to capture the high degree interpretations. Our investigation will also offer new insights on NPI licensing in embedded clauses. We will primarily consider Romanian data
The complexities of the Welsh copula
Full text linkThe Welsh copula has a complex set of forms reflecting agreement, tense, polarity, the distinction between main and complement clauses, the presence of a gap as subject or complement, and the contrast between predicative and equative interpretations. An HPSG analysis of the full set of complexities is possible given a principle of blocking, whereby constraints with more specific antecedents take precedence over constraints with less specific antecedents, and a distinction between morphosyntactic features relevant to syntax and morphosyntactic features relevant to morphology
Syntactic haplology and the Dutch proform er
Full text linkDutch has four pronouns "er" which show an intriguing pattern of syntactic haplology when a finite verb has more than one "er" dependent. We present a theory that captures this pattern by relying on two central aspects of HPSG: (i) the distinction between ARG-ST and COMPS and (ii) the distinction between canonical and non-canonical synsem objects. No deletion rules of the kind used in transformational analyses of "er" are necessary