Ellipsis in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar

Abstract

AbstractThe chapter provides an overview of the types of analyses of elliptical phenomena that have been proposed in the literature on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). First, it explains the central insights behind the analyses, which have concentrated on three classes of phenomena: (i) non-sentential utterances, (ii) argument or predicate ellipsis, and (iii) constructions involving unpronounced syntactic structure. HPSG is crucially non-modular. Constraints involving various levels can be easily stated, which benefits the framework for the analysis of ellipsis, because it allows one to express simultaneous semantic and syntactic constraints on ellipsis (explaining for instance the connectivity effects among non-sentential utterances) and provides means to integrate non-semantic information-information about the realization of utterances-into context. A more detailed discussion of the theory then follows. The chapter provides a more technically precise account of the syntax of argument ellipsis, an area which has received a considerable amount of analysis in HPSG, for which there is a broad consensus. Subsequently, more recent developments are introduced and a detailed analysis of non-sentential utterances is provided. In particular, we introduce an alternative version of HPSG, which allows the grammar to directly interface with dialogue context as conceived in the framework of KoS.