The View from Declarative Syntax1

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the frameworks of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) as it developed from Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar (GPSG), and Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG). Declarative frameworks are not generative, as they do not ‘generate’ anything in the sense of the preceding paragraph. Pullum refers to that kind of approach as Generative-Enumerative Syntax and differentiates it from Model-Theoretic Syntax: GPSG, HPSG, and LFG essentially fall in the latter category. It describes some key aspects of declarative frameworks, and the motivation for them. The chapter considers how declarative frameworks instantiate a view of Generative Grammar directly inspired by Noam Chomsky's early work, but without the procedural component. It presents some of the core design features which motivate declarative frameworks, and explores how syntactic phenomena are factorized and formalized in declarative frameworks, with a view to comparison with Minimalist Program analyses.