Wh-questions in underspecified minimal recursion semantics

Abstract

In this paper, I present Underspecified Minimal Recursion Semantics (UMRS), a representation language that represents structural ambiguities in terms of underspecification. It is argued that this kind of approach allows for transparent semantic representations and a straightforward syntax-semantics interface. UMRS is a semantic metalanguage, whose expressions describe expressions of an object language and (possibly underspecified) dependences between them. The potential of UMRS will be illustrated by employing it as the semantic component of an HPSG description of wh-questions