Framework Of Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar Research Articles

Pronominal Feature Re-assembly: L1 and L2 Pronoun Resolution of Spanish Epicene and Common Gender Antecedents

Abstract In this paper, we propose the implementation of a full-fledged feature-based lexicalist syntactic theory as a way to represent the possible configurations of features in the learner’s interlanguage and formalize a theory of acquisition based in feature reassembly. We describe gender agreement pronominal coindexation in Spanish using Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) and use it to analyze the results of a self-paced reading test with L1 and L2 speakers. We find that the specification of the gender feature value at the syntactic level in epicene antecedents facilitates pronominal resolution in L1 Spanish speakers. Conversely, there is a cognitive cost when the gender feature is underspecified at the syntactic level in common gender antecedents; this cost is not found among L2 speakers. The detailed descriptions in terms of feature specification in the HPSG framework allow us to observe differences between the L1 and L2 grammars in fine-grained detail and represent optionality at the lexical level.

An HPSG approach to Chinese syllable structure and tone sandhi

In Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG), the phonological module has been strikingly underinvestigated compared to other parts of the grammar. To remedy this situation, the aims of this study are both theoretical and empirical. We employ revised Typed Feature Structures (TFSs) to describe a number of phonological structures in Mandarin Chinese, mostly concerned with syllable structure and tone, based on the X-bar approach to the syllable structure of Mandarin (van de Weijer, 2012; van de Weijer and Zhang, 2008; Zhang, 2008). Specifically, we integrate tone features in the HPSG framework, and analyze tone sandhi (TS) by way of TFSs and constraints. We demonstrate that the enriched definitions and constraints using TFSs in phonology, like in morphology and syntax in HPSG, can successfully capture the relevant phonological generalizations and are therefore a step on the way toward a more comprehensive HPSG account of Mandarin grammar, illustrating its advantages such as simplicity, constructional consistency, modularity and facilitating interface description.

An HPSG account of closest conjunct agreement in NP coordination in Portuguese

This paper discusses the NP-internal agreement strategies observed in an empirical (corpus based) study of Portuguese, and proposes an analysis which is formalized in the framework of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). The empirical study suggests that what were previously thought to be rare or non-existent strategies occur with surprising frequency. Capturing these strategies poses problems for many standard approaches to agreement. The formalization shows how they can be captured with a relatively conservative extension of the existing HPSG theory of agreement.

The Syntactic Structure of French Auxiliaries

The Syntactic Structure of French Auxiliaries Anne Abeillé and Danièle Godard While a consensus has been reached about the monoclausality of the Romance construction with an auxiliary verb and its verbal complement, questions remain about its syntactic structure. We focus here on French auxiliaries—the past tense auxiliaries (avoir and être), and the passive auxiliary (être)—which are unique in French in contributing only tense and aspect and triggering obligatory clitic climbing. Three syntactic structures have been proposed for such auxiliaries: a VP complement analysis, a verbal complex analysis, and a ‘flat’ VP analysis. We show here, working within a head-driven phrase structure grammar framework and basing our arguments on classical constituency tests, bounded dependencies, and lesser-known properties of a subset of manner adverbs, that the flat-structure analysis is to be preferred for tense auxiliaries, which take as their complements the bare participle as well as the complements subcategorized by this participle and ‘inherited’ from it. In contrast, the passive auxiliary, which we identify with the copula, has a predicative complement with different realizations: either an ordinary phrase, ‘saturated’ for its complements, or a ‘partial’ complement, where the predicative head lets some or all of its complements be inherited by the auxiliary. Our analysis allows for a solution to the well-known problem of auxiliary selection, which, we argue, should not be taken as an indicator of syntactic structure but is best handled via lexical constraints.* 1. Romance auxiliaries Auxiliary verbs have been extensively studied in Romance languages. A consensus has been reached about the monoclausality of the construction with an auxiliary verb and its verbal complement (Aissen & Perlmutter 1976/83, Davies & Rosen 1988, Fauconnier 1983, La Fauci 1994) but not about its syntactic structure. This is the case more generally for the set of complex predicates, to which auxiliary constructions belong. In the Romance languages, heads of complex predicates include restructuring verbs (absent from modern French), causative and perception verbs, and verbs with a predicative complement, in addition to auxiliaries. We focus here on French auxiliaries, which are unique in French in contributing only tense and aspect and triggering obligatory clitic climbing: they are the past tense auxiliaries (avoir and être), and the passive auxiliary (être).1 Three syntactic structures have been proposed for auxiliaries in the Romance languages, and French in particular: they have been analyzed as taking a VP complement (Guéron & Hoekstra 1988, Moore 1991 for complex predicates in general, Pollock 1989 for French auxiliaries), or forming a verbal complex (a subconstituent) with the participle (Emonds 1978 for French), or heading a ‘flat’ VP (Legaré & Rollin 1976 [End Page 404] for French). We show that the flat structure analysis should be preferred for tense auxiliaries, which take as complements the bare participle, as well as the complements subcategorized by this participle and ‘inherited’ from it. Our arguments are based on classical constituency tests, on bounded dependencies, and on lesser-known properties of a subset of manner adverbs. The passive auxiliary, though, which we identify with the copula (Couquaux 1979, Milner 1986), has a predicative complement with different realizations: either an ordinary phrase, ‘saturated’ for its complements, or a ‘partial’ complement, where the predicative head lets some or all of its complements be inherited by the auxiliary. This partial complement analysis makes sense of some generally overlooked cliticization and extraction facts. Our proposals are formalized in the framework of head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG, Pollard & Sag 1987, 1994), but they are largely independent from the chosen framework: It would be possible to implement other analyses of the French auxiliaries in HPSG, and conversely, our analysis could be implemented in other frameworks. Crucial to our treatment are the conception of lexical items as specifying precise syntactic and semantic information about their arguments, and the use of typed feature structures, where information can be shared between partial structures. This allows a straightforward representation of the sharing of subcategorization (argument inheritance), which has proved successful in the analysis of Italian restructuring verbs (Monachesi 1993, 1999), and for modal and auxiliary verbs in German (Hinrichs & Nakazawa 1994, Kiss 1992, Pollard 1996), Dutch (Bouma & van Noord 1998) and Korean (Chung 1998). But argument sharing per se...

Feature Distribution in Swedish Noun Phrases (review)

Reviewed by: Feature distribution in Swedish noun phrases by Kersti Börjars Asya Pereltsvaig Feature distribution in Swedish noun phrases. By Kersti Börjars. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. Pp. xiii, 290. Paper £19.99. This book provides a theoretical account of Swedish noun phrases, with special emphasis on syntactic structure and feature distribution. The analysis is couched within the framework of head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG); however, the analysis relies [End Page 346] heavily on empirical observations, and many of the author’s claims can be translated into other theoretical frameworks. Furthermore, the author prefaces her analysis by a brief introduction of the basics of HPSG (section 5.1.2). Börjars focuses on two aspects of Swedish noun phrase syntax: the status of the definite ending and the headedness of the phrase. She concludes that the definite ending does not project its own phrase in syntax; moreover, she argues against the DP-analysis and in favor of the NP-analysis. The book opens with a short introductory chapter in which B introduces the issues to be investigated throughout the book. Then, in Ch. 2 she presents empirical observations about the distribution and properties of various elements in the prenominal field, including determiners and modifiers. Furthermore, B presents some previous studies of these elements and concludes that there is no need to distinguish between as many classes of elements as has been previously proposed. On the basis of distributional tests, B argues that Swedish counterparts of ‘all’, ‘few’, ‘only’, and ‘such’ are members of the syntactic class of adjectives. Ch. 3 addresses the question of the nature of the definite ending. Upon an examination of previous analyses, B turns to the discussion of the distinction between clitics and affixes and applies the tests to the Swedish definite ending. The behavior of this ending is then compared to that of the genitive ending -s, which has often been assigned clitic status in Swedish. Finally, the definite ending is compared to the so-called enclitic affixes in other languages, including Balkan languages and other Scandinavian languages. On the basis of this discussion, B draws the conclusion that the definite ending in Swedish is neither a clitic nor a syntactic determiner, but is rather an affix which does not head its own projection in syntax. Ch. 4 investigates what the head of a noun phrase is. Having established a set of criteria for headedness, based on earlier work by other investigators, B proceeds to evaluate the arguments in favor of the DP-hypothesis and the alternative NP-hypothesis. She then concludes that Swedish provides no evidence in favor of the DP-hypothesis; therefore noun phrases in Swedish can be analyzed as DPs only if the headedness is assumed to be universal. However, B rejects this assumption and decides in favor of the NP-hypothesis. Chs. 5 and 6 lay out B’s analysis of Swedish definite and indefinite noun phrases, respectively, within the HPSG framework. One of the reasons for the choice of framework is that HPSG allows for an analysis where selection is not restricted to heads. According to B, if the assumptions about the universality of headedness and the restriction of selection to heads are both rejected, there is no reason to analyze Swedish noun phrases as DPs. Rather, an alternative NP-analysis is both possible and plausible. Overall, the author succeeds in making both the (sometimes quite intricate) data and the argumentation accessible to her readers. Thus, the book is bound to make a strong impact on the debate on the structure of noun phrases both in Scandinavian languages and crosslinguistically. Asya Pereltsvaig University of Tromsø Copyright © 2002 Linguistic Society of America

Slavic in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (review)

Reviewed by: Slavic in head-driven phrase structure grammar ed. by Robert D. Borsley, Adam Przepiórkowski Natalie Sciarini-Gourianova Slavic in head-driven phrase structure grammar. Ed. by Robert D. Borsley and Adam Przepiórkowski. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications, 1999. Pp. 345. Cloth $64.95, paper $24.95. Recent years have shown a rapid splash of activity in the frames of formal approaches to Slavic languages. Head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG), like most other theories of natural language, was initially developed largely on the basis of English. A few studies applying this type of grammar to quite different types of languages began to appear in the 1980s; works published in the 1990s show that distinctive word order and morphological properties of Slavic languages can be quite a challenge for structural analysis. The present volume, which examines a variety of phenomena from Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Russian, Bulgarian, and Czech, is a welcome addition to the field; its contributors try to provide an explicit framework for grammatical description, supported by experimental research. Traditionally, the majority of work within any formal approach to language has been concerned with syntax. This volume is not an exception. Tania Avgustinova, Wojciech Skut, and Hans Uszkoreit examine diathesis phenomena in a range of Slavic languages. They argue that HPSG is capable of coping with crosslinguistic similarities. As a result, a formal cross-Slavic account of valency alternations is proposed. Małgorzata Marciniak aims at formulating an HPSG binding theory for Polish. In this respect she discusses middle-distance binding. She seeks to provide a comprehensive account of this phenomenon and concentrates on the formalization of Principles A and B of the binding theory. Adam Przepiórkowski examines the nature of the complement-adjunct distinction. He shows that alleged configurational tests are at odds with linguists’ views on this dichotomy and argues that his result adds weight to recent HPSG approaches to it. Syntax is not the only matter of concern in the presented works. The editors of the volume seem to have found a proper balance in the discussion. The majority of contributors look into less frequently studied topics within HPSG and try to go beyond pure syntax, dealing with important problems in phonological, syntactico-morphological, and complex syntactico-semantic interface. In this respect, Tilman N. Höhle proposes a model for phonology. He suggests that the relations between phonology and physical phonetics can be more precisely understood from the HPSG point of view, supporting his statement with data from Russian, German, and Miwok. Gerald Penn is interested in the interaction of syntactic, prosodic, and discourse effects. He argues for a more basic reform to HPSG’s notion of constituency. Robert D. Borsley discusses weak auxiliaries, certain complex verb forms, and certain complementizers in Polish. He suggests that HPSG and, in particular, certain recent proposals within the framework, allow a more satisfactory analysis of these data. Stephen Wechsler and Larisa Zlatić state that in certain contexts involving dative and instrumental cases in Serbo-Croatian, case must be morphologically realized; as a result some special undeclined nouns cannot be used. Anna Kupść deals with the status of the Polish reflexive marker ‘self’, showing its linear realization in terms of the order domains approach. Frank Richter and Manfred Sailer discuss negative concord (NC) in Polish. Understanding n-words as identifiers, rather than quantifiers, they talk of the distribution of n-words in terms of their theory of collocations. Adam Przepiórkowsky and Anna Kupść also argue that NC is subject to both syntactic and semantic island constraints and show that Italian data confirm this result. All the papers demonstrate a thorough and accurate approach to the studied topics and provide a very interesting outline of phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic issues found in the Slavic languages. No doubt, the volume will be found most interesting as a guide and an inspiration for further research in the HPSG framework. [End Page 348] Natalie Sciarini-Gourianova Abraham Baldwin School, Guilford, CT Copyright © 2002 Linguistic Society of America

An HPSG-Analysis for Free Relative Clauses in German

At the moment there is no theory for free relative clauses in German in the framework of Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). From GB literature on the subject it is known that free relative clauses behave partly like noun phrases. They can fill argument positions of verbs. And although they are finite sentences, they are serialized like noun phrases in the German Mittelfeld. The function free relative clauses can take is not restricted to complements. Depending on the properties of the relative phrase, free relative clauses can be modifiers as well. I will argue that free relative clauses project to a category that is tightly related to the category of the relative phrase. As Ingria90 has shown, assignment of different cases in the relative and the matrix clause poses problems for grammars that rely on unification alone. In the following paper I will show that his subsumption based account is incompatible with standard assumptions in the HPSG framework. The set-based approach of DK97, which is similar in many respects to Ingria's approach, will also be discussed. It will be shown that some of the problems of the subsumption based account are still present in the set-based approach. I will provide a different solution to the problem that relies on an additional case feature for the case form of NPs. It is projected from the relative phrase and is not affected by case requirements of the verb. In general, there are three possibilities to describe the projections of free relative clauses: firstly, the direct projection of a phrase from the relative phrase and a finite sentence, secondly, an empty head or a unary projection that projects a relative clause and thirdly, a lexical rule that changes the subcategorization frames of governing heads in a way that they subcategorize for relative clauses. I will argue for the unary schema and discuss the alternatives.

A unified theory of scope for quantifiers and wh-phrases

This paper presents an analysis of quantifier and wh-operator scope in terms of a lexicalized theory of quantifier storage, within the framework of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. The proposed analysis provides an alternative to the derivational approach wherein quantifier scope is determined at a separate level of representation via movement, and shows how scope of quantifiers and wh-phrases (fronted or in situ) can be handled in a unified way in a constraint-based grammar. Lexicalization of quantifier storage offers an account of scope facts in raising and unbounded dependency constructions which have been problematic in an earlier constraint-based approach to quantifier scope.