scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1746151
computational linguistsformal syntactic theorygrammatical formalismsGrammatical interfaceshead-driven phase structure grammarHPSGlinguistic feature structure logicsminimal recursion semanticsphonology/syntax interfaceprinciple-based pursing
Collections of articles of miscellaneous specific interest (00B15) Logic of natural languages (03B65) Proceedings, conferences, collections, etc. pertaining to computer science (68-06) Formal languages and automata (68Q45) Knowledge representation (68T30) Natural language processing (68T50) Linguistics (91F20)
HPSG (Head-driven Phase Structure Grammar) formalism provides an elegant solution to the problem of analyzing interactions between different grammatical components, such as phonology (particularly prosody), morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse, and to share information between the levels that represent linguistic properties from different components. The papers of this volume explore just the interface phenomena, using the HPSG powerful device, with respect to a large spectrum of constructions and languages met between the mentioned grammatical components. (At least) two papers explore the HPSG approach to the Phonology/Syntax interface. Chapter 10: Prosodic Constituency in HPSG (Ewan Klein) investigates how to build up prosodic constituency recursively in parallel with the construction of syntactic phrases. The author develops the PHON attribute of signs to allow for structured regesentations in the form of metrical trees, defined by two attributes: DOM (a prosodic domain), whose value, is a list of prosodic elements, and DTE (designated terminal element), whose value is a single prosodic element indicating the most prominent daughter in the metrical tree. A parametrised operation is introduced, that combines a list of prosodic elements into one of the two subtypes of the metrical tree. This operation over metrical trees is then constrained with respect to certain syntactic construction types, providing a recursive definition of the phonological structure which is directly linked to the construction of syntactic structure. The proposed approach is compatible with a range of possible prosodic patterns, including well-known mismatches between prosodic and syntactic structure. Chapter 1: Incorporating in Danish: Implications to Interfaces (Ash Asudeh, Line Hove Mikkelsen). This paper is concerned with the analysis of noun (incorporated in Danish) which is characterized by the combination of a noun phrase and a verb into a single phonological phrase, where the verb is de-accented. The approach expands the attribute PHON to include information about different stress levels such as word, foot and syllable. The proposed analysis shows clearly how natural it is within HPSG to define the specific interaction for determining the limits of grammaticality (components) within the considered constructions. Chapter 15: A Bistratal Approach tot he Prosody-Syntax Interface in Japanese (Kei Yoshimoto) explores how `accentual phrases' consisting of a substantive element, and a grammatical morph may cut across significant syntactic boundaries. The author proposes the feature P-STR that provides a link from the word order domain (DOM) to the phonology proper. Values for P-STR are determined by a principle that constructs an output phonological structure from the P-STR head and the order domain of a complement or adjunct, in effect translating orderings into phonological structures. The next three papers (chapters) involve Morphology/Syntax interactions. Chapter 2: Incorporating Contracted Auxiliaries in English (Emily Bender and Ivan Sag) provides an analysis of contracted auxiliaries in English, treating them as verbs with an incorporated pronominal subject. A lexical rule of Pronoun Incorporation takes two signs, one of which is a finite auxiliary and outputs a single sign with an empty SUBJ value, and a PHON value that is some function of the two input phonologies. The elegant proposed analysis covers all the facts adduced to support the LFG approach, accounting for the result that the constructions in which the contracted and uncontracted forms of auxiliaries can appear are identical, modulo the incorporatod subject. Chapter 5: Syntactic Transparency of Pronominal Affixes (B. Crysmann) brings data from European Portuguese and provides evidence that complementizers, \(wh\)-expressions, negation, and monotone decreasing quantifier phrases all induce obligatory proclisis. The conditioning environment for proclisis thus involves not just syntax but also semantics. Using the Minimal Recursion Semantics to model monotonicity, the clitic placement in European Portuguese is defined by three implicational constraints that relate elements in the domain list in the preverbal domain to the order clitic, and the verb in the verbal domain according to the types of the former. Chapter 8: The Morphosyntax of Lai Relative Clauses (A. Kathol) analyzes the relative marker as a nominal element that takes a relative as complement, and binds the index of the covert pronoun in that clause, through structure sharing. A minor modification of the proposed approach allows also to analyze internally headed relative clauses in the same way. Chapter 9: Grammatical Interfaces in Korean Relatives (J.-B. Kim, B.-S. Park) provides a general analysis for Korean relatives with subject, complement and adjunct dependencies. The relative clauses are associated to double nominative constructions, the hypothesis being that a relative with an apparent specifier gap is acceptable just in case the relative clause itself could be expressed with a double nominative (interpreted as a focus construction). One of the constraints on the double nominative construction is that the semantic relation between the two nominative marked noun phrases must be one of `subordination' where this property holds for part-whole, hierarchical and taxonomic relations (inter alia). The matters enclosed as parts of the CONTEXT attribute are studied in the following two papers (chapters). Chapter 7: The Nature of Pragmatic Information (Georgia Green) argues that the pragmatic information in the CONTEXT/BKGR attribute does not have to be consistent, since pragmatic information has to do with the relation between the user of the sign and the act of using the sign. The author discusses the general properties of sentence final particles in Chinese and Japanese, discourse markers in English and honorifics, and provides the sketch of an analysis for illocutionary force within HPSG. Chapter 13: A Constraint-Based Semantics for Tenses and Temporal Auxiliaries (Frank Van Eynde) develops a constraint-based semantics for Dutch tenses and temporal auxiliaries, and proposes that verbs should carry an INDEX value which acts like Davidsonian event variable and is linked in the CONTENT value of a verbal sign to a temporal location. This in turn links to CONTEXT values, where BACKGROUND attribute provides information about the relations between event time, reference time and utterance time (as in DRT theory). Invoking relations between CONTENT and CONTEXT in this way, the HPSG analysis provides an elegant and motivated account of a significant part of the Dutch tense-aspect system. The papers that follow deal with structure-sharing and other relations between elements in SYNSEM attribute and more particularly within the SYNSEM/LOCAL attribute. Chapter 4: Argument Realization and Dutch \(R\)-Pronouns (G. Bouma) exploits the dissociation of valence attributes when dealing with the Bech's problem. Extraction out of a PP (Prepositional Phrase) in Dutch is permitted only if the extracted element is an \(R\)-pronoun, an expression that can also function as a locative adverbial. The author solves the Bech's problem through the use of a DEPS list and Argument Extensin and Realization Principles for prepositions as well as verbs which indicate how DEPS mediates between ARG-ST and valence. Chapter 6: From Argument Raising to Dependent Raising (K. De Kuthy, W. Detmar Meurers) considers the problem of partial fronting in German. The book provides a unified analysis of both the argument and the adjunct cases, adopting the adjunct-as-complement analysis of G. Bouma et. al. (2001) which utilizes a DEPS list to encode a wider set of dependents than ARG-ST encodes. Chapter 12: German Particle Verbs and the Predicate Complex (Stefan Müller) investigates the word order in German, specifically the status of preverbs of particle verbs, and argues that preverbs are separate elements which belong to the verbal complex (whose elements are selected by the verb by means of the valence feature VCOMP). Chapter 14: Spanish Psychological Predicates (C. Vogel, Begoña Villada) argues that the notion of subject is too problematic to be considered explanatory in any meaningful sense. The authors propose two features, POS (position) and AGRC (agreement controller) which are used as the basis for analyses of linearization and of control and raising constructions in Spanish, and which make no reference to subjecthood. Using these two features, and a number of revised HPSG principles (linear procedure, immediate dominance, raising and control etc.), the proposed approach succeeds to eschew the SUBJ attribute and revert to the classical SUBCAT list ordered by obliqueness. Chapter 11: A Head-Driven Account of Long-Distance Case Assignment (R. Malouf) looks at long-distance case concord in some Australian languages, noting that multiple case-marking is permitted and the phenomenon is non-local. A Case-Concord Principle is defined as a constraint on the DEPS-list, which appends the case of a head onto some dependent which may itself bear case to indicate its function as a modifier. Another Case-Realization Principle then relates the value of the case attribute to its morpho-phonological realization. Chapter 3: Negation in Colloquial Welsh (R. Borsley, Bob Morris Jones) present data showing that negative verbs is Welsh must be followed by some negative element. The proposed solution is based on two general lexical constraints that require a negative verb to have a [NC+] (negative) complement, and that require a negative adverbial to appear in a COMPS list with a non-negative subject and without any object NPs (noun phrases). The book is mainly addressed to computational linguists, HPSG theory-oriented linguists, people working in advanced grammatical formalisms and theory, natural language processing system designers and programmers and to all having connections to this topics.
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