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This paper investigates the binding of pronouns and reflexives in picture noun phrases, and focuses on data showing that reflexives and pronouns are not in complementary distribution in picture NPs with possessors. In particular, we discuss data showing that whereas reflexives can take either the possessor or the subject of the sentence as antecedent, pronouns are restricted to an antecedent other than the possessor phrase. We suggest that this asymmetry can be straightforwardly explained if we assume that (1) the possessor of a picture NP is not part of the head noun's argument structure and (2) Binding Theory is stated over dependents structure, the representation encompassing both a head's argument structure and other phrases dependent on it in various ways. If the possessor of a picture NP (PNP) is not part of the head's argument structure, it follows that reflexives in PNPs with possessors will be exempt from Binding Theory, which paves the way for an analysis of the reflexive data. Furthermore, we also show that if BT is regarded as defined over dependents structure, it follows that a pronoun in a picture NP with a possessor must be disjoint from that possessor phrase.
Remarks on binding theory
(2005)
We propose some reformulations of binding principle A that build on recent work by Pollard and Xue, and by Runner et al. We then turn to the thorny issue of the status of indices, in connection with the seemingly simpler Principle B. We conclude that the notion of index is fundamentally incoherent, and suggest some possible approaches to eliminating them as theoretical primitives. One possibility is to let logical variables take up the explanatory burden borne by indices, but this turns out to be fraught with difficulties. Another approach, which involves returning to the idea that referentially dependent expressions denote identity functions (as proposed, independently, by Pollard and Sag and by Jacobson) seerms to hold more promise.
It has been commonly assumed since Chomsky (1981) that the distribution of reflexive pronouns is subject to Binding Condition A. Reinhart and Reuland (1993) formulate Condition A in terms of the notion of syntactic predicate. The proposal I will develop in this paper is to factor out semantic and syntactic conditions on the occurrence of reflexive pronouns and to reduce them to independently motivated semantic and syntactic mechanisms. The semantic part is attributed to a theory of semantic composition recently developed by Chung and Ladusaw (2004), while the syntactic residue falls into the proper characterization of syntactic chains, as proposed by Reinhart and Reuland (1993) and Reuland (2001). To the extent that this approach is successful, Binding Condition A is rendered superfluous.
Order domains were originally proposed to deal with constituent order, but have recently been concerned with more than just linearization. This paper seeks to contribute to this discussion by considering the possibility of analysing word forms in terms of order domains. We focus on the distribution of the English relative and interrogative pronouns who and whom. It is shown that a small number of constraints can accommodate the seemingly complex body of data. In particular, a linearization-based constraint can provide a straightforward account for the quite puzzling distribution which who and whom show in one of the register types.
In this paper, we claim that the filler-gap linkage in Korean UDCs needs to be handled at the level of syntax and that unbounded dependencies represented by traces, resumptive pronouns, and resumptive reflexives in Korean can be simply captured - without posing any extra mechanisms - in the traditional HPSG analysis of UDCs following Pollard and Sag (1994). It is because in HPSG traces are not all required to have the same feature, unlike in other movement-based approaches including the minimalist program and GB theory. In addition, we argue that the three kinds of Korean UDC elements appearing in gap positions do not form separate categories from their corresponding forms appearing in non-UDCs based on the same semantic and pragmatic properties such as logophoricity and contrastiveness. We also investigate some controversial issues of island constraints and strong crossover with respect to filler-gap linkage in Korean UDCs.
This paper presents an analysis of constructions involving the l-form of the verb in Polish, including primarily the past tense, the conditional mood, and the future tense. Previous approaches have attempted to treat these uniformly as auxiliary verb constructions. We argue against a unified treatment, however, in light of synchronic and diachronic evidence that indicates that only the future tense and the conditional still involve auxiliaries in modern Polish. We show that the past tense is now a simple tense, although the l-forms appear in combination with agreement affixes that can appear in different places in the sentence. We provide an account of the common linearization properties of the past tense markings and the conditional auxiliary. We present a detailed HPSG analysis of the past tense construction that relies on the introduction of two interacting agreement features. We then discuss the consequences of our proposals for the analysis of the conditional and future auxiliary constructions, and finally, we offer a treatment of constructions involving inflected complementizers in Polish.
This paper discusses how the English Resource Grammar (ERG) captures the optionality of certain complements of verbs based on a single lexical entry coupled with an ontology of markings distinguishing optional from obligatory as well as unrealized from realized elements. Subject-head and head-complement structures are modified accordingly, but due to the lack of a possibility to express and use relational goals in grammars implemented in the LKB system, the ERG encoding falls short of the goal of treating optional complements in a general way. Instead, it requires two new types of ˋauxiliary' phrases which are otherwise unmotivated. We show that the problem can be overcome by using a recursive relation selecting a member from a list. The use of a lean implementation platform not supporting such relational goals, such as the LKB, thus results in a loss of generality of the grammars that can be expressed, which undermines the closeness of the implemented grammar to current linguistic analyses as one of the hallmarks of HPSG-based grammar implementation. The case study presented in this paper thus supports the position argued in Götz and Meurers (1997) that a system for the implementation of HPSG-based grammars should include both universal implicational principles as well as definite clauses over feature terms.
In this paper, I first make an observation that there is a certain parallelism in the scope interpretation possibilities of adverbs and quantifiers with respect to different types complex predicates in Japanese, drawing on a comparison of the light verb construction and the causative construction. I will then argue that previous approaches to complex predicates in Japanese in the lexicalist tradition (Matsumoto 1996; Manning et al. 1999) fail to capture this generalization successfully. Finally, building on a novel approach to syntax/semantics interface in HPSG by Cipollone (2001), I develop an analysis of the semantic structure of complex predicates that accounts for the empirical observation straightforwardly.
We argue here for a lexicalist analysis of the Korean copula (following Kim, Sells and Wescoat (2004)), on the basis of different properties of sequences of noun-plus-copula, which shows word-like behavior, in contrast to noun and negative copula, which are independent syntactic units. The interactions of these items with various copy constructions brings out their clear differences. The analysis is formalized in HPSG using Lexical Sharing, from Wescoat (2002).
According to the Projection Principle (Chomsky 1981), expletives have no semantic content and thus cannot occur in theta-marked positions. However, there are many examples where expletive it appears as a direct object, in violation of the Projection Principle. The various attempts that have been made to account for such cases (e.g. the case-based analysis of Authier (1991), the predication analysis of Rothstein (1995), and the Specifier analysis of Stroik (1991, 1996)) all posit movement of the expletive from a non-theta marked position to direct object position. However, these analyses have so far been unsuccessful in capturing several important contrasts, e.g. variable optionality of the expletive it. This paper argues that such contrasts (and the complex behavior of expletive it more generally) follow straightforwardly from a lexicalist, constraint-based analysis in which lexical information and independently motivated constraints interact in subtle ways.
Focusing on the examples of multiple degree modification, this paper argues that the class of degree expressions in English is syntactically and semantically diverse, subdivided both according to the semantic effects of its members and according to the extent to which they permit, and participate in, multiple layers of modification. We argue that these two factors are linked, and result in (at least) a three-way distinction between ˋtrue degree morphemes', which map gradable adjectives to properties of individuals and combine with their arguments in a Head-Specifier structure; ˋintensifiers', which are syntactic and semantic modifiers of properties constructed out of gradable adjectives; and ˋscale modifiers', which are also syntactic and semantic modifiers, but which combine with ˋbare' gradable adjectives (relations between individuals and degrees) rather than properties formed out of gradable adjectives.
The present paper investigates a certain subset of clause linkage phenomena and develops a constraint-based account to the empirical fact that clauses need to be distinguished with respect to their degree of integratedness into a potential matrix clause. Considering as example German, it is shown that the generally assumed twofold distinction between main and subordinate clauses (or root and embedded clauses) does not suffice to deal with the presented data. It is argued that the discussed linkage phenomena originate from syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties of the clauses involved, and should hence be encoded in grammar.
The paper reviews basic patterns of reflexive binding in Norwegian, and explores a possible implementation of them in an HPSG grammar using the LKB platform. Norwegian has two reflexive elements, with distinct constraints and corresponding 'anti-binding' effects; they can cooccur but also occur independently. As over-all strategy for resolving reflexive binding we use one resembling the 'slash' procedure for wh-dependencies. Binding constraints are imposed partly through lexical specification, partly through phrasal combination rules. Challenges are noted residing in the possibility for sentences to contain an unbounded number of reflexives.
We examine how a large-scale computational grammar can account for the complex nature of Japanese verbal compounds. Previous computational Japanese grammars have tried to avoid the problem by simple solutions such as enumerating as many verbal compounds in the lexicon as possible. In contrast, we develop the analysis that is linguistically adequate and computationally tractable and thus meets the requirement of a syntactically and semantically precise natural language processing of Japanese like Bond et al. (2005). Our analysis distinguishes between two kinds of verbal compounds: syntactic compounds, which are fully productive; and lexical compounds, which are of varying productivity.
We present a novel well-formedness condition for underspecified semantic representations which requires that every correct MRS representation must be a net. We argue that (almost) all correct MRS representations are indeed nets, and apply this condition to identify a set of eleven rules in the English Resource Grammar (ERG) with bugs in their semantics component. Thus we demonstrate that the net test is useful in grammar debugging.
On binding domains
(2005)
In this paper I want to explore reasons for replacing Binding Theory based on the anaphor-pronoun dichotomy by a Binding Theory allowing more domains restricting/defining anaphoric dependencies. This will, thus, have consequences for the partitioning of anaphoric elements, presupposing more types of 'anaphors'/'pronouns' than standard Binding Theory offers us.
The Grammar Matrix is a resource for linguists writing grammars of natural languages; however, up to this point it has not included support for coordination. In this paper, we survey the typological range of coordination phenomena in the world's languages, then detail the support, both syntactic and semantic, for those phenomena in the Grammar Matrix. Furthermore, we describe the concept of a Matrix module and our software that enables grammar writers to easily produce an extensible starter grammar.
Syncretism in German: A unified approach to underspecification, indeterminacy, and likeness of case
(2005)
In this paper I address the phenomenon of syncretism in German and show how Flickinger (2000)'s approach to related issues in English can be adapted to provide a compact, disjunction-free representation of German nominal paradigms by means of combined case/number/gender type hierarchies. In particular, I will discuss the issue of case identity constraints in German coordinate structures, which has so far prevented successful application of Flickinger's proposal to German, and show how likeness constraints targetting individual inflectional dimensions of a combined type hierarchy can be expressed by means of typed lists that abstract out the relevant dimension.
I further show that current type-based approaches to feature neutrality are unable to combine the treatment of this phenomenon with the virtues of underspecification. I will then propose a revised organisation of the inflectional type hierarchies suggested by Daniels (2001), drawing on a systematic distinction between inherent and external (case) requirements.