HPSG and categorial grammar

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Pseudogapping as pseudo-VP ellipsis

Abstract In this paper, we propose an analysis of pseudogapping in Hybrid Type-Logical Categorial Grammar (Hybrid TLCG; Kubota 2010; Kubota and Levine 2012). Pseudogapping poses a particularly challenging problem for previous analyses in both the transformational and nontransformational literature. We argue that the flexible syntaxsemantics interface of Hybrid TLCG enables an analysis of pseudogapping that synthesizes the key insights of both transformational and nontransformational approaches, while at the same time overcoming the major difficulties of each type of approach. Keywords: pseudogapping, VP ellipsis, anaphora, syntactic identity, Hybrid Type-Logical Categorial Grammar 0 We are indebted to the following people for comments and discussions: Ai Kubota, Scott Martin, Philip Miller, Jordan Needle, Carl Pollard, and Daniel Puthawala. We would also like to thank the two LI reviewers for their insightful comments. We have presented parts of the present work at various venues, including LACL 2014, the syntax semantics group Synners at OSU, and the Semantics Workshop in Tokai (Nagoya). We would like to thank the audiences at these venues for their feedback

Gapping as hypothetical reasoning

The scope anomaly observed in sentences like Mrs. J can’t live in Boston and Mr. J in LA (¬◊>∧) and No dog eats Whiskas or cat Alpo (¬∃>∨) is known to pose difficult challenges to many analyses of Gapping. We provide new arguments, based on both the basic syntactic patterns of Gapping and standard constituency tests, that the so-called ‘low VP coordination analysis’—the only extant analysis of Gapping in contemporary syntactic theories which accounts for this scope anomaly—is empirically untenable. We propose an explicit alternative analysis of Gapping in Hybrid Type-Logical Categorial Grammar, a variant of categorial grammar which builds on both the Lambek-inspired tradition and a more recent line of work modelling word order via a lambda calculus for the prosodic component. The flexible syntax-semantics interface of this framework enables us to characterize Gapping as an instance of like-category coordination, via a crucial use of the notion of hypothetical reasoning. This analysis of the basic syntax of Gapping is shown to interact with independently motivated analyses of scopal operators to immediately yield their apparently anomalous scopal properties in Gapping, offering, for the first time in the literature, a conceptually simple and empirically adequate solution for the notorious scope anomaly in Gapping

Meaning versus Grammar

This volume investigates the complicated relationship between grammar, computation, and meaning in natural languages. It details conditions under which meaning-driven processing of natural language is feasible, discusses an operational and accessible implementation of the grammatical cycle for Dutch, and offers analyses of a number of further conjectures about constituency and entailment in natural language

Syntax und Valenz: Zur Modellierung kohärenter und elliptischer Strukturen mit Baumadjunktionsgrammatiken

Diese Arbeit untersucht das Verhältnis zwischen Syntaxmodell und lexikalischen Valenzeigenschaften anhand der Familie der Baumadjunktionsgrammatiken (TAG) und anhand der Phänomenbereiche Kohärenz und Ellipse. Wie die meisten prominenten Syntaxmodelle betreibt TAG eine Amalgamierung von Syntax und Valenz, die oft zu Realisierungsidealisierungen führt. Es wird jedoch gezeigt, dass TAG dabei gewisse Realisierungsidealisierungen vermeidet und Diskontinuität bei Kohärenz direkt repräsentieren kann; dass TAG trotzdem und trotz der im Vergleich zu GB, LFG und HPSG wesentlich eingeschränkten Ausdrucksstärke zu einer linguistisch sinnvollen Analyse kohärenter Konstruktionen herangezogen werden kann; dass der TAG-Ableitungsbaum für die indirekte Gapping-Modellierung eine ausreichend informative Bezugsgröße darstellt. Für  die direkte Repräsentation von Gapping-Strukturen wird schließlich ein baumbasiertes Syntaxmodell, STUG, vorgeschlagen, in dem Syntax und Valenz getrennt, aber verlinkt sind.    German law requires we state the prices in Germany for this publication. The hardcover price is 35.00 EUR; the softcover price is 25.00 EUR

Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar

Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) is a constraint-based or declarative approach to linguistic knowledge, which analyses all descriptive levels (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics) with feature value pairs, structure sharing, and relational constraints. In syntax it assumes that expressions have a single relatively simple constituent structure. This volume provides a state-of-the-art introduction to the framework. Various chapters discuss basic assumptions and formal foundations, describe the evolution of the framework, and go into the details of the main syntactic phenomena. Further chapters are devoted to non-syntactic levels of description. The book also considers related fields and research areas (gesture, sign languages, computational linguistics) and includes chapters comparing HPSG with other frameworks (Lexical Functional Grammar, Categorial Grammar, Construction Grammar, Dependency Grammar, and Minimalism)