bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Verb sequencing constraints in Ga: Serial verb constructions and the extended verb complex
Authors: Kropp Dakubu Mary Esther , Hellan Lars , Beermann Dorothee
Published: December 2021

The paper examines two verb sequencing constructions in Ga: the Serial
Verb Construction (SVC) and the Extended Verb Complex (EVC). The former
is an instance of a commonly recognized construction, the latter is
typically found in the Volta Basin area of West Africa. EVCs are
sequences of verbs functioning as single verb units relative to the
syntax, but with an internal structure much like syntactic
complementation. Both constructions show agreement of aspect and mood
marking throughout the sequence, but with differences in exponence: in
an SVC all Vs expose such marking, in an EVC only a limited (down to
one) number of verbs, depending on the inflectional category. The paper
presents the basic facts, based on works by Dakubu (2002, 2004, to
appear), and gives an HPSG account of their morphology, syntax and
semantics. The analysis is sustained by a grammar of the phenomena
implemented with the 'Linguistic Knowledge Builder' (LKB), an
engineering platform for natural language processing.
Applying licenser rules to a grammar with continuous constituents
Authors: Kaufmann Tobias , Pfister Beat
Published: December 2021

Licenser rules have originally been introduced in Müller (1999) as
a part of a grammar based on discontinuous constituents. We propose
licenser rules as a means to avoid underspecified empty elements in
grammars with continuous constituents. We applied them to a verb
movement analysis of the German main clause with right sentence
bracket and to complement extraposition. To reduce the number of
unnecessary hypotheses, we extended the licenser rule concept with a
licenser binding technique. We compared the licenser rule approach to
an approach based on underspecified traces with respect to processing
performance. In our experiment, the use of licenser rules reduced the
parse time by a factor of 13.5.
Children's use of argument structure, meta-knowledge of the lexicon, and extra-linguistic contextual cues in inferring meanings of novel verbs
Authors: Imai Mutsumi
Published: December 2021

Verbs are the centerpiece of the sentence, and understanding of verb meanings is essential for
language acquisition. Yet verb learning is said to be more challenging than noun learning for young
children for several reasons. First, while nouns tend
to denote concrete objects, which are perceptually
stable over time, verbs tend to refer to action events,
which are temporally ephemeral, and the beginning
and the end of the action referred to by the verb are
not clearly specified. Second, a verb takes nouns as
arguments, and the meaning of a verb is determined
as the relation between the arguments. To infer the
meaning of a verb, children need to attend to the
relation between the objects in the event rather than
the objects themselves. In so doing, children make
use of a variety of cues such as argument structure,
meta-knowledge of the lexicon, and extra-linguistic
contextual cues. In this paper, I present two lines of
my recent research concerning young children's
novel verb learning. Specifically, I first report a
cross-linguistic study (Imai et al., 2008) examining
how Japanese-, English-, and Chinese-speaking
children utilize structural and non-structural,
extra-linguistic cues when inferring novel verb
meanings. Second, I present another study examining
how young children utilize sound-meaning correlates
(sound symbolism) in their inference of novel verb
meanings. In the end, I evaluate the relative
importance of structural cues among different cues
children use in verb learning.
Transparent heads
Authors: Flickinger Dan
Published: December 2021

Head-complement structures in HPSG identify most properties of the phrase with those of the head
daughter, except for that valence property (e.g. SUBCAT or COMPS) whose constraints are met by the
non-head daughter(s) in the phrase. In this paper I present several phenomena in English syntax
where idiosyncratic properties of a non-head daughter in a phrase must remain visible on the phrasal
node, in order to preserve the strong version of the principle of locality in subcategorization. I
propose a general formal mechanism to effect this occasional transparency of heads with respect to
certain properties of their complements.
Korean postpositions as weak syntactic heads
Authors: Ko Kil Soo
Published: December 2021

This paper deals with Korean postpositions. They are treated as suffixes in recent lexicalist
works. But they differ syntactically from suffixes and we will propose to treat them as clitics,
i.e. words combining with a phrase in the syntax and attaching to its last lexical item in the
phonology. We treat them as weak syntactic heads, taking into account their head properties and the
syntactic similarity between the mother phrase and the host phrase. They take the latter as
complement and share most of its syntactic properties. Revising the traditional classification, we
divide postpositions into three subtypes: marking, oblique and semantic postpositions, based on
their distributional properties, such as optionality, non-nominal marking and stacking, etc. Finally
we show how our analysis can be described in the HPSG model.
An alternative to the HPSG Raising Principle on the description-level
Authors: Lahm David
Published: December 2021

I reconsider the HPSG Raising Principle which is introduced in Pollard & Sag (1994) to constrain the
way in which lexical entries describe the SUBCAT lists of the words they license. On the basis of
whether a complement is assigned a semantic role in a lexical entry or not, this entry may not or
must describe this complement as structure-shared with the unrealised subject of some other
(non-subject) complement. The formal status of this principle is still unclear, as it is formulated
as a 'meta principle' that does not talk about linguistic objects directly but rather about the
lexical entries that license them. I show that, although its meaning cannot be expressed faithfully
by the usual kind of constraints employed in HPSG, the Raising Principle can nevertheless be
replaced by two such constraints which make largely the same predictions. Most importantly, these
constraints interact with the output values of description-level lexical rules in the style of
Meurers (2001) in a way that makes predictions available that Pollard & Sag (1994) intended the
Raising Principle to make but that it cannot possibly make if description-level lexical rules are
employed.
Serial verb constructions in Chinese: A HPSG account
Authors: Müller Stefan , Lipenkova Janna
Published: December 2021

The present paper gives an account of Serial Verb Constructions (SVCs) in Mandarin Chinese. After a
typological presentation of the phenomenon, we give an overview of the Chinese data with examples of
the semantic variations of SVCs. The inventory of SVC types is classified according to causal and
temporal relations between the components. We also discuss the pragmatic conditions on the use of
SVCs as well as alternative, semantically equivalent constructions. A HPSG-analysis is proposed for
marked SVCs, which uses the interaction between aspect marking and the set of possible subordinative
relations to deduce the extra-lexical meaning of the construction. Particular attention is payed to
the syntactically peculiar SVC with shared internal arguments, which is accounted for by a
non-cancellation approach to valence requirements.
Inflectional morphology in Turkish VP coordination
Authors: Fokkens Antske , Poulson Laurie , Bender Emily M.
Published: December 2021

We address three properties of Turkish morphology and
VP coordination: the identification of tense and aspect values
across conjuncts, the optional omission of affixes on non-final
conjuncts coordinated with the word ve and the obligatory
sharing of scopal modals across conjuncts in coordination structures
with the affix -ip. For the modals in an -ip
structure, we propose an analysis that uses syntactic features to
trigger the application of a construction at the level of the
coordinated VP introducing the scopal predications. Our analysis is
implemented in a small HPSG grammar and tested against datasets
confirming the functionality and consistency of the analysis.
Negative concord in Romanian as polyadic quantification
Authors: Iordăchioaia Gianina , Richter Frank
Published: December 2021

In this paper we develop an HPSG syntax-semantics of negative concord in
Romanian. We show that n-words in Romanian can best be treated as negative
quantifiers which may combine by resumption to form polyadic negative
quantifiers. Optionality of resumption explains the existence of simple
sentential negation readings alongside double negation readings. We solve
the well-known problem of defining general semantic composition rules for
translations of natural language expressions in a logical language with
polyadic quantifiers by integrating our higher-order logic in Lexical
Resource Semantics, whose constraint-based composition mechanisms directly
support a systematic syntax-semantics for negative concord with polyadic
quantification.
Persian object clitics and the syntax-morphology interface
Authors: Samvelian Pollet , Tseng Jesse
Published: December 2021

This paper presents a descriptive overview and formal analysis of the use of pronominal clitics for
realizing various types of arguments in Persian, with particular emphasis on object clitics in the
verbal domain. We argue that pronominal clitics behave more like suffixes than independent syntactic
elements; in cases where they take syntactic scope over an NP or a PP, they must be phrasal
affixes. We propose an HPSG analysis to account for the morphosyntactic aspects of verbal
suffixation of object clitics, possessive clitics, preverbal object clitics, and clitic doubling
constructions. Finally, we explore extensions of the analysis to periphrastic verb forms, and we
compare our proposals for Persian to previous HPSG work on clitic phenomena in other languages.
Classic problems at the syntax-morphology interface: Whose are they?
Authors: Corbett Greville G.
Published: December 2021

There are fascinating problems at the syntax-morphology interface which tend to be missed. I offer a
brief explanation of why that may be happening, then give a Canonical Typology perspective, which
brings these problems to the fore. I give examples showing that the phenomena could in principle be
treated either by syntactic rules (but these would be complex) or within morphology (but this would
involve redundancy). Thus ˋnon-autonomous' case values, those which have no unique form but are
realized by patterns of syncretism, could be handled by a rule of syntax (one with access to other
features, such as number) or by morphology (with resulting systematic syncretisms). I concentrate on
one of the most striking sets of data, the issue of prepositional government in Latvian, and outline
a solution within Network Morphology using structured case values.
Lexical relatedness and the lexical entry: A formal unification
Authors: Spencer Andrew
Published: December 2021

Based on the notion of a lexicon with default inheritance, I address the problem of how to provide a
template for lexical representations that allows us to capture the relatedness between inflected
word forms and canonically derived lexemes within a broadly realizational-inferential model of
morphology. To achieve this we need to be able to represent a whole host of intermediate types of
lexical relatedness that are much less frequently discussed in the literature. These include
transpositions such as deverbal participles, in which a word's morphosyntactic class changes
(e.g. verb ⇒ adjective) but no semantic predicate is added to the semantic representation and the
derived word remains, in an important sense, a "form" of the base lexeme (e.g. the 'present
participle form of the verb'). I propose a model in which morphological properties are inherited by
default from syntactic properties and syntactic properties are inherited from semantic properties,
such as ontological category (the Default Cascade). Relatedness is defined in terms of a Generalized
Paradigm Function (perhaps in reality a relation), a generalization of the Paradigm Function of
Paradigm Function Morphology (Stump 2001). The GPF has four components which deliver respectively
specifications of a morphological form, syntactic properties, semantic representation and a lexemic
index (LI) unique to each individuated lexeme in the lexicon. In principle, therefore, the same
function delivers derived lexemes as inflected forms. In order to ensure that a newly derived lexeme
of a distinct word class can be inflected I assume two additional principles. First, I assume an
Inflectional Specifiability Principle, which states that the form component of the GPF (which
defines inflected word forms of a lexeme) is dependent on the specification of the lexeme's
morpholexical signature, a declaration of the properties that the lexeme is obliged to inflect for
(defined by default on the basis of morpholexical class). I then propose a Category Erasure
Principle, which states that 'lower' attributes are erased when the GPF introduces a non-trivial
change to a 'higher' attribute (e.g. a change to the semantic representation entails erasure of
syntactic and morphological information). The required information is then provided by the Default
Cascade, unless overridden by specific declarations in the GPF. I show how this model can account
for a variety of intermediate types of relatedness which cannot easily be treated as either
inflection or derivation, and conclude with a detailed illustration of how the system applies to a
particularly interesting type of transposition in the Samoyedic language Sel'kup, in which a noun is
transposed to a similitudinal adjective whose form is in paradigmatic opposition to case-marked noun
forms, and which is therefore a kind of inflection.
Auxiliary-stranding relative clauses
Authors: Arnold Doug , Borsley Robert D.
Published: December 2021

A little discussed feature of English are non-restrictive relative clauses in which the antecedent
is normally not an NP and the gap follows an auxiliary, as in Kim will sing, which Lee won't. These
relative clauses resemble clauses with auxiliary complement ellipsis or fronting. There are a
variety of analyses that might be proposed, but there are reasons for thinking that the best
analysis is one where which is a nominal filler associated with a gap which is generally
non-nominal: a filler-gap mismatch analysis in other words.
An HPSG approach to Welsh unbounded dependencies
Authors: Borsley Robert D.
Published: December 2021

Welsh is a language in which unbounded dependency constructions involve both gaps and resumptive
pronouns (RPs). Gaps and RPs appear in disjoint sets of environments. Otherwise, however, they are
quite similar. This suggests that they involve the same mechanism, and in HPSG that they involve the
SLASH feature. It is possible to provide an analysis in which RPs are associated with the SLASH
feature but are also the ordinary pronouns which they appear to be.
An HPSG approach to synchronous speech and deixis
Authors: Alahverdzhieva Katya , Lascarides Alex
Published: December 2021

The use of hand gestures to point at objects and individuals, or to navigate through landmarks on a
virtually created map is ubiquitous in face-to-face conversation. We take this observation as a
starting point, and we demonstrate that deictic gestures can be analysed on a par with speech by
using standard methods from constraint-based grammars such as HPSG. In particular, we use the form
of the deictic signal, the form of the speech signal (including its prosodic marking) and their
relative temporal performance to derive an integrated multimodal tree that maps to an integrated
multimodal meaning. The integration process is constrained via construction rules that rule out
ill-formed input. These rules are driven from an empirical corporal study which sheds light on the
interaction between speech and deictic gesture.
Adjuncts and the HPSG binding theory
Authors: Walker Heike
Published: December 2021

The HPSG binding theory in Pollard and Sag (1994) cannot account for the binding-theoretic
interaction between main clause and adjunct-internal elements. Following Hukari and Levine (1995), I
claim that structural configurations must be taken into account. In this article, I present a
revised version of Hukari and Levine's configurational relation called v(alence-based)-c-command and
propose that Principle C must involve this relation in addition to the obliqueness-based relation of
o-command. New data are provided that strongly support the proposed revision of the HPSG binding
theory. Finally, I argue that Principle C is syntactic rather than pragmatic in nature.
A construction-based cross-linguistic analysis of V2 word order
Authors: Wetta Andrew C.
Published: December 2021

Verb second (V2) word order is determined by considering the absolute position of clausal
constituents. Previous accounts of such word order in HPSG have been developed for individual V2
languages (predominantly German) but are often not cross-linguistically applicable. I propose a
set of generalized mechanisms in linearization-based SBCG which accounts for cross-linguistic V2
data by use of: (1) a simple two-valued feature rather than many-typed topological domains, (2)
domain compaction, and (3) constructionally-determined domain positions. Not only does this
analysis account for V2 placement, but it can also model verb third (V3) placement and other
positionally-stipulated word orders.
Information structure as parallel tree building
Authors: Stevens Jon
Published: December 2021

This paper presents a Synchronous Tree Adjoining Grammar (STAG) account of Information Structure,
whereby Givenness-marking requires a link between nodes on a syntactic tree and LF nodes whose
interpretation is supplied by a contextually determined set of Given semantic objects. By
hypothesis, the interpretation of linked nodes bypasses a default interpretation principle that
requires pragmatic reasoning to disambiguate elements and enrich semantic material. Thus,
interpreting Given elements requires less cognitive effort than Focused elements. This, combined
with some established insights from Game-theoretic pragmatics, yields empirical advantages over
more traditional semantic/pragmatic analyses of equal simplicity.
Converting CCGs into typed feature structure grammars
Authors: Krieger Hans-Ulrich , Kiefer Bernd
Published: December 2021

In this paper, we report on a transformation scheme that turns a Categorial
Grammar, more specifically, a Combinatory Categorial Grammar (CCG; see
Baldridge, 2002) into a derivation- and meaning-preserving typed feature
structure (TFS) grammar.

We describe the main idea which can be traced back at least to work by
Karttunen (1986), Uszkoreit (1986), Bouma (1988), and Calder et al. (1988).
We then show how a typed representation of complex categories can be extended
by other constraints, such as modes, and indicate how the Lambda semantics of
combinators is mapped into a TFS representation, using unification to perform
perform alpha-conversion and beta-reduction (Barendregt, 1984).
We also present first findings concerning runtime measurements, showing
that the PET system, originally developed for the HPSG grammar framework,
outperforms the OpenCCG parser by a factor of 8–10 in the time domain and a
factor of 4–5 in the space domain.
An HPSG approach to English comparative inversion
Authors: Park Dong-woo
Published: December 2021

It has been analyzed that the word order of English comparative inversion is analogous to that of
other subject-auxiliary inversions in that only a finite auxiliary verb can be followed by the
subject. However, English comparative inversion should be distinguished from other inversions
because the subject can be located between a cluster of auxiliary verbs and the non-auxiliary verb
phrase in English comparative inversion. Existing analyses on subject-auxiliary inversion cannot
account for this special kind of inversion. This paper proposes a new phrase type for English
comparative inversion within the construction-based HPSG. In addition, I suggest that constraints on
properties of lexemes participating in the new phrase type are governed by the construction-based
approach, while the word order of English comparative inversion is determined by rules that the word
order domain approach adopts. Also, it will be shown that these proposals can capture the word order
of nor-inversion, as-inversion, and so-inversion as well as that of comparative inversion.
Individual constraints for information structure
Authors: Song Sanghoun , Bender Emily M.
Published: December 2021

This paper, in the context of multilingual MT, proposes the use of ICONS
(Individual CONstraintS) to add a representation of information structure to
MRS. The value of ICONS is a list of objects of type info-str, each of which
has the features CLAUSE and TARGET. The subtypes of info-str indicate
which information structural role is played by the TARGET with respect
to the CLAUSE. This proposal is designed to support both the calculation
of focus projection from underspecified representations and the handling of
multiclausal sentences.
On the agreement between predicative complements and their target
Authors: Van Eynde Frank
Published: December 2021

Predicative complements canonically show number and/or gender agreement with their target. The most
detailed proposal on how to model it in HPSG is provided in Kathol (1999). This proposal, though,
chiefly deals with the predicative adjectives of the Romance languages, and turns out to be
inappropriate for dealing with predicate nominals. There is an obvious way to repair it, but it
cannot be fitted in the canonical HPSG treatment of clauses with a predicative complement. It can be
fitted, though, in a treatment of such clauses that was proposed in Van Eynde (2009). Adopting that
treatment, the agreement is modeled in terms of a constraint on the lexemes which select a
predicative complement.
Fragments vs. null arguments in Korean
Authors: Ahn Hee-Don , Cho Sungeun
Published: December 2021

Korean has two types of answers shorter than full sentential answers: Fragments and null argument
constructions. Apparently the two constructions have the same interpretative processes. However,
there are some cases where the fragment and null argument construction behave differently: e.g.,
wh-puzzles, sloppy interpretation. We suggest that the two constructions involve two different types
of anaphora and that the sources of sloppy(-like) interpretation are fundamentally
distinct. Fragments pattern differently with null arguments in that only the former may display
genuine sloppy readings. The latter may yield sloppy-like readings which are pragmatically induced
by the explicature that can be cancelled unlike genuine sloppy readings in fragments. Evidence
(wh-ellipsis, quantifier ellipsis) all lends substantial support to our claim that fragments are
analyzed as an instance of clausal ellipsis while null arguments are analyzed as an instance of null
pronoun pro; hence, the former is surface anaphora whereas the latter is deep anaphora in the sense
of Hankamer & Sag (1976).
Non-canonical word order and subject-object asymmetry in Korean case ellipsis
Authors: Lee Hanjung , Kim Nayoun
Published: December 2021

The dispreference for subject case ellipsis in OSV sentences has been analyzed as resulting from a
violation of a structural requirement on the position of bare subject NPs (Ahn and Cho 2006a, 2006b,
2007). In this study, we present evidence from an acceptability rating experiment demonstrating that
OSV sentences containing a case-ellipsed subject exhibit acceptability patterns different from
ungrammatical sentences violating a core syntactic principle on case assignment and that these
sentences are judged acceptable when the subject refers to expected, predictable information in
context. This evidence supports the conclusion that the dispreference for subject case ellipsis in
OSV sentences is due to violations of probabilistic constraints that favor case marking for rare
types of subjects and such violations can be remedied by non-syntactic information.
Ellipsis of case-markers and information structure in Japanese
Authors: Sato Yo , Tam Wai Lok
Published: December 2021

This paper presents an HPSG formalisation of how the ellipsis of case-marking affects the focus of
the clause in Japanese. We restrict our attention to the nominative and accusative markers ga and o,
and in view of the fact that the ellipsis effects on focushood vary between 1) ga and o and 2)
different argument structures of the head verb, develop an essentially lexicalist account that
combines both aspects, in which the implicit focus argument position is specified in the
predicate. We argue that if a constituent is an implicit focus it does not, while if one is not it
does, require a case-marker to be focused.
Comparison of the ellipsis-based theory of non-constituent coordination with its alternatives
Authors: Yatabe Shûichi
Published: December 2021

In this paper, I compare the ellipsis-based theory of non-constituent coordination proposed in
Yatabe (2001) with three of its alternatives, namely the theory that has been widely accepted within
the context of Categorial Grammar, Mouret's HPSG-based theory, and the theory proposed by Bachrach
and Katzir in the framework of the Minimalist Program. It is found (i) that the CG-based theory of
non-constituent coordination cannot deal with medial RNR, i.e. a subset of right-node raising
constructions in which either all or a part of the right-node-raised material is realized at a
location other than the right edge of the final conjunct, (ii) that Mouret's theory encounters
similar difficulties when applied to RNR, and (iii) that Bachrach and Katzir's theory cannot be
applied to left-node raising in English, has difficulty capturing the semantic inertness of medial
RNR, and overgenerates in several ways. The ellipsis-based theory, on the other hand, appears to be
consistent with all the observations.
Verbal suffix-repetition construction in Korean: A constraint- and construction-based approach
Authors: Cho Sae-Youn , Ku Na-Hyun
Published: December 2021

There are various
Verbal Suffix-Repetition (VSR) constructions in Korean, where suffixes such as -kena/tun(ci)/tun(ka) are attached to the repeated verbs. Calling the VSR Choice-denying Repeated Verbs
construction, Lee (2011) claims that the following verb of the VSR, which can be replaced with mal-,
should contain a negative but the preceding verb should be affirmative in the VSR construction which
disallows any NPI within it. Unlike Lee (2011), we claim that the verbs in the VSR can freely occur
either in the preceding position or in the following one regardless of their Neg value so long as
they share the same verbal suffix forms such as -tun(ka). Furthermore, NPIs may occur within the VSR
construction if they occur with a negative predicate within the same clause. To implement the
findings above into HPSG, we have proposed the two lexical entries for mal-, the VSR Construction
Rule, and the NPI Clause-mate Constraint. These tools enable us to account for the idiosyncratic
properties of the VSR constructions under this constraint- and construction-based approach.
An a priori typology of sentential negation from an HPSG perspective
Authors: Crowgey Joshua
Published: December 2021

In this paper I explore the logical range of sentential negation types predicted by the theory of
HPSG. I find that typological surveys confirm that attested simple negation strategies neatly line
up with the types of lexical material given by assuming Lexical Integrity and standard Phrase
Structure Grammar dependencies. I then extend the methodology to bipartite negation and derive a
space of predicted sentential negation types. I present details of the analysis for each type and
relevant examples where possible.
Reanalyzing German correlative es
Authors: Holler Anke
Published: December 2021

The present article discusses several aspects of the
so-called correlate-es construction in German. This complex clausal
construction can be identified by a correlative nominal element es
('it’) occuring in the matrix clause and a right-peripheral full clausal
argument linked to es. The article supports the hypothesis that
correlative es has a janus-faced nature between an expletive and a
referential meaning. This is the reason why existing approaches are not
sufficient to capture the properties of the discussed construction in its
entirety. The first part of the article sums up the common view on
correlative es including the empirical properties of the
construction as well as a brief survey of the relevant previous approaches
trying to account for correlative es. Based on new empirical data,
the second part of the article shows that none of these accounts is able
to capture all relevant facts of the correlate-es construction
because existing approaches usually ignore that the realization of
correlative es is verb-class dependent. Hence, a new
constraint-based analysis is developed that takes both empirical
observations into account, the verb-class dependence and the janus-faced
nature.
Information structure constraints and complex NP islands in Chinese
Authors: Jin Dawei
Published: December 2021

This paper presents an analysis of the complex NP island effects in
Chinese. I follow Ginzburg & Sag (2000)'s analysis of in situ
wh-interrogative
construction and propose that feature percolation from the non-head clause
daughter to the head daughter is required for a proper treatment of in
situ wh-relative. A semantic analysis of the idiosyncrasy of
weishenme 'why' reveals that a definite reading is forced for a
wh-relative when weishenme stays in situ. This requirement causes
feature percolation into relative head to fail. In this way I show that
island effects in Chinese can be independently ruled out in the grammar as
a case of contradiction.
Degree adverbs in Mauritian
Authors: Hassamal Shrita , Abeillé Anne.
Published: December 2021

In Mauritian, degree words exhibit an extreme syntactic polymorphism in combining with all major categories. When two forms coexist, *mari* ('very') and *boukou* ('a lot'), they select the predicate they modify on semantic more than syntactic criteria. We analyse degree words as adverbs with a double syntactic function: as complements in postverbal position (since they can by themselves trigger the short verbal form) and as adjuncts otherwise. We extend our analysis to inequality comparatives, *pli / plis* ('more') and *mwin / mwins* ('less') which are also polymorphic, with a double life as adjunct and complement.
Obligatory control and event structure in Kavalan
Authors: Lin Dong-yi
Published: December 2021

The embedded verb of so-called object-control verbs in Kavalan must be affixed with the causative marker pa-. It is argued that such control predicates in Kavalan like pawRat ‘force’ feature an internal Logophoric Center in its complement clause and this property of logophoricity is absent in other control predicates. Moreover, control predicates that do not take a causativized verb complement like paska ‘try’ and tud ‘teach’ are restructuring predicates and are thus devoid of a Fin head in their complement that can be linked to an internal Logophoric Center. In contrast, the TP and CP of the complement of pawRat ‘force’-type predicates are still projected and active. The causativization of the embedded verb in a control sentence cannot be explained by a purely syntactic or semantic account of obligatory control. Instead, a comprehensive and satisfactory explanation for Kavalan obligatory control must take into account how event structure and Logophoric Center are encoded in Syntax.
An analysis of simple and construct-state noun phrases in Modern Standard Arabic
Authors: AlQurashi Issa S.
Published: December 2021

This paper aims to propose an HPSG analysis for simple and construct-state noun phrases in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). To the best of my knowledge, there are no major HPSG analyses of MSA noun phrases (NPs). A parallel phenomenon in Hebrew has been discussed quite extensively in the same framework by Wintner (2000). Most of the discussion will be devoted for the construct-state noun phrase in which the order of the elements within it is NP AP PP. Three different analyses will be outlined within the HPSG framework: the extra complement analysis, the special complement analysis, and the head-adjunct-complement analysis. These analyses will be evaluated and it will be concluded that the last analysis seems to be the best and the most promising approach to Arabic NPs.
Reference patterns in subjunctive complement clauses of Modern Standard Arabic
Authors: Arad Greshler Tali , Herzig Sheinfux Livnat , Melnik Nurit , Wintner Shuly
Published: December 2021

In this paper we investigate the status of control
constructions in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). MSA has several
embedded clause constructions, some of which resemble control in
English (and other languages). However, these constructions exhibit
some notable differences. Chief among them is the fact that the
embedded verb carries agreement features that can indicate both
coreference and disjoint reference between a matrix argument and the
understood subject of the complement clause. We conducted a thorough
corpus-based investigation of such constructions, with a special focus
on a search for obligatory control in the language. We show that our
findings contradict accepted generalizations (and predictions)
proposed by state-of-the-art theories of control, as they indicate
that there are no "real" control predicates in MSA. We outline an HPSG
analysis that accounts for the MSA data.
Transforming the AnCora corpus to HPSG
Authors: Chiruzzo Luis , Wonsever Dina
Published: December 2021

We present the construction of a HPSG corpus for Spanish, based
on the transformation of the AnCora Spanish corpus into a HPSG
compatible format. We describe the transformation process and the
evaluation of the resulting corpus.
On the perfect tense-aspect in K'ichee'an Mayan: An LFG approach
Authors: Duncan Lachlan
Published: December 2021

Previous accounts of the
perfect tense-aspect in the K'ichee'an languages have concluded that
the category or part-of-speech of the perfect is a verb, or less
often, a participle. We believe otherwise. Empirical support is
presented for the hypothesis that the perfect is expressed using
either a deverbal participial adjective or a deverbal possessed
nominal in the form of a detransitivized non-verbal predicate. We show
that the perfect always consists of a one-place intransitive but that
it, nonetheless, retains the capacity to express two argument
roles. Further, we argue that the perfect is, in fact, a perfect. We
present the various semantic types of perfect, including the perfect
of result and the experiential perfect, and also show the temporal
restrictions that constrain the perfect. The analyses are implemented
using the syntactic architecture of LFG.
Integrating a rich external valency dictionary with an implemented XLE/LFG grammar
Authors: Patejuk Agnieszka
Published: December 2021

This paper shows how Walenty, a valency dictionary of Polish, was automatically
converted in order to be used with an XLE/LFG grammar of Polish,
discussing issues such as the grammatical function assignment under unlike
category coordination and imposing constraints for lexicalised
dependents.
How not to distinguish arguments from adjuncts in LFG
Authors: Przepiórkowski Adam
Published: December 2021

The paper briefly reexamines arguments for the argument–adjunct
dichotomy, commonly assumed in contemporary linguistics, showing that
they do not stand up to scrutiny. It demonstrates that – perhaps
surprisingly – LFG currently only assumes this dichotomy in its
f-structure feature geometry, and does not rely on it in any crucial
way. Building on this observation, the paper presents a way of getting
rid of this dichotomy altogether.
On the argument structure of raising-to-subject with passive predicates in Swedish
Authors: Ramhöj Rickard
Published: December 2021

This paper concerns the argument structure analysis of
raising-to-subject with passive predicates in Swedish and other
Germanic languages. Support is given for the analysis in which the
raising-to-subject construction constitutes a regular passive, the
passive counterpart of active raising-to-object. The fact that there
does not seem to be an active counterpart for certain predicates, such
as the predicate say, as well as the fact that raising-to-subject does
not seem to be possible with the periphrastic passive in Swedish is
attributed to certain semantic restrictions on the raising-to-object
construction and the periphrastic passive construction, respectively.
Two cases of prominent internal possessor constructions
Authors: Ritchie Sandy
Published: December 2021

This paper outlines a new analysis of
the syntactic structure and discourse function of a ‘prominent
internal possessor construction’ (PIPC) in Chimane (unclassified,
Bolivia) and compares it with an existing analysis of a different kind
of PIPC found in Maithili (Indo- Aryan, India/Nepal). PIPCs in Chimane
and Maithili involve an apparently non-local agreement relation
between verbs and possessors which are internal to possessive NPs. In
Chimane, it is argued that internal possessors are able to control
object agreement via a clause-level ‘proxy’ of the internal possessor
– see also Ritchie (under review). The paper goes on to compare this
construction with PIPCs in Maithili, and shows that speakers use PIPCs
in discourse to indicate the information structure role of the
internal possessor. In the case of Chimane, it seems that internal
possessors which bear the secondary topic role are more likely to
control object agreement, while in Maithili, other semantic and
information structural features of internal possessors are at
play. The contributions of the various levels of sentence structure
are modelled using the LFG architecture developed in Dalrymple &
Nikolaeva (2005; 2011).
Peripheral ellipsis and verb mismatch
Authors: Shiraïshi Aoi , Abeillé Anne
Published: December 2021

Right-node raising is usually set apart from other elliptical
constructions for imposing a strict identity condition between the
omitted and the peripheral elements. Since Pullum & Zwicky (1986), it
is assumed that only syncretic forms may resolve a feature conflict
between the two conjuncts (I certainly will and you already have set
the record straight. ). We present an empirical study of RNR with
final verb in English and French that shows that verb mismatch does
occur in corpora with and without syncretic forms, i.e. that
syncretism does not appear to play a role. We present an acceptability
judgement task on French that confirms this hypothesis. We therefore
propose a new HPSG analysis of RNR that is based on sharing LID
features and not morphophonological forms.
Switched control and other ˋˋuncontrolled'' cases of obligatory control
Authors: Beermann Dorothee , Hellan Lars
Published: December 2021

The
paper presents an analysis of control switch in German and Norwegian,
as exemplified in the German pair Ich verspreche ihm zu kommen 'I
promise him to come' vs. Ich verspreche ihm kommen zu dürfen 'I
promise him to be allowed to come'. The phenomenon is induced by
deontic modals in the context of suasive verbs of communication. The
analysis is cast both in LFG and HPSG framework, in both cases
deploying a pronounced feature-based semantic component. Our core
assumption is that a normative agent is computed on top of control
relations.
Preliminary results from the Free Linguistic Environment project
Authors: Ćavar Damir , Moe Lwin , Hu Hai , Steimel Kenneth
Published: December 2021

The Free Linguistic Environment (FLE) project focuses on the
development of an open and free library of natural language processing
functions and a grammar engineering platform for Lexical Functional
Grammar (LFG) and related grammar frameworks. In its present state the
code-base of FLE contains basic essential elements for LFG-parsing. It
uses finite-state-based morphological analyzers and syntactic
unification parsers to generate parse-trees and related functional
representations for input sentences based on a grammar. It can
process a variety of grammar formalisms, which can be used
independently or serve as backbones for the LFG parser. Among the
supported formalisms are Context-free Grammars (CFG), Probabilistic
Contextfree Grammars (PCFG), and all formal grammar components of the
XLEgrammar formalism. The current implementation of the LFG-parser
includes the possibility to use a PCFG backbone to model probabilistic
c-structures. It also includes f-structure representations that allow
for the specification or calculation of probabilities for complete
f-structure representations, as well as for sub-paths in f-structure
trees. Given these design features, FLE enables various forms of
probabilistic modeling of c-structures and f-structures for input or
output sentences that go beyond the capabilities of other technologies
based on the LFG framework.
An incremental approach to gapping and conjunction reduction
Authors: Haugereid Petter
Published: December 2021

In this paper I present an incremental approach to gapping and conjunction reduction where it is assumed that the first sentence in these constructions is fully parsed before the second sentence with the elided verb is parsed. I will show that the two phenomena can be given a uniform analysis by letting the construction type of the first conjunct be carried over to the second conjunct. This construction type imposes constraints on the arguments that the second conjunct can have. The difference between gapping and conjunction reduction is captured by the already existing constructions for sentence and VP coordination. The analysis is implemented in an HPSG grammar of Norwegian.
Against split morphology
Authors: Hepburn-Gray Robert
Published: December 2021

In this paper I present data from several Niger Congo languages, illustrating how the paradigms which make up the noun class systems of these languages are problematic to analyze within traditional morphosyntactic frameworks. I outline possible solutions to this problem, and argue for the introduction of an exemplar based Word and Paradigm (Blevins 2006) approach to morphology within SBCG. I then outline the consequences of this approach for the structure of the SBCG lexicon.
Agreement and interpretation of binominals in French
Authors: An Aixiu , Abeillé Anne
Published: December 2021

This paper investigates the structure and agreement of coordinated binominals in the form Det N1 et N2 in French. We provide corpus data and experimental data to show that different strategies exist, depending on their readings: singular Det for joint reading (mon collègue et ami, 'my.MSG colleague.MSG and friend.MSG'), plural Det agreement (mes frère et soeur 'my.PL brother.MSG and sister.FSG') or closest conjunct agreement (mon nom et prénom, 'my.MSG surname.MSG and first name.MSG') for split reading. These results challenge previous syntactic analyses of binominals (Le Bruyn and de Swart, 2014), stating that Det combines with N1, forming a DP and the later coordinates with N2. We then propose an HPSG analysis to account for French binominals.
ˋˋVP'' adverbs without a VP: The syntax of adverbs in Tongan
Authors: Ball Douglas
Published: December 2021

The Polynesian language Tongan appears to lack surface-oriented motivation for a VP constituent. Even so, adverbial elements appear in both a rightwards location and a leftwards location, superficially similar to the S-adverbs and VP-adverbs in well-studied western European languages. This paper explores how the Tongan ''VP-adverbs'' (as well as others) can be analyzed in HPSG without a VP for those adverbs to attach to. Several kinds of analyses, representing different strands of research on the syntax of adjuncts in HPSG, are explored: a Adjuncts-as-Valents analysis, a VAL-sensitive Adjuncts-as-Selectors analysis, and a WEIGHT-sensitive Adjuncts-as-Selectors analysis. All suggest that an analysis of the adverbs without a VP is possible; a WEIGHT-sensitive Adjuncts-as-Selectors seems to have the fewest issues.
Explanations and ˋˋengineering solutions''? Aspects of the relation between Minimalism and HPSG
Authors: Borsley Robert D.
Published: December 2021

It is not simple to compare Minimalism and HPSG, but it is possible to identify a variety of differences, some not so important but others of considerable importance. Two of the latter are: (1) the fact that Minimalism is a very lexically-based approach whereas HPSG is more syntactically-based, and (2) the fact that Minimalism uses Internal Merge in the analysis of unbounded dependencies whereas HPSG employs the SLASH feature. In both cases the HPSG approach seems to offer a better account of the facts. Thus, in two important respects it seems preferable to Minimalism.
Parallel affix blocks in Choctaw
Authors: Broadwell George Aaron
Published: December 2021

Choctaw, a Muskogean language, shows a complex set of restrictions on verbal prefixes which requires reference both to exponence and position class. An approach like that of Information-Based Morphology Crysmann and Bonami (2016) allows us to model the facts correctly.​
The fine structure of clausal right-node raising constructions in Japanese
Authors: Yatabe Shûichi , Tanigawa Kei
Published: December 2021

We examine the fine structure of clausal right-node raising constructions in Japanese, and argue that there are sentences in which a tensed verb is right-node-raised out of coordinated tensed clauses as well as sentences in which a verb stem is right-node-raised out of coordinated tenseless phrases. In the latter case, the tense morpheme has to be assumed to take a tenseless complement clause, and we note that the existence of such a structure contradicts the so-called lexicalist hypothesis, according to which a verb stem and the tense morpheme immediately following it always form a morphosyntactic constituent.
Nominalized clauses in the Grammar Matrix
Authors: Howell Kristen , Zamaraeva Olga , Bender Emily M.
Published: December 2021

We present an analysis of clausal nominalization developed in the context of the LinGO Grammar Matrix (Bender et al., 2002, 2010) to support the addition of subordinate clauses to the grammar customization framework. In particular, we examine the typological variation of nominalized clausal complements and nominalized clausal modifiers. To account for the range of variation in nominalized clauses across the world's languages and to support linguists in exploring alternative analyses, we propose a flexible library of analyses, allowing nominalization of the clause to occur at the V, VP or S level.
Plural in Lexical Resource Semantics
Authors: Lahm David
Published: December 2021

The paper shows how the plural semantic
ideas of (Sternefeld, 1998) can be captured in Lexical Resource
Semantics, a system of underspecied semantics. It is argued that
Sternefeld's original approach, which allows for the unrestricted
insertion of pluralisation into Logical Form, suffers from a problem
originally pointed out by Lasersohn (1989) with respect to the analysis
offered by Gillon (1987). The problem is shown to stem from repeated
pluralisation of the same verbal argument and to be amenable to a
simple solution in the proposed lexical analysis, which allows for
restricting the pluralisations that can be inserted. The paper further
develops an account of maximalisation of pluralities as needed to
obtain the correct readings for sentences with quantiers that are not
upward monotone. Such an account is absent in the orginal system in
(Sternefeld, 1998). The present account makes crucial use of the
possibility to have distinct constituents contribute identical semantic
material offered by LRS and employs it in an analysis of maximalisation
in terms of polyadic quantication.