German in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar

These essays apply the syntactic theory of Carl Pollard and Ivan Sag—Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG)—to a formal study and analysis of German grammar. A wide variety of fundamental and well-known phenomena in German grammar are addressed, including the German passive and impersonal passive, various Mittelfeld and Vorfeld word-order phenomena (including auxiliary stacking and the distribution of adjuncts), and the structure of phrasal constituents. linguistic issues include the treatment of idioms, word-order variation and phrase structure constituency, subcategorization, complementation, argument structure, case assignment, lexical rules, and syntactic ambiguity.

The theoretical background for these essays can be found in Information-Based Syntax and Semantics and Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, both by Pollard and Sag and available from the University of Chicago Press.

John Nerbonne is professor of computational linguistics and chair of humanities computing at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. Klaus Netter is a computational linguist at the German AI Center in Saarbrucken. Carl Pollard is associate professor in the Department of Linguistics at Ohio State University.

Acknowledgements

Introduction
References

1 Linearizing AUXs in German Verbal Complexes
Erhard Hinrichs and Tsuneko Nakazawa

1.1 Introduction
1.2 Arguing for Constituents
1.3 Auxiliary Flip without Movement
1.4 Positions for FLipped Auxiliaries
1.5 Accounting for Additional Data
1.6 Conclusion

2 Adjunts in the Mittlefeld
Robert Kasper

2.1 Introduction
2.2 What are the Alternatives?

2.2.1 Adjuncts as Sisters to Complements
2.2.2 Binary-branching Structures
2.2.3 Discontinuous Constituents with Separate Word Order Domains
2.2.4 Comparison

2.3 Multiple Adverbial Modifiers

2.3.1 Scope of Modification: Unchanged by Permutation
2.3.2 Scope of Modification: affected by permutation
2.3.3 Scope of Modification: ambiguous

2.4 Extending an HPSG Analysis

2.4.1 Basic Assumptions

2.4.1.1 Restrictive Adverbials
2.4.1.2 Operator Adverbials

2.4.2 Multiple Adjuncts as Sisters of Complements
2.4.3 Frame Adverbials
2.4.4 Limitations

2.5 Conclusions
References

3 Obligatory Coherence: The Structure of German Modal Verb Constructions
Tibor Kiss

4 Partial Verb Phrases and Spurious Ambiguities
John Nerbonne

4.1 Introduction

4.1.1 Motivation
4.1.2 Partial Verb Phrases
4.1.3 Problems with PVPs in the Mittlefeld
4.1.4 Arguments for Eliminating Traces
4.1.5 Problems with Contoured VPs
4.1.6 Non-arguments for Contoured VPs

4.1.4.1 Transfer Adjuncts
4.1.4.2 Transfer of a Non-Subject Argument
4.1.4.3 Sensitivity to Thematic Hierarchy

4.2 Analyisis

4.2.1 Background and Sort Definitions
4.2.2 Restricting PVPs to Vorfeld
4.2.3 Set-Valued Subcategorization Specs
4.2.4 Auxiliary Verbs
4.2.5 A Simple Example
4.2.6 Example Involving double infinitives
4.2.7 “Splitting” Double Infinitives
4.2.8 Accommodating a Verbal Complex
4.2.9 Extraposition in the Vorfeld

4.3 Conclusions

4.3.1 Remaining Problems
4.3.2 Highlights
4.3.3 Ramifications

5 Domain and Word Order Variation in German
Mike Reape

5.1 Introduction
5.2 Formalizaion in HPSG
5.3 An Example from German
5.4 Domain Union and VP Extraposition
5.5 Some assumptions about German verbs
5.6 Extraposition
5.7 Subjectless Constructions
5.8 Pronominalization
5.9 Scrambling
5.10 Scope of Adjuncts and Negation
5.11 Intraposition of VPs in the Mittelfeld

5.11.1 The Empirical Facts
5.11.2 A Domain Union Analysis

5.12 Conclusion
Reference

6 Argument Structure and Case Assignment in German
Wolfgang Heinz and Johannes Matiasek

6.1 Introduction
6.2 Case in German
6.3 Theoretical Background

6.3.1 HPSG
6.3.2 Approaches to Case Assignment
6.3.3 Argument Structure

6.3.3.1 Semantic Argument Structure
6.3.3.2 Syntactic Argument Structure
6.3.3.3 Linking Suntactic and Semantic Argument Structure

6.4 A Theory of Case Assignments

6.4.1 Case Values
6.4.2 Locality
6.4.3 The Case Principle
6.4.4 Application of the Case Principle
6.4.5 Prepositional Arguments

6.5 The Designated Argument

6.5.1 Designated Argument Reduction

6.6 Auxiliaries

6.6.1 Temporal Auxiliaries
6.6.2 Auxiliary Selection

6.7 Passives

6.7.1 Agentive Passive
6.7.2 Stative Passive
6.7.3 Recipient Passive

6.8 Raising and Control

6.8.1 Raising
6.8.2 Control
6.8.3 Optional Raising
6.8.4 Modification

6.9 Conclusion
References

7 Passives without Lexical Rules
Andreas Kathol

7.1 Introduction
7.2 Clausal Passives

7.2.1 Passive as a Lexical Rule
7.2.2 Passive as “Object-to-Subject Raising”
7.2.3 Impersonal Passives
7.2.4 Double Application of Passive

7.3 Adjectival Passives

7.3.1 Attributive and Predicative Adjectives
7.3.2 Adjectival Passives
7.3.3 Clausal Passives revisited

7.4 Conclusion
References

8 Toward a Unified Account of Passive in German
Carl Pollard

8.1 Introduction
8.2 Background
8.3 The ERG Feature
8.4 The Analyses of Personal and Impersonal Passive
8.5 A Unified Analysis
8.6 A Unified Analysis
References

9 Towards a Theory of Functional Heads: German Nominal Phrases
Klaus Netter

9.1 Overview
9.2 Heads of Nominal Phrases

9.2.1 Head Features
9.2.2 Derterminerless Constructions
9.2.3 Declension
9.2.4 Summary

9.3 Categorial Distinctions

9.3.1 Major and Minor Categories

9.3.1.1 Major Categories
9.3.1.2 Functional Categories

9.3.2 Some Sample Categories

9.3.2.1 Substantive Nominal Categories: Nouns and Adjectives
9.3.2.2 Functional Nominal Categories: Determiners

9.3.3 Summary

9.4 Attributive Adjectives
9.5 Declension
9.6 Comparison with PS2

9.6.1 Treatnebt of Specifiers in PS2
9.6.2 Comparison

9.7 Summary
References

10 Complement Inheritance as Subcategorization Inheritance
Dale Gerdemann

10.1 Introduction
10.2 The Function Composition Approach to Compelement Inheritance
10.3 Advantages of Function Composition
10.4 Disadvantages of Function Composition

10.4.1 Lexical Governance
10.4.2 Inheritance of Word Order
10.4.3 Inheritance of Case
10.4.4 Multiple Complements

10.5 The Subcategorization Inheritance Approach
10.6 Comclusions and Further Problems
References

11 Idioms and Support Verb Constructions
Brigitte Krenn and Gregor Erbach

11.1 Introduction
11.2 Idioms
11.3 Support-Verb Constructions
11.4 Lexical Selection
11.5 Semantics of Idioms
11.6 Argument Structure, Syntax, and Semantics of Support Verb Constructions
11.7 Conclusion
References

12/1/93

ISBN (Paperback): 1881526291 (9781881526292)
ISBN (Cloth): 1881526305 (9781881526308)
ISBN (Electronic): 1575868997 (9781575868998)

Subject: Linguistics; Germanic Languages--Grammar; Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG)

German in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar

Contents