In Denys Duchier and Yannick Parmentier, editor(s), Proceedings of the Workshop on High-level Methodologies for Grammar Engineering (HMGE 2013), Düsseldorf. 93–104., Jul 2013
This paper describes the CoreGram project a multilingual grammar engineering project that develop... more This paper describes the CoreGram project a multilingual grammar engineering project that develops HPSG grammars for several typologically diverse languages that share a common core. The paper provides a brief overview of the grammars and gives some motivation for doing theoretical linguistics the way it is done in the CoreGram project.
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Papers by Stefan Müller
In diesem Aufsatz werde ich gewisse Daten diskutieren, die für eine rein oberflächenorientierte phrasale Analyse problematisch sind. Ich werde zeigen, dass die syntaktische Grundanalyse lexikalisch möglich ist. Für die Ausdifferenzierung der Satztypen ist es jedoch nötig, auf die konkrete syntaktische Konfiguration Bezug zu nehmen, in der eine Lexikoneinheit realisiert wird. Ich zeige, wie sich so ein hybrider Ansatz im Rahmen der Kopfgesteuerten Phrasenstrukturgrammatik (HPSG) umsetzen lässt.
project and therefore is not targeted to computational linguists exclusively. I argue for a constraint-based approach to language rather than a generative-enumerative one and discuss issues of formalization. Recent advantages in the language acquisition research are mentioned and conclusions
on how theories should be constructed are drawn. The paper discusses some of the highlights in the implemented grammars, gives a brief overview of central theoretical concepts and their implementation in TRALE and compares the CoreGram project with other multilingual grammar engineering projects.
This book introduces formal grammar theories that play a role in current linguistics or contributed tools that are relevant for current linguistic theorizing (Phrase Structure Grammar, Transformational Grammar/Government & Binding, Mimimalism, Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, Lexical Functional Grammar, Categorial Grammar, Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Construction Grammar, Tree Adjoining Grammar, Dependency Grammar). The key assumptions are explained and it is shown how each theory treats arguments and adjuncts, the active/passive alternation, local reorderings, verb placement, and fronting of constituents over long distances. The analyses are explained with German as the object language.
In a final part of the book the approaches are compared with respect to their predictions regarding language acquisition and psycholinguistic plausibility. The nativism hypothesis that claims that humans posses genetically determined innate language-specific knowledge is examined critically and alternative models of language acquisition are discussed. In addition this more general part addresses issues that are discussed controversially in current theory building such as the question whether flat or binary branching structures are more appropriate, the question whether constructions should be treated on the phrasal or the lexical level, and the question whether abstract, non-visible entities should play a role in syntactic analyses. It is shown that the analyses that are suggested in the various frameworks are often translatable into each other. The book closes with a section that shows how properties that are common to all languages or to certain language classes can be captured.
The conclusion of the paper is - as it was in the target article - that phenomena that interact with valence should be treated lexically and not phrasally.
In a second part of the paper I argue for the use of (language internally motivated) empty elements since they allow for a better representation of the observable facts.
We will show that certain relations between constructions cannot be captured with inheritance or unification but require transformations or lexical rules, and hence in non-transformational syntax the lexical approach is the only option.
Three sections are devoted to arguments from language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and statistics. We show that contrary to frequent claims the respective experiments do not provide evidence for phrasal constructions.
We conclude that argument structure properties should be represented together with lexical items. "
following sentences, which are taken from a press release concerning the International Day of Species Diversity.
Das Meer steckt voller wunderbarer, verrückter und besonderer Lebewesen.
Und viele davon sind noch unbekannt.
Mehr als tausend neue Arten wurden in den vergangenen Jahren gefunden.
Immer wieder kommen neue hinzu.
An diese Fülle von Leben wird jedes Jahr am zweiundzwanzigsten Mai erinnert.
Es ist - Achtung langer Name - der Internationale Tag zur Erhaltung biologischer Vielfalt.
Dabei geht es darum, dass das spannende Leben im Meer geschützt werden soll.
Denn viele Tiere und Pflanzen dort sind bedroht
Menschen verschmutzen das Wasser und fangen zu viele Tiere heraus.
Auch darauf soll der Tag hinweisen.
I analyze these sentences in the framework of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. The analysis is implemented in a computerprocessable grammar fragment. Please click the sentences on my web site http://hpsg.fu-berlin.de/~stefan/Pub/artenvielfalt.html to inspect the trees and semantic representations.
I do not make any claims about the constraints that hold for various languages to be part of an innately specified Universal Grammar (UG).
I show that purely surface-oriented theories have problems in accounting for the relatedness of syntactic and morphological structures and for the iteration of valence changing processes and argue for a lexical analysis, as it can be found in current Minimalist theories, HPSG, and Categorial Grammar. I furthermore show that the Chomskian view on label computation is problematic for several reasons and should be given up in favour of explicit accounts like the one used in HPSG. I discuss problems for the analysis of complements and specifiers in Minimalist theories with special focus on
Stabler's Minimalist Grammars. I argue that once all problems are fixed the resulting combinatorial rules are rather similar to what HPSG does.
As various proponents of more surface-oriented theories like Construction Grammar, Simpler Syntax, and HPSG pointed out, two types of binary branching, headed rules are not sufficient to account for the entirety of language, which leads to the conclusion that both research directions are right to a
certain extend: there is need for (constraint-based versions of) Move and Merge and there is need for special phrasal constructions.
In diesem Aufsatz werde ich gewisse Daten diskutieren, die für eine rein oberflächenorientierte phrasale Analyse problematisch sind. Ich werde zeigen, dass die syntaktische Grundanalyse lexikalisch möglich ist. Für die Ausdifferenzierung der Satztypen ist es jedoch nötig, auf die konkrete syntaktische Konfiguration Bezug zu nehmen, in der eine Lexikoneinheit realisiert wird. Ich zeige, wie sich so ein hybrider Ansatz im Rahmen der Kopfgesteuerten Phrasenstrukturgrammatik (HPSG) umsetzen lässt.
project and therefore is not targeted to computational linguists exclusively. I argue for a constraint-based approach to language rather than a generative-enumerative one and discuss issues of formalization. Recent advantages in the language acquisition research are mentioned and conclusions
on how theories should be constructed are drawn. The paper discusses some of the highlights in the implemented grammars, gives a brief overview of central theoretical concepts and their implementation in TRALE and compares the CoreGram project with other multilingual grammar engineering projects.
This book introduces formal grammar theories that play a role in current linguistics or contributed tools that are relevant for current linguistic theorizing (Phrase Structure Grammar, Transformational Grammar/Government & Binding, Mimimalism, Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, Lexical Functional Grammar, Categorial Grammar, Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Construction Grammar, Tree Adjoining Grammar, Dependency Grammar). The key assumptions are explained and it is shown how each theory treats arguments and adjuncts, the active/passive alternation, local reorderings, verb placement, and fronting of constituents over long distances. The analyses are explained with German as the object language.
In a final part of the book the approaches are compared with respect to their predictions regarding language acquisition and psycholinguistic plausibility. The nativism hypothesis that claims that humans posses genetically determined innate language-specific knowledge is examined critically and alternative models of language acquisition are discussed. In addition this more general part addresses issues that are discussed controversially in current theory building such as the question whether flat or binary branching structures are more appropriate, the question whether constructions should be treated on the phrasal or the lexical level, and the question whether abstract, non-visible entities should play a role in syntactic analyses. It is shown that the analyses that are suggested in the various frameworks are often translatable into each other. The book closes with a section that shows how properties that are common to all languages or to certain language classes can be captured.
The conclusion of the paper is - as it was in the target article - that phenomena that interact with valence should be treated lexically and not phrasally.
In a second part of the paper I argue for the use of (language internally motivated) empty elements since they allow for a better representation of the observable facts.
We will show that certain relations between constructions cannot be captured with inheritance or unification but require transformations or lexical rules, and hence in non-transformational syntax the lexical approach is the only option.
Three sections are devoted to arguments from language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and statistics. We show that contrary to frequent claims the respective experiments do not provide evidence for phrasal constructions.
We conclude that argument structure properties should be represented together with lexical items. "
following sentences, which are taken from a press release concerning the International Day of Species Diversity.
Das Meer steckt voller wunderbarer, verrückter und besonderer Lebewesen.
Und viele davon sind noch unbekannt.
Mehr als tausend neue Arten wurden in den vergangenen Jahren gefunden.
Immer wieder kommen neue hinzu.
An diese Fülle von Leben wird jedes Jahr am zweiundzwanzigsten Mai erinnert.
Es ist - Achtung langer Name - der Internationale Tag zur Erhaltung biologischer Vielfalt.
Dabei geht es darum, dass das spannende Leben im Meer geschützt werden soll.
Denn viele Tiere und Pflanzen dort sind bedroht
Menschen verschmutzen das Wasser und fangen zu viele Tiere heraus.
Auch darauf soll der Tag hinweisen.
I analyze these sentences in the framework of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. The analysis is implemented in a computerprocessable grammar fragment. Please click the sentences on my web site http://hpsg.fu-berlin.de/~stefan/Pub/artenvielfalt.html to inspect the trees and semantic representations.
I do not make any claims about the constraints that hold for various languages to be part of an innately specified Universal Grammar (UG).
I show that purely surface-oriented theories have problems in accounting for the relatedness of syntactic and morphological structures and for the iteration of valence changing processes and argue for a lexical analysis, as it can be found in current Minimalist theories, HPSG, and Categorial Grammar. I furthermore show that the Chomskian view on label computation is problematic for several reasons and should be given up in favour of explicit accounts like the one used in HPSG. I discuss problems for the analysis of complements and specifiers in Minimalist theories with special focus on
Stabler's Minimalist Grammars. I argue that once all problems are fixed the resulting combinatorial rules are rather similar to what HPSG does.
As various proponents of more surface-oriented theories like Construction Grammar, Simpler Syntax, and HPSG pointed out, two types of binary branching, headed rules are not sufficient to account for the entirety of language, which leads to the conclusion that both research directions are right to a
certain extend: there is need for (constraint-based versions of) Move and Merge and there is need for special phrasal constructions.
unpublished work on German grammar by Tilman N. Höhle. It consists of
two parts. The first part is Topologische Felder, a book-length manuscript that was written in 1983 but was never finished nor published. It is a careful examination of the topological properties of German sentences, including a discussion of typological assumptions. The second part assembles all other published and unpublished papers by Höhle on German grammar.
All of these papers were highly influential in German linguistics, in
theoretical linguistics in general, and in a specific variant of
theoretical linguistics, Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Topics
covered are clause structure, constituent order, coordination, (verum)
focus, word structure, the relationship between relative pronouns and
verbs in V2, extraction, and the foundations of a theory of phonology
in constraint-based grammar.
The second part of the book compares these approaches with respect to their predictions regarding language acquisition and psycholinguistic plausibility. The nativism hypothesis, which assumes that humans posses genetically determined innate language-specific knowledge, is critically examined and alternative models of language acquisition are discussed. The second part then addresses controversial issues of current theory building such as the question of flat or binary branching structures being more appropriate, the question whether constructions should be treated on the phrasal or the lexical level, and the question whether abstract, non-visible entities should play a role in syntactic analyses. It is shown that the analyses suggested in the respective frameworks are often translatable into each other. The book closes with a chapter showing how properties common to all languages or to certain classes of languages can be captured.
"This book introduces formal grammar theories that play a role in current linguistics or contributed tools that are relevant for current linguistic theorizing (Phrase Structure Grammar, Transformational Grammar/Government & Binding, Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, Lexical Functional Grammar, Categorial Grammar, Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Construction Grammar,
Tree Adjoining Grammar). The key assumptions are explained and it is shown how the respective theory treats arguments and adjuncts, the active/passive alternation, local reorderings, verb placement, and fronting of constituents over long distances. The analyses are explained with German as the
object language.
In a final chapter the approaches are compared with respect to their predictions regarding language acquisition and psycholinguistic plausibility. The Nativism hypothesis that assumes that humans posses genetically determined innate language-specific knowledge is examined critically and
alternative models of language acquisition are discussed. In addition this chapter addresses issues that are discussed controversially in current theory building as for instance the question whether flat or binary branching structures are more appropriate, the question whether constructions should be treated on the phrasal or the lexical level, and the question whether abstract, non-visible entities should play a role in
syntactic analyses. It is shown that the analyses that are suggested in the respective frameworks are often translatable into each other. The book closes with a section that shows how properties that are common to all languages or to certain language classes can be captured."
In a final chapter the approaches are compared with respect to their predictions regarding language acquisition and psycholinguistic plausibility. The Nativism hypothesis that assumes that humans posses genetically determined innate language-specific knowledge is examined critically and alternative models of language acquisition are discussed. In addition this chapter addresses issues that are discussed controversially in current theory building as for instance the question whether flat or binary branching structures are more appropriate, the question whether constructions should be treated on the phrasal or the lexical level, and the question whether abstract, non-visible entities should play a role in syntactic analyses. It is shown that the analyses that are suggested in the respective frameworks are often translatable into each other. The book closes with a section that shows how properties that are common to all languages or to certain language classes can be captured.
Outline
Introduction
Phrase Structur Grammar
Transformational Grammar – Government & Binding
Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar
Feature Descriptions
Lexical Functional Grammar
Categorial Grammar
Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar
Construction Grammar
Tree Adjoining Grammar
Inateness, Universal Grammar and the Argumentation for Analyses
The sections that present the analyses do not discuss alternatives. I hope that this helps the reader who is new to grammar theory not to get lost in detailed and difficult discussions. Instead of discussing alternatives in the main text, this is done in a special section in each chapter. This section is intended for the advanced reader. The suggested analyses are compared to alternative HPSG proposals, but also to proposals in the frameworks of Construction Grammar (CxG), Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) and Variants of the Government & Binding Theory (GB). The discussion focuses both on formal properties of the respective theories and on empirical facts from German and other languages.
Outline
Introduction
The Formalism
Valence
Head Features, Head Feature Principle, Head Argumente Structures
Semantics
Adjunction and Specification
The Lexicon
A Topological Fields Modell of the German Clause
Position of Arguments and Adjuncts in the Mittelfeld and Verb Movement
Nonlocal Dependencies: Fronting
Relative Clauses
Locality of Selection (SYNSEM)
Agreement
Case
Verbal Cluster
Coherence, Incoherence, Raising, and Control
Passive
Particle Verbs
Morphology
How to Argue for a Theory or against other Theories
(1) Er ißt das Fleisch roh.
(2) Er fährt das Auto kaputt / zu Schrott.
Scrambling and fronting data are used to argue that all these constructions-except the depictive secondary predicates, which are treated as adjunct-should be treated as complex predicates. The potential for a verb to enter a resultative construction or to form a particle verb that follows a productive pattern is licensed by lexical rules. Base verb and resultative predicate and base verb and particle are combined in syntax by the same rule that licences verbal complexes in German.
In the part about particle verbs it is argued that particles should be treated as parts of the predicate complex. They are serialized in the right sentence bracket (3)–(4) and they can be fronted like adjectives or verbs (5).
(3) Karl kommt abends in Berlin an.
(4) Karl kommt abends in der Stadt an, in der ich wohne.
(5) Fest steht, daß Karl nicht der Mörder war.
So it seems reasonable to treat the preverb-verb-constructions in the same way as other predicate complex constructions. Frontings as (5) then can be described as instances of Partial Verb Phrase Fronting.
Arguments that have been put forward in order to show that particle verbs have to be treated in the morphology component are discussed and refuted. An analysis of inflection and derivation is provided that is compatible with the syntactic analysis of particle verbs. As a byproduct this analysis solves the brackating paradox with regard to particle verbs that was often discussed in the literature."
This book is written in German. It is a detailed documentation of the linguistic theory of the Babel-System."