| Lexical And Constructional Aspects of Linguistic Explanation. (2008) | |||||||||||||||
Abstract | |||||||||||||||
| arguments of a head are stored on a single ordered list, the subcat list. However, Borsley (1989) argues that there are various deficiencies in this approach, and suggests that the unified list should be split into separate lists for subjects, complements, and specifiers. This proposal has been widely adopted in what is colloquially known as HPSG3 (Pollard and Sag (1994:Ch. 9) and other recent work in HPSG). Such a move provides in HPSG an analog of the external/internal argument distinction generally adopted in GB, solves certain technical problems such as allowing prepositions to take complements rather than things identical in subcat list position to subjects, and allows recognition of the special features of subjects which have been noted in the LFG literature, where keyword grammatical relations are used. In HPSG3, it is these valence features subj, comps and spr whose values are ‘cancelled off ’ (in a Categorial Grammar-like manner) as a head projects a phrase. A lexical head combines with its complements and subject or specifier (if any) according to the lexically inherited specification, as in (1). 1 1 This paper is based on part of a talk given at the Tübingen HPSG workshop in June 1995, and distributed as Manning and Sag (1995). However, it excludes much material presented there, which will now appear in other places (Manning et al. in press, Manning and Sag submitted, Sag and Manning forthcoming). The paper also has an updated analysis – one consistent with that of Manning et al. (in press) – which we believe avoids the flaws attributed to the analysis of Manning and Sag (1995) by Webelhuth (forthcoming). However, because of space limitations, causatives are no longer discussed here and the reader interested in this topic should | |||||||||||||||
Publication details | |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||