Constituent structure / Andrew Carnie.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Carnie, Andrew, 1969-

Series:

Oxford linguistics

Oxford surveys in syntax and morphology ; 5.

Oxford surveys in syntax and morphology ; 5

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Grammar, Comparative and general.

Physical Description:

xviii, 292 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2008.

Summary:

This book explores the empirical and theoretical aspects of constituent structure in natural language syntax. It surveys a wide variety of functionalist and formalist theoretical approaches, from dependency grammars and Relational Grammar to Lexical Functional Grammar, Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar, and Minimalism. It describes the traditional tests for constituency and the formal means for representing them in phrase structure grammars, extended phrase structure grammars, X-bar theory, and set-theoretic Bare Phrase Structure. In doing so it provides a clear, thorough, and rigorous axiomatic description of the structural properties of constituent trees.

Andrew Carnie considers the central controversies on constituent structure: Is it, for example, a primitive notion or should it be derived from relational or semantic form? Do sentences have a single constituency or multiple constituencies? Does constituency operate on single or multiple dimensions? And what exactly is the categorial content of constituent structure representations? He identifies points of commonality as well as important theoretical differences among the various approaches to constituency, and critically examines the strengths and limitations of competing frameworks.

This is an ideal introduction for graduate students and advanced undergraduates. It is also a valuable reference for theoretical linguists of all persuasions in departments of linguistics, cognitive science, computational science, and related fields.

Contents:

1.2 Organizational notes 4

1.3 Apples, oranges, and pears 5

1.4 Who I assume you are 7

2 Constituent Structure 8

2.1 Constituent structure as simple concatenation 8

2.2 Regular grammars 12

2.3 Constituent structure and constituency tests 17

2.4 Compositionality, modification, and ambiguity 21

2.5 Some concluding thoughts 24

3 Basic Properties of Trees: Dominance and Precedence 25

3.2 Tree structures 26

3.3 Dominance 29

3.3.1 Simple dominance 29

3.3.2 Axiomization of dominance 30

3.3.3 Immediate dominance 35

3.3.4 Exhaustive dominance and "constituent" 36

3.4 Precedence 37

3.4.1 Intuitive characterizations of precedence 37

3.4.2 Immediate precedence 41

3.4.3 Axioms of precedence 41

4 Second Order Relations: C-command and Government 46

4.2 Command, kommand, c-command, and m-command 46

4.2.1 Command and kommand (cyclic command) 47

4.2.2 C-command (constituent command) 49

4.2.3 Deriving and explaining c-command 55

4.2.4 M-command 58

4.2.5 Barker and Pullum (1990): A unified approach to command relations 60

4.3 Government 63

Part 2 Phrase Structure Grammars and X-bar Theory

5 Capturing Constituent Structure: Phrase Structure Grammars 69

5.1 Before the Chomskyan revolution: Conflating semantic and structural relations 69

5.2 Phrase structure grammars 71

5.3 Phrase markers and reduced phrase markers 78

5.4 Regular grammars; context-free and context sensitive grammars 80

5.4.1 Regular grammars 81

5.4.2 Context-free and context-sensitive phrase structure grammars 83

5.5 The recursive nature of phrase structure grammars 84

5.6 The ontology of PSRs and trees 86

5.7 The information contained in PSRs 90

6 Extended Phrase Structure Grammars 93

6.2 Some minor abbreviatory conventions in PSGs 94

6.3 Transformations 96

6.3.1 Structure-changing transformations 96

6.3.2 Generalized transformations 97

6.4 Features and feature structures 98

6.4.1 The use of features in Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar 100

6.5 Metarules 103

6.6 Linear Precedence vs. Immediate Dominance Rules 105

6.7 Meaning postulates (GPSG), f-structures and metavariables (LFG) 106

6.7.1 Meaning postulates in GPSG 106

6.7.2 Functional equations, f-structures, and metavariables in LFG 107

6.8 The lexicon 110

7 X-bar Theory 112

7.2 Simple PSGs vs. X-bar theoretic PSGs 112

7.2.1 Headedness 112

7.2.2 Structural refinement 114

7.2.3 Binarity 120

7.2.4 Distinctions among modifier types 121

7.2.5 Cross-linguistic variation 128

7.3 A short history of X-bar theory 129

7.3.1 The origins: Harris (1951) and Chomsky (1970) 129

7.3.2 Early controversies: Emonds (1976), Jackendoff (1977), Stuurman (1984) 130

7.3.3 A major conceptual shift: metagrammar vs. grammar: Stowell (1981) 131

Part 3 Controversies

8 Towards Set-Theoretic Constituency Representations 135

8.2 Projections and derived X-bar theory 136

8.3 Antisymmetry 144

8.3.1 The LCA and linear ordering 145

8.3.2 Deriving some X-bar theoretic properties from the LCA 149

8.3.3 Adjunction 150

8.4 Bare Phrase Structure 154

8.4.1 The basics of BPS 155

8.4.2 Adjunction in BPS 158

8.4.3 Bottom-to-top and top-to-bottom derivations 160

8.4.3.1 Bottom-to-top derivations 161

8.4.3.2 Top-to-bottom derivations 161

8.4.4 Derived X-bar theory 163

8.4.5 Label-free and projection-free structures 167

9 Dependency and Constituency 168

9.2 Systems based primarily on grammatical relations 171

9.2.1 A semi-arboreal system: Lexical-Functional Grammar 171

9.2.2 Relational Grammar 172

9.3 Dependency grammars 175

9.4 Categorial grammars 178

9.4.1 Classic Categorial Grammar and Combinatorial Categorial Grammar 179

9.4.2 Tree-Adjoining Grammar (TAG) 183

9.4.3 Features in HPSG 185

9.5 Functionalist Grammar and Role and Reference Grammar 186

9.6 Construction Grammar and Cognitive Grammar 187

10 Multidominated, Multidimensional, and Multiplanar Structures 189

10.2 Line crossing and multidomination: axiomatic restrictions on form 195

10.2.1 The non-tangling-exclusivity controversy 195

10.2.2 C-command and the non-tangling condition 200

10.3 Multidomination and multidimensional trees 204

10.4 Multiplanar structures 207

10.4.1 Parallel plane hypotheses: Classic Transformational Grammar, LFG, Simpler Syntax 208

10.4.2 The Parallel Plane hypotheses: L- and S-Syntax and pheno- and tectogrammatical structures 209

10.4.3 Wheel-and-spoke multiplanar approaches 212

11 Phrasal Categories and Cartography 219

11.2 The tripartite structure of the clause 221

11.3 The VP 222

11.3.1 Classic constituency tests 223

11.3.2 VSO languages as evidence against VPs 226

11.3.3 The VP-internal subject Hypothesis (VPISH) 234

11.3.4 Stacked VPs, Split VPs, vP 237

11.4 The clausal layer 242

11.5 The informational layer 250

11.5.1 S' and CP 251

11.5.2 Expanded CP 253

11.6 Negation and adverbials 256

11.6.1 Negation 256

11.6.2 Adverbs 258

11.7 NPs and DPs 259.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [261]-286) and index.

ISBN:

9780199262007

0199262004

9780199261994

0199261997

OCLC:

162501920