introduction to lfg - university of essex · 2007-07-03 · introduction to lfg – 2 / 60...

Introduction to LFG – 1 / 60

Introduction to LFG

Mary DalrympleCentre for Linguistics and Philology

Oxford University

LSA Linguistic Institute 2007

L F G LFG

■ “Semantic roles, syntactic constituents, and grammaticalfunctions belong to parallel information structures of verydifferent formal character. They are related not byproof-theoretic derivation but by structuralcorrespondences, as a melody is related to the words of asong. The song is decomposable into parallel melodic andlinguistic structures, which jointly constrain the nature ofthe whole. In the same way, the sentences of humanlanguage are themselves decomposable into parallel systemsof constraints – structural, functional, semantic, andprosodic – which the whole must jointly satisfy.”Bresnan (1990)

If our theory does not include movement or other derivationalprocesses, how do we treat nonlocal relations between apredicate and its argument?

L F G Nonlocality

Nonlocal phenomena:

■ Raising: David seemed to yawn.

L F G Nonlocality

Nonlocal phenomena:

■ Control: David tried to catch the ball.

L F G Nonlocality

Nonlocal phenomena:

■ Wh-questions: Who do you think David took to the party?

L F G Nonlocality

Nonlocal phenomena:

How are these treated in a nontransformational, constraint-basedtheory?

L F G Raising

“Raising” verbs like seem were treated in early transformationalgrammar by raising the subject of a subordinate clause up intothe main clause (hence the term “raising”):

seemed

to yawn

seemed

to yawn

This captures the intuition that the raising verb does not assigna semantic role to the raised argument.

L F G Raising to subject

David seemed to yawn.

■ C-structure: No evidence that there is a trace or otherphrasal material in subject position in the subordinateclause.

■ F-structure: Functionally, the “raised” argument Davidbehaves as both the subject of seem and the subject of thesubordinate clause. This is functional control.

L F G Raising to subject: ‘seem’

seemed

pred ‘seem〈xcomp〉subj’

pred ‘David’]

pred ‘yawn〈subj〉’

Line from David f-structure toxcomp subj indicates functionalcontrol: the same f-structure is thesubj and the xcomp subj.

Evidence for subjecthood in matrix clause:

■ Position

■ Verb agreement: David seems/*seem to yawn; theyseem/*seems to yawn

Evidence for subjecthood in matrix clause:

■ Position

■ Verb agreement: David seems/*seem to yawn; theyseem/*seems to yawn

Evidence for subjecthood in subordinate clause:

■ Reflexivization: English reflexives are clause-bound.Davidi believed that [Janej voted for herselfj/*himselfi].

A reflexive is possible in the subordinate clause:David seemed to like himself.

L F G Raising to object

David believed Chris to know the answer.

■ C-structure: Again, no evidence that there is a trace orother phrasal material in subject position in the subordinateclause.

■ F-structure: Functionally, the “raised” argument Chrisbehaves as the object of believe and the subject of thesubordinate clause.

L F G Raising to object: ‘believe’

believed

know the answer

pred ‘believe〈subj,xcomp〉obj’

pred ‘David’]

pred ‘Chris’]

pred ‘know〈subj,obj〉’

pred ‘the’]

pred ‘answer’

The object of believe functionallycontrols the subject of know.

L F G Raising to object

■ Accusative case for “raised” argument:David believed him to know the answer.

■ Reflexivization: A reflexive in raised object position ispossible.David believed himself to be the best candidate.

■ Reflexivization: A reflexive in the subordinate clause canhave the raised object as its antecedent.Davidi believed Chrisj to like himself∗i,j .

L F G Nonthematic arguments

It is raining.

pred ‘rain〈〉subj’

subj [form it ]

Nonthematic arguments appear outside angled brackets insemantic form.

It seems to be raining.

There seems to be a problem.

David believed it to be raining.

David believed there to be a problem.

It seems to be raining.

pred ‘seem〈xcomp〉subj’

subj [form it ]

Since seems does not assign a semantic role to its subject, asemantically empty subject is allowed as the raised argument.

L F G Raising verbs and nonthematic arguments

David believed it to be raining.

pred ‘David’]

obj [form it ]

L F G Raising verbs and case: Icelandic

Icelandic “quirky case”: Andrews (1982)

Accusative subject:

Drenginaboys.acc

vantarlacks

mat.food

‘The boys lack food.’

Icelandic “quirky case”: Andrews (1982)

Accusative subject:

Drenginaboys.acc

vantarlacks

mat.food

Accusative “raised” object:

Hannhe

telurbelieves

migme.acc

(ı(in

barnaskapfoolishness

sınum)his)

vantato.lack

peninga.money

‘He believes me (in his foolishness) to lack money.’

Adverb placement shows that mig appears in object position inthe main clause.

L F G Raising verbs and nonthematic arguments

Same f-structure is the subject of lack and the object of believe→ the raised object must obey the case requirements appropriateto the subject of lack.

pred ‘he’]

pred ‘me’

case acc

pred ‘lack〈subj,obj〉’

pred ‘money’]

Dative subject:

Barninuchild.def.dat

batnaDirecovered.from

veikin.disease.def.nom

‘The child recovered from the disease.’

Dative subject:

Barninuchild.def.dat

batnaDirecovered.from

veikin.disease.def.nom

‘The child recovered from the disease.’

Dative “raised” object:

Hannhe

telurbelieves

barninuchild.def.dat

(ı(in

sınum)his)

hafato.have

batnaD

recovered.fromveikin.disease.def.nom

‘He believes the child (in his foolishness) to have recovered fromthe disease.’

Genitive subject:

Verkjannapains.def.gen

gætiris.noticeable

ekki.not

‘The pains are not noticeable.’

Genitive subject:

Verkjannapains.def.gen

gætiris.noticeable

ekki.not

‘The pains are not noticeable.’

Genitive “raised” object:Hannhe

telurbelieves

verkjannapains.def.gen

(ı(in

sınum)his)

ekkinot

gæta.noticeable

‘He believes the pains (in his foolishness) not to be noticeable.’

L F G Rules and lexical entries

V′ −→(

V↑= ↓

NP(↑ obj) = ↓

VP(↑ xcomp) = ↓

L F G Rules and lexical entries

V′ −→(

V↑= ↓

NP(↑ obj) = ↓

VP(↑ xcomp) = ↓

seemed V (↑ pred) = ‘seem〈xcomp〉subj’(↑ subj) = (↑ xcomp subj)

believed V (↑ pred) = ‘believe〈subj,xcomp〉obj’(↑ obj) = (↑ xcomp subj)

L F G Control

Control verbs like try were treated in early transformationalgrammar by the “equi-NP deletion” transformation, and are stillsometimes called “equi” verbs:

to leave

This captures the intuition that a controlled argument gets twosemantic roles: one from the control verb, and one from thesubordinate verb.

L F G Control verbs

David tried to leave.

pred ‘try〈subj,comp〉’

pred ‘David’]

pred ‘leave〈subj〉’

pred ‘pro’]

Obligatory anaphoric control (Dalrymple, 2001, chapter 12):closed complement comp, not open complement xcomp. Thereis a semantic relation between the controller and theunpronounced pronominal subject of xcomp, but they aredifferent syntactic objects.

L F G Control verbs

David tried to leave.

pred ‘David’]

pred ‘pro’]

Semantic role assigned by control verb to controller, whichappears inside angled brackets.

L F G Control verbs

Alternative view (Bresnan, 1982; Falk, 2001; Asudeh, 2005):‘try’ involves functional control, not anaphoric control.

pred ‘try〈subj,xcomp〉’

pred ‘David’]

Ongoing theoretical debate within LFG: do control verbs involvefunctional control or anaphoric control? Do they all behave alike,or are there different subclasses?

L F G Control verbs

Alternative view (Bresnan, 1982; Falk, 2001; Asudeh, 2005):‘try’ involves functional control, not anaphoric control.

pred ‘try〈subj,xcomp〉’

pred ‘David’]

Ongoing theoretical debate within LFG: do control verbs involvefunctional control or anaphoric control? Do they all behave alike,or are there different subclasses?

Answers to these questions not dictated by formal framework ofLFG, but by the linguistic facts.

L F G Control in Icelandic

Accusative subject:

Drenginaboys.acc

vantarlacks

mat.food

Accusative subject:

Drenginaboys.acc

vantarlacks

mat.food

Subject control: No case preservation (Andrews, 1982)

EgI.nom

vonasthope

tovantalack

ekkinot

efnimaterial

ritgerDina.thesis

‘I hope to not lack material for the thesis.’

Accusative subject:

Drenginaboys.acc

vantarlacks

mat.food

Subject control: No case preservation (Andrews, 1982)

EgI.nom

vonasthope

tovantalack

ekkinot

efnimaterial

ritgerDina.thesis

‘I hope to not lack material for the thesis.’

Conclusion: Anaphoric control, not functional control.

L F G Object control verbs

David convinced Chris to leave.

pred ‘convince〈subj,obj,comp〉’

pred ‘David’]

pred ‘Chris’]

pred ‘pro’]

Object of convince anaphorically controls subject of leave.

L F G Raising and control: C-structure

Raising and control verbs pattern alike at c-structure:

The students seem clearly to be intelligent. (xcomp)

The students tried hard to be on time. (comp)

The students believed David to have left. (xcomp)

The students convinced David to leave. (comp)

The students seem clearly to be intelligent. (xcomp)

The students tried hard to be on time. (comp)

The students believed David to have left. (xcomp)

The students convinced David to leave. (comp)

V′ −→(

V↑= ↓

NP(↑ obj) = ↓

VP(↑ {xcomp| comp}) = ↓

L F G Lexical entries

Control verbs supply an unpronounced pronominal subject fortheir complements:

tried V (↑ pred) = ‘try〈subj,comp〉’(↑ comp subj pred) = ‘pro’

convinced V (↑ pred) = ‘convince〈subj,obj,comp〉’(↑ comp subj pred) = ‘pro’

L F G C-structure

NP(↑ subj)=↓

N↑=↓

David(↑ pred)=‘David’

↑=↓

VP↑=↓

↑=↓

V↑=↓

tried(↑ pred)=‘try〈subj,comp〉’(↑ comp subj pred) = ‘pro’

VP(↑ comp)=↓

↑=↓

V↑=↓

VP↑=↓

V↑=↓

leave(↑ pred)=‘leave〈subj〉’

L F G F-structure

pred ‘David’]

pred ‘pro’]

L F G Object control

convinced

pred ‘convince〈subj,obj,comp〉’

pred ‘David’]

pred ‘Chris’]

pred ‘pro’]

L F G Control

Characteristics of control and raising verbs (Borjars and Vincent,2004):

■ the relation is obligatory: the control equation is introducedvia the lexical entry of the control or raising verb

■ the relation involves command (either c-command orf-command, the analogue at f-structure): the controllingverb is one clause up, and thus the controller necessarilycommands the controllee

L F G Nonlocality

Nonlocal phenomena:

L F G Nonlocal Dependencies

In English wh-questions, the wh-phrase appears at the beginningof the sentence and also plays a syntactic role within the clause:

eating

pred ‘eat〈subj,obj〉’

focus[

pred ‘what’]

pred ‘David’]

L F G Functional Uncertainty

bought

focus[

pred ‘what’]

pred ‘think〈subj,comp〉’

pred ‘you’]

pred ‘buy〈subj,obj〉’

pred ‘Chris’]

L F G Questions

■ What is the function of the displaced constituent?

L F G Questions

■ What is its within-clause role?

L F G Questions

■ What is its within-clause role?

■ How and where is this relation defined?

■ Specifiers of functional categories bear grammaticizeddiscourse functions topic, focus.

eating

focus[

pred ‘what’]

pred ‘David’]

■ What is the within-clause role of the displaced constituent?

■ Extended Coherence Condition:

■ Extended Coherence Condition: focus and topic must belinked to the semantic predicate argument structure of thesentence in which they occur, either by functionally or byanaphorically binding an argument.

focus[

pred ‘what’]

pred ‘David’]

■ Defined at f-structure, in terms of the f-structure path toclause-internal function.

L F G The Path

eating

focus[

pred ‘what’]

pred ‘David’]

Where are the constraints imposed? Ongoing theoretical debate:

■ Constraints are associated with position of displacedconstituent (Kaplan and Zaenen, 1989), or

■ Constraints are associated with within-clause position (a“trace”) (Bresnan, 2001).

Traces are compatible with a nontransformational,constraint-based theory, but not required by theory-internalconsiderations; linguistic evidence determines which position iscorrect. More on this later in the lecture.

L F G Long Distance Dependencies

No traces:

eating

focus[

pred ‘what’]

pred ‘David’]

L F G Long Distance Dependencies

With traces:

eating

focus[

pred ‘what’]

pred ‘David’]

■ How is the path defined?

■ By functional uncertainty: regular expression overgrammatical functions.

■ Example: comp* obj stands for paths with any number ofcomp functions followed by an obj function.

L F G English WH-questions

CP −→ XP(↑ focus) = ↓

(↑ focus) = (↑ comp∗ gf)

↑= ↓

Kleene star operator: *

COMP∗ represents:

the empty pathCOMPCOMP COMP. . .

L F G Nonlocal Dependencies

eating

focus[

pred ‘what’]

pred ‘David’]

bought

focus[

pred ‘what’]

pred ‘you’]

pred ‘Chris’]

bought

focus[

pred ‘what’]

pred ‘you’]

pred ‘hope〈subj,comp〉’

pred ‘Chris’]

pred ‘David’]

L F G XCOMP

believe

pred ‘believe〈subj,comp〉obj’

focus[

pred ‘what’]

pred ‘David’]

pred ‘Chris’]

pred ‘like〈subj,obj〉’

L F G Augmenting the Path

CP −→ XP(↑ focus) = ↓

(↑ focus) = (↑ {xcomp|comp}∗ gf)

↑= ↓

{xcomp|comp}∗ represents:

the empty pathCOMPXCOMPCOMP XCOMPCOMP COMPXCOMP COMP XCOMP. . .

L F G Constraints on unbounded dependencies

Sentential subject condition:*What did [that Chris bought ] surprise you?

SUBJ is not allowed as a component of Path:

focus[

pred ‘what’]

pred ‘surprise〈subj,obj〉’

pred ‘Chris’]

pred ‘you’]

L F G Functional uncertainty

(Outside-in/“regular”) functional uncertainty:

Path through f leads to g

comp comp comp. . . obj g]

(f comp* obj)=g

L F G No traces

Constraints associated with fronted position.

CP −→

XP(↑ focus) = ↓

(↑ focus) = (↑ {xcomp|comp}∗ gf)

↑ = ↓

L F G Functional uncertainty

Inside-out functional uncertainty:Path through f leads to g

comp comp comp. . . obj g]

f = (comp* obj g)

L F G With traces

Constraints associated with trace.

CP −→(

XP(↑ focus) = ↓

↑ = ↓

L F G With traces

Constraints associated with trace.

CP −→(

XP(↑ focus) = ↓

↑ = ↓

NP −→ t

↑= (({xcomp|comp}∗ gf ↑ ) focus)

L F G Weak crossover: Evidence for traces?

Most arguments for the existence of traces have been discredited.Evidence from crossover has been more difficult to refute.

Crossover in transformational terms: a transformation cannotapply if it would result in a NP “crossing over” a coreferentialNP.

Crossover in nontransformational terms, assuming traces: Thetrace of a displaced NP cannot appear to the right of acoreferential NP.

L F G Weak and strong crossover

Strong crossover violation: coreferential pronoun precedes andc-commands extraction site

*Whoi did hei greet t?(cannot mean: Who greeted himself?)

Weak crossover violation: coreferential pronoun precedes butdoes not c-command extraction site

*Whoi did hisi mother greet t?(cannot mean: Whosei mother greeted himi?)

Crossover appears to provide evidence for traces: see Bresnan(1995) and Dalrymple et al. (2006) for discussion and debate.

L F G Wrapup

■ We have examined the formal foundations and basictheoretical assumptions of LFG,

L F G Wrapup

■ and discussed some areas of current theoretical debate.

L F G Wrapup

■ For more on LFG, visit the LFG website:http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/LFG/

L F G Wrapup

■ attend the Bresnan lectures (LSA.347) and theAsudeh/Toivonen lectures (LSA.309) in the main session atthe Institute,

L F G Wrapup

■ attend the Bresnan lectures (LSA.347) and theAsudeh/Toivonen lectures (LSA.309) in the main session atthe Institute,

■ and attend LFG07, here at Stanford, 28-30 July:http://www-csli.stanford.edu/ thking/lfg07.html

Andrews, Avery, III. 1982. The representation of case in modernIcelandic. In Joan Bresnan (editor), The Mental Representationof Grammatical Relations, pp. 427–503. Cambridge, MA: TheMIT Press

Asudeh, Ash. 2005. Control and semantic resource sensitivity.Journal of Linguistics 41(3), pp. 465–511

Borjars, Kersti and Nigel Vincent. 2004. Introduction to LFG.Slides from the Winter School in LFG and ComputationalLinguistics, University of Canterbury

Bresnan, Joan. 1982. Control and complementation. In JoanBresnan (editor), The Mental Representation of GrammaticalRelations, pp. 282–390. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press

Bresnan, Joan. 1990. Parallel constraint grammar project. CSLICalendar, 4 October 1990, volume 6:3

Bresnan, Joan. 1995. Linear order, syntactic rank, and emptycategories: On weak crossover. In Mary Dalrymple, Ronald M.Kaplan, John T. Maxwell, and Annie Zaenen (editors), FormalIssues in Lexical-Functional Grammar , pp. 241–274. Stanford,CA: CSLI Publications

Bresnan, Joan. 2001. Lexical-Functional Syntax . Oxford:Blackwell Publishers

Dalrymple, Mary. 2001. Lexical Functional Grammar , volume 34of Syntax and Semantics. New York, NY: Academic Press

Dalrymple, Mary, Ronald M. Kaplan, John T. Maxwell, III, andAnnie Zaenen (editors). 1995. Formal Issues inLexical-Functional Grammar . Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications

Dalrymple, Mary, Ronald M. Kaplan, and Tracy Holloway King.2006. The absence of traces: Evidence from weak crossover. InJane Grimshaw, Joan Maling, Chris Manning, Jane Simpson, andAnnie Zaenen (editors), Architectures, Rules, and Preferences: AFestschrift for Joan Bresnan. Stanford: CSLI Publications

Falk, Yehuda N. 2001. Lexical-Functional Grammar: AnIntroduction to Parallel Constraint-Based Syntax . Stanford, CA:CSLI Publications

Kaplan, Ronald M. and Annie Zaenen. 1989. Long-distancedependencies, constituent structure, and functional uncertainty.In Mark Baltin and Anthony Kroch (editors), AlternativeConceptions of Phrase Structure, pp. 17–42. Chicago UniversityPress. Reprinted in Dalrymple et al. (1995, pp. 137–165)

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