Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar

This book presents the most complete exposition of the theory of headdrivenphrase structure grammar HPSG introduced in the authors InformationBasedSyntax and Se... » 

This book presents the most complete exposition of the theory of headdrivenphrase structure grammar HPSG introduced in the authors InformationBasedSyntax and Semantics. HPSG provides an integration of key ideas from thevarious disciplines of cognitive science drawing on results from diverseapproaches to syntactic theory situation semantics data type theory andknowledge representation. The result is a conception of grammar as a set ofdeclarative and orderindependent constraints a conception well suited tomodelling human language processing.This selfcontained volume demonstrates the applicability of the HPSG approachto a wide range of empirical problems including a number which have occupiedcenterstage within syntactic theory for well over twenty years the control ofunderstood subjects longdistance dependencies conventionally treated interms of whmovement and syntactic constraints on the relationship betweenvarious kinds of pronouns and their antecedents. The authors make clear howtheir approach compares with and improves upon approaches undertaken in otherframeworks including in particular the governmentbinding theory of NoamChomsky. «