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Lexical Functional Grammar as a Construction Grammar

Findlay Jamie Y.

Journal of Language Modelling

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2023

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Vol. 11, No. 2

197--266

EN

Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) is a lexicalist, constraint-basedgrammatical theory that shares a lot of the basic assumptions of Con-struction Grammar (CxG), such as a commitment to surface-orienteddescriptions (no transformations), and the simultaneous representa-tion of form, meaning, and other grammatical information (no deriva-tions). Nevertheless, LFG is not standardly viewed as a kind of CxG,in particular since its adherence to the principle of Lexical Integritymeans that it insists on a strict morphology-syntax distinction whereCxG canonically rejects such a divide. However, such a distinction isin fact entirely compatible with CxG assumptions; the actual problemwith viewing LFG as a CxG is the difficulty it has in describing themore substantive end of the schematic-substantive spectrum of con-structions. I suggest that by replacing the limited context-free gram-mar base of LFG responsible for this shortcoming with a more expres-sive formalism (in this case a description-based tree-adjoining gram-mar), we can obtain a fully constructional LFG, suitable as a formalframework for CxG.

2

Integrating LFG’s binding theory with PCDRT

Dalrymple M., Haug D. T. T., Lowe J. J.

Journal of Language Modelling

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2018

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Vol. 6, No. 1

87--129

EN

We provide a formal model for the interaction of syntax and pragmatics in the interpretation of anaphoric binding constraints on personal and reflexive pronouns. We assume a dynamic semantics, where type e expressions introduce discourse referents, and contexts are assignments of individuals to discourse referents. We adopt the Partial Compositional Discourse Representation Theory (PCDRT) of Haug (2014b), whereby anaphoric resolution is modelled in terms of a pragmatically-established relation between discourse referents. We integrate PCDRT into the constraint-based grammatical framework of Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG), and show how it is possible to state syntactic constraints on the pragmatic resolution of singular and plural anaphora within this framework.

3

Mapping theory without argument structure

Findlay J. Y.

Journal of Language Modelling

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2016

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Vol. 4, No. 2

293--338

EN

Asudeh and Giorgolo (2012) offer an analysis of optional and derived arguments that does away with argument structure as a separate level of representation within the architecture of Lexical Functional Grammar in favour of encoding much of this information in a connected semantic structure. This simplifies the architecture in many ways, but leaves open the question of the mapping between thematic roles, arguments, and grammatical functions (traditionally explored under the umbrella of Lexical Mapping Theory; LMT: Bresnan and Kanerva 1989). In this paper, I offer a formalisation of these mapping relations, drawing on a modern reanalysis of traditional LMT (Kibort 2007), while also continuing Asudeh and Giorgolo’s (2012) quest to evacuate as much information as possible out of individual lexical entries and into cross-categorising templates (Dalrymple et al. 2004; Crouch et al. 2012).

4

Economy of Expression as a principle of syntax

Dalrymple M., Kaplan R. M., King T. H.

Journal of Language Modelling

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2015

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Vol. 3, No. 2

377--412

EN

The purpose of a grammatical theory is to specify the mechanisms and principles that can characterize the relations of acceptable sentences in particular languages to the meanings that they express. It is sometimes proposed that the simplest and most explanatory way of arranging the formal mechanisms of grammatical description is to allow them to produce unacceptable representations or derivations for some meanings and then to appeal to a global principle of economy to control this overgeneration. Thus there is an intuition common to many syntactic theories that a given meaning should be expressed in the most economical way, that smaller representations or shorter derivations should be chosen over larger ones. In this paper we explore the conceptual and formal issues of Economy as it has been discussed within the theory of Lexical Functional Grammar. In LFG the metric of Economy is typically formulated in terms of the size of one component of syntactic representation – the surface constituent structure tree – but it is often left unstated which trees for a given meaning are to be compared and how they are to be measured. We present a framework within which alternative explicit definitions of Economy can be formulated, and examine some phenomena for which Economy has been offered as an explanation. However, we observe that descriptive devices already available and independently motivated within the traditional LFG formalism can also account for these phenomena directly, without relying on cross-derivational comparisons to compensate for overgeneration. This leads us to question whether Economy is necessary or even useful as a separate principle of grammatical explanation.

5

Complex predicates : an LFG+glue analysis

Lowe J. J.

Journal of Language Modelling

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2015

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Vol. 3, No. 2

413--462

EN

In this paper I discuss weaknesses in the traditional LFG account of complex predicates and in the XLE implementation of the same. I argue that the concept of predicate composition in general, and the mechanisms required to achieve it, are problematic, but that the most problematic element is the concept of argument fusion. I show that a semantically-integrated account of complex predicate formation is possible within LFG+glue, an account which provides a simple and effective formalization of argument fusion, and which does not suffer from the weaknesses of traditional approaches.1