[HPSG-L] Selection of phonology in nonlocal dependencies and raising

Tue Mar 1 15:36:17 UTC 2016

Just a quick comment related to LOCAL (rather than PHON):  I believe it to
be
the case that there is a dependency between having the LOCAL structure and
the lexical threading/head amalgamation approach to long distance
dependencies
of Bouma et al 2001.  That is, I think it's important to that analysis that
what is
matched between filler and gap is the LOCAL value only.

Emily

On Tue, Mar 1, 2016 at 5:06 AM, David Moeljadi <davidmoeljadi at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Not long enough as in Georgia, maybe, but in Indonesian:
> Prefix "ber-" becomes "be-" if the first syllable of the root ends with
> "-er",
> e.g. "b*er*-" + "k*er*ja" ("k*er*" is the first syllable) > "b*e*k*er*ja"
> (not *b*er*k*er*ja)
>        "b*er*-" + "t*er*nak" ("t*er*" is the first syllable) >
> "b*e*t*er*nak"
> (not *b*er*t*er*nak)
>
> On Tue, Mar 1, 2016 at 7:10 PM, Guy Emerson <gete2 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > A phenomenon which is less bounded than "a/an" is consonant dissimilation
> > (see e.g. Bye, 2011): e.g. the Georgian suffix "-uri" becomes "-uli" if
> the
> > stem has an "r" somewhere (but not also an "l" after the "r").
> >
> > Perhaps there's a language where this can happen over longer expressions?
> >
> > 2016-02-29 20:29 GMT+00:00 Berthold Crysmann <
> berthold.crysmann at gmail.com
> > >:
> >
> > > Hi Dan and Stefan,
> > >
> > > just a brief remark on the phonological examples.
> > >
> > > On 29/02/2016 19:28, Dan Flickinger wrote:
> > >
> > >> Hi Stefan -
> > >>
> > >> I have been discussing with Paul Kay the issues you raised before the
> > new
> > >> year about SBCG, regarding some consequences of dropping the SYNSEM
> > feature
> > >> and adding the MOTHER feature.  I hope you can roll back the time
> > machine
> > >> to let me pick up this thread.
> > >>
> > >> First, on the phonology front, I think the prediction you note is a
> good
> > >> one, that the PHON feature can be referred to in syntax.  Even in
> > English,
> > >> we see at least two phenomena that benefit from this visibility, one
> > >> involving the choice of determiner "a" vs. "an", and the other the
> > voicing
> > >> of possessive "s" when analyzed as a phrasal clitic.  Without the PHON
> > >> feature, it is hard to see how to ensure that "an" appears when the
> next
> > >> word in the noun phrase has a vocalic onset, and "a" when the onset is
> > >> consonantal.
> > >>
> > > Markus Walther proposed contextualised alternants in One Level
> Phonology.
> > > I.e. every segment may impose constraints on its immediate neighbours.
> > That
> > > solves pretty much all the issues raised in the One Level Phonology
> > debate
> > > raised against Bird & Klein back in 1994 (CL special issue). I do not
> see
> > > why this cannot be used for the a/an case at hand. Do get Markus's
> thesis
> > > (it's in German, but that should not be an obstacle for you since
> you've
> > > been improving your command of that language reading and re-reading my
> > > admittedly cheap copy of "Der Schatz im Silbersee";-).
> > >
> > > As for -s, there's a bigger discussion including the arguments raised
> by
> > > Zwicky, Miller, Halpern etc., so this touches on the phrasal affix vs,
> > edge
> > > inflection business. Again, I have reservations.
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > >
> > > B
> > >
> > >   With PHON available, the word "an" can constrain its SPEC value
> > >> (constraints on the head of the head-specifier construction) to have a
> > PHON
> > >> which has a vocalic onset, and similarly for "a".  A second such
> > phenomenon
> > >> is the voicing of the "'s" marking the possessive of singular NPs:
> even
> > >> though this contrast is not reflected in the orthography, this
> morpheme
> > has
> > >> to be voiced if the coda (the final phoneme) of the preceding NP is
> > voiced,
> > >> and voiceless otherwise.  This argument is relevant as long as the
> > >> possessive morpheme is treated as a phrasal clitic, an analysis
> > motivated
> > >> well in Anderson (2013): http://cowgill.ling.yale.edu/sra/elsj.pdf.
> > >> Here again, as long as the PHON feature is present in what a selector
> > can
> > >> constrain, the voiced and unvoiced variant entries of the possessive
> > clitic
> > >> can constrain their SPR value (treating the clitic as the head) to
> have
> > the
> > >> appropriate voiced/unvoiced coda.
> > >>
> > >> I see that these two examples do not satisfy your wish for a
> phenomenon
> > >> that imposes a phonologoical constraint even through an unbounded
> > >> dependency, but even the surface-level effects of these two examples
> > >> involve syntactic elements that are not immediate lexical sisters, so
> > the
> > >> dependencies are non-local in these syntactic structures.
> > >>
> > >> Regarding the addition of the MOTHER feature in SBCG, I see it as one
> > >> reasonable approach to expressing the highly desirable property of
> > locality
> > >> in allowable syntactic constraints.  I agree with you that for this
> > feature
> > >> to achieve its intended purpose of hiding properties of daughters of a
> > >> phrase from outside selection that are not identified with any
> features
> > in
> > >> MOTHER, one has to ensure that only the value of this MOTHER feature
> > >> structure can be referenced, but that is how SBCG is set up: the
> > selector
> > >> features have as values lists of signs, and signs don't have access to
> > >> daughters.   As you know, this locality requirement is expressed
> > >> differently in grammars such as the English Resource Gramamr, which
> > >> introduces an ARGS (`daughters') feature as a top-level attribute of
> > >> `sign', and follows Pollard and Sag 94 in having the values of the
> > selector
> > >> features be lists of synsem objects (a stronger constraint than in
> > SBCG),
> > >> thus preventing access to that ARGS feature for selection.  I find
> this
> > >> ARGS mechanism for constructions to be at least as convenient as the
> > SBCG
> > >> architecture with its MOTHER feature, but I don't see any important
> > >> difference in intent, namely to make explicit the strong hypothesis
> that
> > >> dependencies imposed by words and phrases are strictly local.
> > >>
> > >> Regarding the treatment of phonology-driven selection phenomena in
> this
> > >> more classical HPSG architecture used in the ERG, I have moved the
> PHON
> > >> feature into SYNSEM, but a more conservative approach might aim to
> > >> identify particular elements of a sign's phonology (perhaps just
> `onset'
> > >> and `coda') that are made reentrant with features within SYNSEM.  This
> > more
> > >> conservative exposure of limited properties of phonology would be
> > harder to
> > >> do in SBCG where the full PHON value is necessarily visible for
> > selection,
> > >> so it will be interesting to know if others have found other phenomena
> > that
> > >> motivate selector access to more complex phonological properties.
> > >>
> > >>   Dan
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> ________________________________________
> > >> From: HPSG-L <hpsg-l-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
> > >> Stefan Müller <stefan.mueller at fu-berlin.de>
> > >> Sent: Friday, December 11, 2015 2:35 AM
> > >> To: hpsg-l at listserv.linguistlist.org
> > >> Subject: [HPSG-L] Selection of phonology in nonlocal dependencies and
> > >> raising
> > >>
> > >> Hi everybody,
> > >>
> > >> I recently got some comments on the section on SBCG in my GT
> textbook. I
> > >> rethought everything and have some questions that I cannot answer but
> > >> maybe somebody on the list knows the answer.
> > >>
> > >> One motivation for the change in feature geometry with locality of
> > >> selection. This braught MOTHER. Interestingly SYNSEM is gone now and
> > >> PHON is grouped with SYN and SEM. LOCAL is gone too. Rather than
> > >> selecting for synsem objects and sharing local objects in nonlocal
> > >> dependencies, complete signs are selected for and shared in nonlocal
> > >> dependencies.
> > >>
> > >> MOTHER was introduced to exclude the selection for arguments of
> > >> arguments of arguments. As with computational complexity, I think that
> > >> this should not be hardwired in the grammar formalism, the fact that
> we
> > >> do not select arguments of arguments is just a fact about what the
> > >> theories do. We do not have to state explicitely everything that is
> > >> impossible.
> > >>
> > >> But let's assume we think that MOTHER should be there because of
> > >> locality issues. Wouldn't it be a problem then that a head that is far
> > >> away can select the phonology of one of its arguments?
> > >>
> > >> In the approach to raising in SBCG the subject of the downstairs head
> is
> > >> shared with the matrix subject. So "eat" can see the phonology of
> "Kim":
> > >>
> > >> Kim can eat apples.
> > >>
> > >> Of course we can have long chains of raising verbs. Question: Are
> there
> > >> languages that show phonological effects accross several words? And if
> > >> so, does it help to have a head that selects for the phonology of a
> > >> phrase far away or should these phonological effects be treated on the
> > >> phrasal level?
> > >>
> > >> The second issue is nonlocal dependencies:
> > >>
> > >> Bagels, I think that Sandy likes.
> > >>
> > >> "likes" can see the phonology of "bagels", as can "that" as can
> "think".
> > >> In principle there could be languages that require that the filler has
> > >> three vowels in it or anything like this.
> > >>
> > >> Are there languages that have phenomena in which the phonology of the
> > >> filler affects elements at the extraction path?
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> The stuff is written down more carefully here (Section 10.6.2) and
> will
> > >> be updated depending on the outcome of this discussion.
> > >>
> > >> http://hpsg.fu-berlin.de/~stefan/Pub/grammatical-theory.html
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Thank you very much for your feedback and possibly for references to
> > >> work that describes relevant phenomena.
> > >>
> > >> Best wishes
> > >>
> > >>          Stefan
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> PGP welcome
> > >>
> > >> Stefan Müller       Tel: (+49) (+30) 838 52973
> > >>                      Fax: (+49) (030) 838 4 52973
> > >> Institut für Deutsche und Niederländische Philologie
> > >> Deutsche Grammatik
> > >> Habelschwerdter Allee 45
> > >> 14 195 Berlin
> > >>
> > >> http://hpsg.fu-berlin.de/~stefan/
> > >>
> > >> http://langsci-press.org/
> > >>
> > >> http://hpsg.fu-berlin.de/Projects/CoreGram.html
> > >> _______________________________________________
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> > >>
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> > >
> > >
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-- 
Emily M. Bender
Professor, Department of Linguistics
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