30.316, Books: A lexicalist account of argument structure: Müller

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-30-316. Fri Jan 18 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 30.316, Books: A lexicalist account of argument structure: Müller

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Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2019 16:31:46
From: Sebastian Nordhoff [Sebastian.Nordhoff at langsci-press.org]
Subject: A lexicalist account of argument structure: Müller

 


Title: A lexicalist account of argument structure 
Subtitle: Template-based phrasal LFG approaches and a lexical HPSG alternative 
Publication Year: 2018 
Publisher: Language Science Press
	   http://langsci-press.org
	

Book URL: http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/163 


Author: Stefan Müller

Electronic: ISBN:  9783961101214 Pages: 106 Price: Europe EURO 0 Comment: Open Access


Abstract:

There are two prominent schools in linguistics: Minimalism (Chomsky) and
Construction Grammar (Goldberg, Tomasello). Minimalism comes with the claim
that our linguistic capabilities consist of an abstract, binary combinatorial
operation (Merge) and a lexicon. Most versions of Construction Grammar assume
that language consists of flat phrasal schemata that contribute their own
meaning and may license additional arguments. This book examines a variant of
Lexical Functional Grammar, which is lexical in principle but was augmented by
tools that allow for the description of phrasal constructions in the
Construction Grammar sense. These new tools include templates that can be used
to model inheritance hierarchies and a resource driven semantics. The resource
driven semantics makes it possible to reach the effects that lexical rules
had, for example remapping of arguments, by semantic means. The semantic
constraints can be evaluated in the syntactic component, which is basically
similar to the delayed execution of lexical rules. So this is a new
formalization that might be suitable to provide solutions to longstanding
problems that are not available for other formalizations.

While the authors suggest a lexical treatment of many phenomena and only
assume phrasal constructions for selected phenomena like benefactive and
resultative constructions in English, it can be shown that even these two
constructions should not be treated phrasally in English and that the analysis
would not extend to other languages as for instance German. I show that the
new formal tools do not really improve the situation and many of the basic
conceptual problems remain. Since this specific proposal fails for two
constructions, it follows that proposals (in the same framework) that assume
phrasal analyses for all constructions are not appropriate either.

The conclusion is that lexical models are needed and this entails that the
schemata that combine syntactic objects are rather abstract (as in Categorial
Grammar, Minimalism, HPSG and standard LFG). On the other hand there are
constructions that should be treated by very specific, phrasal schemata as in
Construction Grammar and LFG and HPSG. So the conclusion is that both schools
are right (and wrong) and that a combination of ideas from both camps is
needed.
 



Linguistic Field(s): Syntax


Written In: English  (eng)

See this book announcement on our website: 
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/books/get-book.cfm?BookID=132314




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