empty heads in HPSG (was: status of words; HPSG and CG)

[Emily Bender]

Berthold Crysmann wrote
>
> [...]
>
> Similar yes, but there are certain differences which I believe make the
> option of (zero-)morphemes quite unattractive: Typically, in syntax, there
> is only a single though largely underspecified empty element (e.g. trace)
> the properties of which are filled by syntactic context in a principled
> way. In morpheme-based morphology, however, the purpose of introducing zero
> element is quite a different one: here, properties are intrinsic to the
> empty element (e.g. empty plural morphemes, empty agreement markers, empty
> tense/aspect morphemes, empty category converters.... ), and what one will
> end up with is a plethora of homophonous (all zero) , yet
> categorically/featurally  distinct morphemes. (Add to this the necessity of
> adding black hole morphemes, for subtractive morphology and the like).  It
> is probably quite telling that noone, as far as I'm aware, has introduced
> empty heads into HPSG. But this is exactly what people in morpheme-based
> morphology are doing. Worse, while in syntax empty elements are always
> filled by the context, this is not necessarily true of morphology. I feel
> that the equivalence is  only of a very  technical nature, then....
>
> [...]

In my study of the syntax of AAVE copula absence (see Bender 2001,
ch 3), I was grudgingly led to the conclusion that the facts require one
to posit either an (i.e., one particular) empty verb or a construction
that in some contexts is phonologically empty.  This was in the context
of a traceless version of HPSG.  I believe this is quite different
the proliferation of empty heads one finds in other syntactic frameworks.

I know there is some other HPSG work that suggests and empty noun
head in constructions like "the rich" in English and German, but
I can't find the reference right now.

-- Emily

Reference:

Bender, Emily M. 2001.  Syntactic Variation and Linguistic Competence:
The Case of AAVE Copula Absence.  PhD thesis, Stanford University.
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~bender/dissertation/