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

[SHALOM LAPPIN]

Right, In our paper "A Critique of the Minimalist Program" (Linguistics
and Philosophy, 1997) David Johnson and I used empty complementizer
heads to specify constraints governing the appearance of wh-phrases in
Iraqi Arabic questions. We then found that by reformulating the analysis
within a modified and extended version of Sag's (1997) mutli-dimensional
constructional phrase type hierarchy we could dispense with empty comp
heads and develop a more systematic account of the relevant facts,
which extends naturally to partial movement in German. We presented this
second account in our book Local Constraints vs, Economy
(CSLI, 1999). Regards.
                                Shalom

On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Carl Pollard wrote:

> I agree with Berthold that the use of constructions (vs. insisting
> on lexicalizing everything) would seem to obviate the need for empty
> heads.
>
> Carl
>