[HPSG-L] The end of lexicalism

[Stefan Müller]

Dear Tibor,

Being interesting is not a critereon for theories. Some (Gereon for
instance) want to have interesting theories, but if certain facts are
dull there is nothing we can do about this.

As for Hagit Borer: She has a very interesting theory and claims that we
do not need a lexicon only to say on page XXX of the second volume that
we need an idiom lexicon to get the selection of prepositional objects
right.

> Although by assumption a listeme cannot be associated with any
> grammatical properties, one device used in this work has allowed us
> to get around the formidable restrictions placed on the grammar by
> such a constraint – the formation of idioms. [. . .] Such idiomatic
> speci-  cation could be utilized, potentially, not just for arrive
> and depend on, but also for obliga- torily transitive verbs [. . .],
> for verbs such as put, with their obligatory locative, and for verbs
> which require a sentential complement.

> The reader may object that subcategorization, of sorts, is introduced
> here through the back door, with the introduction, in lieu of lexical
> syntactic annotation, of an articulated listed structure, called an
> idiom, which accomplishes, de facto, the same task. The objection of
> course has some validity, and at the present state of the art, the
> introduction of idioms may represent somewhat of a concession.
> (Borer, 2005, Vol. II, pp. 354–355)


This is like not doing the bureaucracy till the very end. The pain will
double the days before the deadline for the tax declaration.

Best wishes

	Stefan

Or triple.

St.

PPS: We (Steve Wechsler and I) discussed Borer's work in our paper:

http://hpsg.fu-berlin.de/~stefan/Pub/arg-st.html

Bruening is sort of a reply to this paper.

St.


Am 20.07.17 um 10:21 schrieb Tibor Kiss:
> Well,
> 
> he is surely not the first one. Isn't Hagit Borer's trilogy all up 
> against lexicalism? To me lexicalism is the linguistic equivalent of 
> bureaucracy – possibly inevitable, but mostly boring.
> 
> Best
> 
> T.
> 
> 
> qrcode.png <http://www.linguistics.rub.de/~kiss> *Prof. Dr. Tibor
> Kiss <mailto:tibor at linguistics.rub.de >*, Sprachwissenschaftliches
> Institut Ruhr-Universität
> Bochum<http://www.linguistics.rub.de>D-44780 Bochum Office:
> +49-234-322-5114 <tel:+49-234-322-5114>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Am 20.07.2017 um 10:13 schrieb Stefan Müller
> <St.Mueller at hu-berlin.de <mailto:St.Mueller at hu-berlin.de>>:
> 
>> Ups, forgot the question mark in the subject.
>> 
>> Benjamin Bruening wrote a paper for Language in which he explains
>> why the Lexicalist Hypothesis is wrong and superfluous.
>> 
>> He claims that having a X°/XP distinction is enough for modeling
>> those restrictions that have to be modeled.
>> 
>> This is my reply (including a link to his paper):
>> 
>> https://hpsg.hu-berlin.de/~stefan/Pub/lexicalism.html
>> 
>> Comments are welcome.
>> 
>> I have to deliver the reply next week. So if you have feedback, it
>> would be good to get it before 27th of July.
>> 
>> Best
>> 
>> Stefan _______________________________________________ HPSG-L
>> mailing list HPSG-L at listserv.linguistlist.org 
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>