36.2546, Reviews: Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar: Stefan Müller, Anne Abeillé, Robert D. Borsley, Jean-Pierre Koenig (eds.) (2024)

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Subject: 36.2546, Reviews: Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar: Stefan Müller, Anne Abeillé, Robert D. Borsley, Jean-Pierre Koenig (eds.) (2024)

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Date: 27-Aug-2025
From: Boshra ElGhazoly [bghazoly at taibahu.edu.sa]
Subject: Syntax: Stefan Müller, Anne Abeillé, Robert D. Borsley, Jean-Pierre Koenig (eds.) (2024)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/35-3252

Title: Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar
Subtitle: The handbook, Second revised edition
Series Title: Empirically Oriented Theoretical Morphology and Syntax
Publication Year: 2024

Publisher: Language Science Press
           http://langsci-press.org
Book URL: https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/478

Editor(s): Stefan Müller, Anne Abeillé, Robert D. Borsley, Jean-Pierre
Koenig

Reviewer: Boshra ElGhazoly

Review of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar: The handbook, Second
revised edition. Edited by Stefan Müller, Anne Abeillé, Robert D.
Borsley, and Jean-Pierre Koenig. (Empirically Oriented Theoretical
Morphology and Syntax 9). Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI:
10.5281/zenodo.13637708
Reviewed by Boshra ElGhazoly (Menoufia University, Egypt and Taibah
University, KSA)
SUMMARY
Available in its entirety online under a Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International License, Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar: The
handbook, Second revised edition not only stands out as an
indispensable and valuable guide and reference to Head-Driven Phrase
Structure Grammar (HPSG) but also serves as an exemplar for future
publications on HPSG.  The editors assemble research articles from 34
scholars presenting and discussing HPSG architecture and insights by
providing references, cases, and examples of data from more than 70
languages, including understudied and tribal languages (e.g., Abelam)
as well as dialectal data from di- or multi-glossic languages (e.g.,
Arabic). Reference to diverse languages showcases how the tenets of
HPSG  can aid theoretically and empirically in analyzing distinct
languages and accounting for different syntactic phenomena. By the end
of the handbook, the reader will see that the model cannot be limited
to syntax or semantics, and that it can connect clearly to different
fields of linguistic research (e.g., typology and language
processing).
The handbook starts by introducing and presenting  HPSG linguistic
modeling of the sign as a constructionist lexical theoretical approach
that integrates both semantics and syntax to demystify the nature of
grammatical categories and the various interactions between the
different levels of linguistic representation to encode linguistic
information declaratively, i.e., between the hearer and the listener.
More linguistic levels are incorporated or smoothly woven into the
model as we read the handbook. Although the handbook addresses
syntacticians and researchers of (computational) linguistics,
nevertheless human language processing, the projection of data and
various discussions clearly show that the model has a lot to offer to
new theoretical and empirical terrains (e.g., language acquisition).
For novice researchers, I would recommend following a reading order
that matches the order the editors have carefully designed. For
experienced researchers, at the end of each chapter, a valuable
bibliography for further reference is provided, making it easier for
the reader to go to the references of interest rather than a complete
bibliography at the end would. The latter might serve as a space
saving method. However, given the extensive formalisms and detailed
annotations, it is preferable to have separate referencing. Also,
though great in number, the notes add to the value of the discussions
and illuminate different issues connected to the arguments. Numerous
chapters within the handbook make references to pointers in other
chapters in the handbook, serving as reminders of previous material as
well as precursors for subsequent discussions.
Though the book is voluminous in nature, I would suggest a call for
new chapters devoted to new domains in subsequent revised editions .
The following are suggested topics: (1) innateness and mental
representations of grammatical relations; (2) first language
acquisition of morphosyntactic features explained through HPSG
(particularly how HPSG can account for the order of acquisition (and
possible difficulty) of particular morphosyntactic markings in L1);
(3) explaining second language acquisition of morphosyntactic features
(e.g., phi-features), especially of featural matrices that involve
more than one interface or level of linguistic knowledge and that are
absent from the L1 (see Donna Lardiere’s 2017 insights on feature
reassembly in second language acquisition), and finally I recommend
including a chapter on phonological features interfacing with syntax
and morphology from the non-modular perspective of HPSG. Importantly,
the volume in its current status is highly organized, coherent and
revealing of promising tenets of the model for future research. Quite
clearly, my request for an expansion to additional topics is because
the model still has a lot to offer us.
Part 1 includes four preliminary chapters that provide a thorough
foundation and detailed historical background to HPSG evolution,
disputes, and, interestingly, networking at time before the internet.
In Ch. 1, Abeillé and Borsley’s introduction clearly dismisses the
likelihood of using abstract analyses with no connections to evident
data in HPSG. It provides a synopsis of the principles of HPSG
analyses that includes types, features, and constraints by connecting
them to syntactic and lexical tenets of the approach. Also, in Ch. 1,
Abeillé and Borsley historically trace the beginning of HPSG,
straightforwardly link it to Chomskyan generative grammar, and clearly
separate its properties from those of Transformational grammar (TG)
(e.g., assuming different positions at different levels) and
minimalism. Delineating the progression of HPSG in theory and
practice,  Ch. 2 (Flickinger, Pollard, & Wasow) provides the
motivation for early HPSG by presenting an overview of criticism
levelled at TG that led to the emergence of early Head Grammar
accounts and foreground two momentous stages; changing the analysis of
valence and unbounded dependencies where three lexical rules for
extracting subjects, complements, and adjuncts are introduced (see
Pollard & Sag, 1994). Ch. 3 (Frank Richter) focuses on the
mathematical and formal logical descriptive language of entities in
HPSG grammars and their expressive semantics by presenting HPSG as
composed of a pair: (1) signatures/restrictions and (2) a group of
principles. Signatures are adequately defined as “a septuple with sort
hierarchy 𝑆, species𝑆𝑚𝑎𝑥, attributes𝐴, and relation symbols𝑅; the
function 𝐹 handles the feature appropriateness and function𝐴𝑟 is for
the number of arguments of each relation” (p. 105). Obviously, by
tracing HPSG formalisms (with subsequent theoretical proposals
referred to as T1, T2, T3, and T4), Richtar’s chapter shows the merit
of HPSG’s explicit mathematical and logical foundations with numerous
examples. In Ch.4, Davis and Koenig explore in detail the position the
hierarchical lexicon holds in HPSG. Here, what is meant by lexicon
goes beyond the standard concept of a lexis. The chapter contains
detailed description of lexical rules and their tasks in HPSG, along
with alternative ways of relating lexemes and words on the basis of
the same root or stem. Ch. 5 (Douglas Ball) emphasizes the flexibility
of the architecture of HPSG in analyzing different languages including
understudied ones. As a whole, Part 1 serves as a detailed
introduction to HPSG for graduate students and experienced researchers
alike. It also paves the ground for subsequent chapters which focus on
analyses of major syntactic phenomena (Part 2).
Part 2 comprises nearly half of the volume. Fifteen chapters are
devoted to illuminating major syntactic phenomena in light of HPSG
tenets. The precedence of HPSG in revealing various  syntactic
phenomena is clearly discussed and argued for. Ch. 6 (Stephen
Wechsler) provides a guided exploration of agreement
underspecification and alternations within the formalisms of HPSG,
including distant and near agreement realizations in clausal
constructions. Ch. 7 (Adam Przepiórkowski ) provides an outline of how
morphology, syntax, and semantics interconnect in the realizations of
Case in HPSG. Ch.8 (Frank Van Eynde) distinguishes three main nominal
roles within HPSG: SPEC, DP, and functor. However, DP is shown to be
less compatible with HPSG if compared to the other structures. Ch. 9
(Davis, Koenig, & Wechsler) establishes grounding for the lexical
approach of HPSG to argument structure and linkage. Emphasizing free
of constraint analyses that allow for alternating word orders, Ch. 10
(Stefan Müller) provides a detailed explanation of how HPSG formalisms
can analyze word order variants in general and, using process similar
head movement, accounts for German finite verb positions in
particular. Ch. 11 (Godard & Samvelian) demonstrate how well HPSG can
account for complex predicates and attraction modes of complements in
four typologically different languages (i.e., French, German, Korean,
and Persian); clitic climbing; flexible word order, mixing the
arguments of two predicates; and special semantic combinations. Ch. 12
(Ann Abeillé) demonstrates the difference between HPSG and
Transformational approaches in explaining control and raising
predicates. Ch. 13 (Borsley & Crysmann) reviews different HPSG
proposals about unbounded dependencies present in wh-interrogatives,
and relative clauses. Ch. 14 (Arnold & Godard) extensively discusses
relative clauses in different languages (including Arabic, English,
French, German, Japanese, and Korean), showing how HPSG formalisms can
explain the intricacies and the different structures of relative
clauses. Focusing on island constraints per se, rather than situating
it in the realm of HPSG or any other approach, Ch. 15 (Rui P. Chaves)
tackles how the phenomenon of extraction constraints can be viewed
independently. Ch. 16 (Abeillé & Chaves) describes coordination with
HPSG and how it relates to a model of grammar. Ch.17 (Manfred Sailer)
provides an explanation of how HPSG accounts for multiword expressions
(aka idioms). It clearly shows the various explanations that HPSG has
for idioms. Serving as a concise review of negation modes, Ch. 18
(Jong-Bok Kim) explores how HPSG can explain four main types of
negative markers in expressing negation in typologically different
languages: the morphological negative, the negative auxiliary verb,
the adverbial negative, and the clitic-like preverbal negative. In Ch.
19 (Nykiel & Kim) three types of ellipsis are accounted for within
HPSG, showing and reviewing how invisibility is managed within a
lexical based model. Ch. 20 (Müller) introduces anaphoric relations
within the lexical binding view promoted by HPSG and critiques the
limitations of tree structures in capturing the syntactic relations
that emerge from binding. In its entirety, Part 2 is a guided tour of
HPSG informative accounts of major syntactic phenomena.
Part 3 contains three chapters and provides a rich outline of HPSG
structural levels. Although HPSG integrates and allows for the
possible interaction within the configuration of every syntactic node
of all levels of linguistic structure, i.e., syntactic, phonological,
semantic, and pragmatic,, Part 3 discusses morphology, semantics, and
pragmatics independently. Ch. 21 (Berthold Crysman) fills a gap in the
HPSG literature by exploring derivational and inflectional
morphological realizations in light of theoretical common ground that
combines lexicalist and constructional views to describe and account
for various morphotactics within the HPSG architecture. This model
deploys feature structure inheritance networks that can adequately
capture morphological realizations reflecting morphological
well-formedness. Notably, though Ch. 21 focuses more on inflectional
morphology,  it still provides a valuable summary of how HPSG
developed overtime to employ inheritance networks to eliminate
vertical redundancy in derivational morphology. Ch. 22 (Jean-Pierre
Koenig & Frank Richter) discusses the semantic specification and
underspecification of HPSG by summarizing relevant approaches: Minimal
Recursion Semantics and Lexical Resource Semantics. Although Asudah
and Crouch’s glue semantics approach is dismissed in the discussion
for space limitations, reference to it is still provided for readers
interested in pursuing it further. Ch. 23 (Kordula De Kuthy) answers
the question of how a tree configuration can encode information
structure within HPSG based approaches by researching pragmatic
encoding at the word, phrase, and sentential levels (e.g.,
focus/background dichotomy, givenness). Building on the early design
of signs presented by Pollard and Sag (1994), in which a feature
termed CONTEXT is assigned a pragmatic function, De Kuthy’s argument
dismisses the view of a speaker-listener interaction in which syntax
functions independently from information structure and prosodic
features (e.g., intonation). De Kuthy traces the development of
several approaches dealing with information structure incorporation
within the sign configuration and provides a critique of some of the
approaches (e.g., De Kuthy, 2002; Manaddhar, 1994 a, b; Song, 2017;
Song & Bender, 2012; Valduvi, 1992). The criticism levelled at one
approach led to the emergence of a subsequent approach, which provides
a valuable and rich review of the topic.
Part 4 provides a window into the service that HPSG is capable of
providing to other relevant fields. Ch. 24 (Thomas Wasow) tackles very
critical issues in the field, namely the separation or disjunction
between theoretical investigations of language structure exemplified
in HPSG architecture (the lexically rich, constraint based, and
surface oriented representations), the nature of human language
processing (the speedy incremental non-modular and lexical based
mechanisms), and applications, as in the case of psycholinguistics
research. Although the chapter focuses on the “comprehender”, Wasow
argues that the architecture of HPSG can fit well with outcomes of
research on language production and comprehension, mainly because of
the computational tractability evident in parsing and generation of
language (see Flickinger, Pollard, & Wasow, 2024). According to Wasow,
what is actually needed is a thorough observation of the relationship
between language competence and performance, on the one hand, and the
properties of HPSG, on the other. In line with Sag et al. (2003) and
Sag and Wasow (2011, 2015), HPSG is presented here as a model that
enables listeners to predict what the speaker is about to say as it
provides “representations of initial substrings of utterances that can
be assigned (partial) meanings and be used in predicting later parts
of those signs” (p.1157). Wasow argues that HPSG analyses can predict
difficulty and that the predictions can be tested experimentally using
up to date psycholinguistic tools, such as eye tracking, to determine
the exact level of difficulty of parsing/grammatical analysis. I have
to add that the footnotes will lead to further readings and are thus
immensely valuable. Amazingly, the insights provided in this chapter
can be extrapolated to second language acquisition research in
general.
Ch. 25 (Bender & Emerson) provides an introductory exploration of
several broad coverage grammars inspired by HPSG, including variant
methods in which computational projects deployed HPSG, as well as
valuable insights about the grammar engineering work in HPSG and how
it triggered knowledge that was unattainable non-computationally
(e.g., ambiguity).
Ch. 26 (Lücking, Ginzberg. & Cooper) goes beyond the sentence as a
component of input in communication as it explores dialogue semantics
not only from the view of HPSG but also from other relevant
frameworks, with the aim of making psycholinguistics and formal
semantics closer. Interestingly, it looks into the challenges of
incorporating non-linguistic dialogue data (e.g., gaze, body posture,
and laughter) within HPSG and relevant approaches. Reference to
dialogue theoretical frameworks is made (e.g., Segmented Discourse
Representation Theory). Assuming an integration between speech and
gesture in a gesture grammar interface, Ch. 27 (Andy Lücking) focuses
on providing a guided expedition of research attempts to model gesture
meanings on HPSG and relevant approaches.
Part 5 includes theory comparison chapters. Ch. 29 (Yusuke Kubota)
delivers an articulate comparison between HPSG and Categorial Grammar
(CG) and its branches, Combinatory Categorial Grammar and Type-logical
Categorial Grammar, and makes reference to computational and sentence
processing issues. Ch. 30 (Wechsler & Asudeh) makes explicit how
Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG), recognized as a lexicalist cousin or
sister theory to HPSG, surpasses HPSG in making functional similarity
more visible. Ch. 31 (Richard Hudson) links two traditions: the HPSG
embeddedness of phrase structure analysis and the dependency structure
tradition. Ch. 32 (Stefan Müller) discusses the adherence of HPSG to
the tenets of Construction Grammar (CG). In Part 5, acquisition is
briefly mentioned in the comparison between minimalism and HPSG.
Notably, the stand that the constructionist theoretical basis of HPSG
would allow extrapolation of constructionist views on acquisition of
syntactic features does not fully address the need to chart the
complex and much varied cases of entangled featural matrices in second
language acquisition research (e.g., phi-features). There is a
pressing need to include separate chapters on L1 and L2 acquisition
and to discuss how the HPSG model of featural matrices would
facilitate depicting L1 and L2 (order of) acquisition and particularly
convergence or divergence to featural matrices of target languages in
the case of L2 acquisition.
EVALUATION
Collectively, the articles included in this volume provide solid
background that clearly explains the key features of HPSG (e.g.,
lexicalism, head & constraint based structures, the uniform logical
formalisms, modularity, and microlinguistic levels). The connections
between HPSG, GPSG, CG and computational implications are drawn and
clarified. Although the studies provide a basis for how the model can
align with theories of language processing and offer a well defined
framework for analyses, the model’s formalisms can be challenging to
apply and to learn, particularly for novice researchers trying to
empirically cover and account for diverse linguistic data. In
addition, capturing lexicalism constraints in actual language use can
be daunting given the interactive and context-dependent properties.
References
De Kuthy, Kordula. 2002. Discontinuous NPs in German (Studies in
Constraint-Based Lexicalism 14). Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Lardiere, Donna. 2017. Feature assembly in second language
acquisition. In The role of formal features in second language
acquisition (pp. 106-140). Routledge.
Manandhar, Suresh. 1994a. Encoding information packaging in HPSG. In
Elisabet
Engdahl (ed.), Integrating information structure into constraint-based
and categorial approaches (DYANA-2 Report R.1.3.B), 83–87. Amsterdam:
ILLC.
Manandhar, Suresh. 1994b. An attributive logic of set descriptions and
set operations.
In James Pustejovsky (ed.), 32nd Annual Meeting of the Association for
Computational Linguistics, 255–262. Las Cruces, NM: Association for
Computational
Linguistics. DOI: 10.3115/981732.981767.
Pollard, Carl & Ivan A. Sag. 1994. Head-Driven Phrase Structure
Grammar (Studies
in Contemporary Linguistics 4). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago
Press.
Song, Sanghoun & Emily M. Bender. 2012. Individual constraints for
information
structure. In Stefan Müller (ed.), Proceedings of the 19th
International Conference
on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Chungnam National University
Daejeon,
330–348. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications. DOI: 10.21248/hpsg.2012.19.
Vallduví, Enric. 1992. The informational component. University of
Pennsylvania.
(Doctoral dissertation)
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Boshra ElGhazoly holds the position of Assistant Professor of
Linguistics at the Dept. of English Language and Literature, Faculty
of Arts, Menoufia University, Egypt and Taibah University, KSA. She
obtained her Ph.D (dual degree in Linguistics and Second Language
Studies), and MA (TESOL/Applied Linguistics) from Indiana University,
Bloomington, USA. Her research interests include morphosyntax, SLA,
and translation.



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