Course goals

This course covers non-derivational theories of syntax that have focused on developing precisely formulated grammars whose empirical predictions can be directly tested. We will examine a number of different grammatical frameworks, including varieties of dependency grammar (DG), tree-adjoining grammar (TAG), combinatory categorial grammar (CCG), and lexical-funcational grammar (LFG). After a survey of each of these, we will delve more deeply into the framework of Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG), examining both theoretical and practical issues and gaining exposure to both the key foundational works as well as recent lines of investigation.

Given its focus on precise, testable theories, the course will be of particular interest to linguists who are concerned with developing detailed accounts of the syntactic structure of individual languages. It is also of special interest to computational linguists, as the frameworks have been developed with careful attention to ways in which analyses can be represented within computational models of language processing.

At the end of the course, students should be able to analyze linguistic data in a number of ways, read syntactic literature from a variety of viewpoints, and understand how these formalisms lend themselves well to computational needs. Participants will develop an HPSG grammar fragment for a language of their choice by the end of the semester.

No programming experience is assumed, but some syntax is required.

Instructor: Markus Dickinson
Office: Memorial Hall (MM) 317
Phone: (812) 856-2535
E-mail: md7 AT edu.indiana (flipped around)
Office hours:

M	11:00am-12:00pm
W	1:30-2:30pm
	or by appointment

Meeting time: TR, 4:00-5:15pm
Classroom: Sycamore (SY) 108
Course website: http://jones.ling.indiana.edu/~mdickinson/08/614/
Credits: 3
Course prerequisites: L543 or L545 or permission of instructor

Readings:

For the first 5 weeks, we will use a variety of readings (available online) to provide background material for the lectures, and then we will use a book.

This is the current, tentative list of articles:

• (RH) Hudson, Richard (1990). English Word Grammar, chapter 6. Blackwell.
  ftp://ftp.phon.ucl.ac.uk/pub/Word-Grammar/ewg6.doc
• (JN) Nivre, Joakim (2005). Dependency Grammar and Dependency Parsing. MSI report 05133. VŠxjš University: School of Mathematics and Systems Engineering.
• (J&S) Joshi, Aravind K. and Yves Schabes (1997). Tree-Adjoining Grammars. In A. Salomma and G. Rosenberg, eds., Handbook of Formal Languages and Automata. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/joshi97treeadjoining.html
• (J&R) Joshi, Aravind and Owen Rambow (2003). A Formalism for Dependency Grammar Based on Tree Adjoining Grammar. Proceedings of the Conference on Meaning-Text Theory. http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~rambow/papers/joshi-rambow-2003.pdf
• (S&B) Steedman, Mark and Jason Baldridge (2003). Combinatory Categorial Grammar. Unpublished Tutorial Paper. ftp://ftp.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/pub/steedman/ccg/manifesto.pdf
• Dalrymple, Mary. 2006. 'Lexical Functional Grammar'. In Keith Brown (eds), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics (2nd edition). Oxford: Elsevier. http://users.ox.ac.uk/~cpgl0015/lfg.pdf
• (RL) Robert D. Levine (2003). Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~levine/ecs.pdf
• (L&M) Robert D. Levine and Detmar Meurers. ``Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar: Linguistic Approach, Formal Foundations, and Computational Realization''. Keith Brown (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Second Edition. Oxford: Elsevier. http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~dm/papers/ell2-hpsg.html

Book to purchase:

• (P&S) Pollard, Carl and Sag, Ivan. (1994) Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Stanford: CSLI Publications. ISBN: 0226674479. Cost = approx. $40.

We'll select other readings later in the semester, depending on people's interests; see section on Presentations below.

Course requirements:

• Homeworks: There will be seven homeworks assigned throughout the semester. You will generally have 1-2 weeks to complete each assignment. Each one will provide you with a number of exercises to demonstrate that you grasp the material. Homework assignments are due by the beginning of each class (4:00pm)--you may hand them in or e-mail them to me. You can work together on the homework assignments but write out your own answers. Your homework grade will be based on both quality and effort.

• Presentation: We will spend a few weeks towards the end of the semester discussing current issues in HPSG (see schedule). The particular issues will depend upon the interests of the students, and each student will be responsible for leading a discussion of a particular current paper/topic during this time. More details will follow later in the semester, but these papers/topics might be a good starting point (see also the overview article by Levine and Meurers):
  • Constructional approaches to HPSG
    • Sag, Ivan A. 1997. English Relative Clause Constructions. Journal of Linguistics, 33 (2): 431-484. http://lingo.stanford.edu/sag/papers/rel-pap.pdf
    • (SM-04) Müller, Stefan (2004). Phrasal or Lexical Constructions? A Reply to Goldberg and Jackendoff. Ms. Universität Bremen.
      http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/language/v082/82.4muller.pdf
  • More on UDCs
    • Hukari, T. and Levine, R. (1995). Adjunct Extraction. Journal of Linguistics 31, 195-226.
    • (BMS-01) Bouma, Gosse, Rob Malouf, and Ivan A. Sag. (2001). Satisfying Constraints on Extraction and Adjunction. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 19 (1): 1-65. http://ftp-linguistics.stanford.edu/sag/bms-nllt.pdf
    • Levine, R. (2003). Adjunct valents: cumulative scoping adverbial constructions and impossible descriptions. In Proceeedings of HPSG 2002.
      http://cslipublications.stanford.edu/HPSG/3/levine.pdf
  • Locality
    • (RL-00) Levine, Robert (2000). 'Tough' complementation and the extraclausal propagation of argument descriptions. In Dan Flickinger and Andreas Kathol, On-line proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar.
      http://cslipublications.stanford.edu/HPSG/HPSG00/hpsg00-toc.html
    • Meurers, Walt Detmar (1999). Raising Spirits (and assigning them case). Groninger Arbeiten zur Germanistischen Linguistik (GAGL), Nr. 43. Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, German Department.
      http://purl.org/net/dm/papers/gagl-raising-spirits.html
  • Lexical rules
    • Bouma, G., van Eynde, F., and Flickinger, D. (2000). Constraint-based Lexicons. In F. van Eynde, D. Gibbon, and I. Schuurman (eds.), Lexicon Development for Speech and Language Processing.
    • (DM-01) Meurers, W. Detmar (2001). On expressing lexical generalizations in HPSG. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 24(2), 161-217.
      http://ling.osu.edu/~dm/papers/lexical-generalizations.html
  • Linking theory
    • Koenig, J.-P. and Davis, A. (2003). Semantically Transparent Linking in HPSG. In Proceeedings of HPSG 2003.
      http://csli-publications.stanford.edu/HPSG/4/
  • HPSG for other languages (e.g., clause union and restructuring)
    • Hinrichs, E. and Nakazawa, T. (1994). Linearizing AUXs in German Verbal Complexes. In Nerbonne et al, German in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar.
  • Discontinuous constituency
    • Reape, M. (1996). Getting Things in Order. In Bunt and Horck, Discontinuous Constituency, Berling, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
    • Kathol, A. (2000). Linear Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Coordination (and other foundational problems in HPSG):
    • (IAS-03) Sag, I. A. (2003). Coordination and Underspecification. In Proceeedings of HPSG 2002. http://cslipublications.stanford.edu/HPSG/3/sag.pdf
    • Levy, R. and Pollard, C. (2001). Coordination and Neutralization in HPSG. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. http://csli-publications.stanford.edu/HPSG/2/levy-pollard-2001-pn.pdf
    • Pollard, C. (2001). Cleaning out the HPSG Garage: Some Problems and Some Proposals. Ms. Summer School on Constraint-based Grammar. Trondheim, Norway. http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/HPSG2001/summer_school/cp_garage.ps
  • Semantic representations in HPSG:
    • (CFPS-05) Copestake, A., Flickinger, D., Pollard, C., and Sag, I. (2005). Minimal Recursion Semantics: An Introduction. In Research on Language and Computation. http://lingo.stanford.edu/sag/papers/copestake.pdf

• Project: Near the end of the semester, you will have a chance to develop a grammar in the HPSG formalism. More details for this project will be available later in the semester.

• Breakdown:

  Participation	8%
  Homeworks	42%	(=7@6% each)
  Presentation	15%
  Project	25%

• If you feel that I have graded anything incorrectly or improperly, please contact me outside of class. I will be happy to address your concerns.

Academic Misconduct:

Academic misconduct is not allowed in this course. The Indiana University Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct (http://dsa.indiana.edu/Code/) defines academic misconduct as ``any activity that tends to undermine the academic integrity of the institution . . . Academic misconduct may involve human, hard-copy, or electronic resources . . . Academic misconduct includes, but is not limited to . . . cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, interference, violation of course rules, and facilitating academic misconduct'' (II. G.1-6).

Students with Disabilities:

Students who need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact me to arrange an appointment as soon as possible to discuss the course format, to anticipate needs, and to explore potential accommodations.

I rely on Disability Services for Students for assistance in verifying the need for accommodations and developing accommodation strategies. Students who have not previously contacted Disability Services are encouraged to do so (812-855-7578; http://www.indiana.edu/~iubdss/).

Tentative Schedule:

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