LINGUIST List 12.2040

Tue Aug 14 2001

Books: Grammar

Editor for this issue: Naomi Ogasawara <naomilinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. mconner, Grammar: Lexical Functional Grammar by M. Dalrymple

For more information please visit
http://www.academicpress.com/language


LEXICAL FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR
Volume 34 of Syntax and Semantics

MARY DALRYMPLE
Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center,
Palo Alto, California, U.S.A.

VOLUME 34 of SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS is a thorough and accessible
overview and introduction to Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG), a
theory of the content and representation of different aspects of
linguistic structure and the relations that hold between them. The
book motivates and describes the two syntactic structures of LFG:
surface phrasal organization is represented by a context-free phrase
structure tree, and more abstract functional syntactic relations like
subject and object are represented separately, at functional
structure. The book also presents a theory of semantics and the
syntax-semantics interface in which the meaning of an utterance is
obtained via deduction from semantic premises contributed by its
parts. Clear explication of the formal aspects of the theory is
provided throughout, and differences between LFG and other linguistic
theories are explored. The theory is illustrated by the analysis of a
varied set of linguistic phenomena, including modification, control,
anaphora, coordination, and long-distance dependencies. Besides its
interest to linguists, LFG also has practical applications in
computational linguistics and computer science.

KEY FEATURES:
� Thorough overview of the state of the art in Lexical Functional
 Grammar
� Clear explanation of the formal tools of the theory
� Introduction to the "glue" semantics, a theory of the
 syntax-semantics interface
� In-depth syntactic and semantic analysis of a variety of linguistic
 constructions


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
MARY DALRYMPLE is currently a senior research staff member of the
Natural Language Theory and Technology Group, at the Information
Sciences and Technologies Laboratory, Xerox PARC, Palo Alto,
California. She is also a consulting associate professor in the
Department of Linguistics and a faculty member in the Symbolic Systems
Program at Stanford University, Stanford, California. Her work at
Xerox PARC investigates the syntax-semantics interface: how the
syntactic properties of natural language can guide the process of
assembling meanings of words and phrases into meanings of larger
phrases and sentences. Much of her recent work has been done in the
Constraint-Based Semantics project. She is the author or editor of
three books on Lexical-Functional Grammar, numerous book chapters, and
dozens of journal articles. She served on the editorial board of
COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS and the JOURNAL OF LOGIC, LANGUAGE, AND
INFORMATION.


CONTENTS:
Background and Theoretical Assumptions
Functional Structure
Constituent Structure
Syntactic Correspondences
Describing Syntactic Structures
Syntactic Relations and Syntactic Constraints
Beyond Syntax: Nonsyntactic Structures
Argument Structure and Mapping Theory
Meaning and Semantic Composition
Modification
Anaphora
Functional and Anaphoric Control
Coordination
Long-Distance Dependencies
Related Research Threads and New Directions
Appendix: Proof Rules for Linear Logic
Bibliography
Author Index
Language Index
Subject Index


Casebound: $120.00, August 2001, 504 pp./ISBN: 0-12-613534-7


Academic Press,
An Elsevier Science Company

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