LINGUIST List 9.1291

Fri Sep 18 1998

Books: Syntax & Semantics

Editor for this issue: Scott Fults <scottlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Maureen Burke, new books: Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar
2. Maureen Burke, new books: Comparative and General Grammar, Syntax and Semantics

Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar

Balari, Sergio (Universitat Auto'noma de Barcelona) and Dini, Luca (Centro
per Elaborazione del Linguaggio e dell'Informazione (CELI) and Scuola
Normale Superiore); ROMANCE IN HPSG; ISBN: 1-57586-082-1 (paper),
1-57586-083-X (cloth); 408 pp. CSLI Publications 1998:
http://csli-www.stanford.edu/publications/
email: pubsroslin.stanford.edu.

	This volume addresses several aspects of the syntax and semantics
of Romance Languages from the constraint-based, lexicalist perspective of
Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG).
	The papers in this volume not only broaden the empirical coverage
of HPSG, but also discuss the significant implications of Romance languages
for the development of HPSG theory. Among the critical topics discussed in
this book are: bounded and unbounded dependency constructions, argument
structure, the syntax and semantics of quantification, null complements,
missing object constructions, cliticization, and the syntax and semantics
of nominal expressions.

*************************
CSLI Publications
Ventura Hall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-4115
Telephone (650) 723-1839
Fax (650) 725-2166
http://csli-www.stanford.edu/publications

Comparative and General Grammar, Syntax and Semantics

Butt, Miriam (University of Konstanz) and Geuder, Wilhelm (University of
Tuebingen); ISBN: 1-57586-110-0 (paper), 1-57586-111-9 (cloth); 366 pp.
CSLI Publications 1998: http://csli-www.stanford.edu/publications/
email: pubsroslin.stanford.edu.

	It is becoming increasingly clear that the classic approach to
linking which accounts for the projection of arguments into the syntax in
terms of thematic roles (and/or some kind of lexical decomposition), has
some serious shortcomings. This volume sets out to explore possible
alternatives, which call into question the assumption that projection is
rigidly determined by fixed lexical entries. Coming from varied
backgrounds, the papers collected here converge on the general hypothesis
that many semantic factors which influence the projection of arguments
should instead be attributed to compositional and combinatorial processes.
Proposals are presented for reassessment of the lexicon-syntax interface
that include models of building up variants of lexical meanings in a
flexible manner, as well as models where much of the putative role of
lexical entries is supplanted by the structural context, in particular by
functional projections.
	Among the topics addressed are questions of argument hierarchies
and adicity of predicates, and the syntax and semantics of argument
alternations in a set of very diverse languages which include English,
Dutch, Scottish Gaelic, Finnish, Hebrew, Kannada, Malay, Greenlandic
Eskimo, and Yaqui.

*************************
CSLI Publications
Ventura Hall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-4115
Telephone (650) 723-1839
Fax (650) 725-2166
http://csli-www.stanford.edu/publications

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1998 Contributors