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.