Stefan Mueller (stefan@compling.hu-berlin.de)
Fri, 21 Jul 95 14:19:12 +0200
> As an hpsg novice can I ask how Andreas Kathol's example is handled: > > (1) Ein [NOM] Fehler unterlaufen ist ihr noch nie. `A mistake has never yet > happened to her'. > > My question is how hpsg allows the subject to combine with the verb before > the complement does. There is a footnote in German in HPSG in the article of Carl Pollard at page 273. He cites a paper of Baker that is available by now. @booklet{Baker94, author = {Kathryn L. Baker}, title = {An Integrated Account of "`Modal Flip"' and Partial Verb Phrase Fronting in German}, publisher = {The University of Chicago}, howpublished = {\htmladdnormallink{ftp://ling.ohio-state.edu/pub/HPSG/Workshop.LLI.94/baker-cls.ps} {ftp://ling.ohio-state.edu/pub/HPSG/Workshop.LLI.94/baker-cls.ps}}, note = {erscheint in CLS 30-I: Papers from the Thirtieth Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society}, year = 1994} Following Baker's idea, logical subjects of nonagentive verbs are treated as complements, i.e. they never appear in the SUBJ-list but instead are members of the COMPS-list. This might solve the problem with fronting of ergative verbs. It does not solve the problem for fronted participles in passive constructions. Und rate mal, was dann gemacht wurde. (1) [Ein Witz erzaehlt] wurde. a joke telled was nom In most analysises of German passive it is assumed that passive is an instance of Object-to-Subject-raising (Kathol 94, Pollard 94). So in (1) the arguments of 'erzaehlt' are attracted by 'wurde'. (2) Karl erzaehlt einen Witz. Karl tells a joke. nom acc In (1) the subject of 'wurde' is fronted together with the main verb. I believe that there is no way to explain (1) in the current HPSG framework. The parallels between ergative constructions and passive constructions cannot be accounted for easily. I guess one would need some nasty additional features to cope with sentences like (1). [Ein solch schoenes Geschenk gemacht] [wurde mir noch nie ]. nom part fin dat a such nice present made was me never > There is a paper by Hubert Haider, Univ. of Stuttgart, where he discusses issues > such as the effects that definiteness, intransitivization etc. can have on these > types of constructions. > The title is "Topicalization and other puzzles of German syntax". Unfortunately > I only have a manuscript version, but I am pretty sure that it appeared > somewhere. Maybe somebody else can help with the bib-ref. It must have appeared > sometimes after 1987. > Klaus @incollection{Haider90, Author = {Hubert Haider}, title = {{Topicalization and other Puzzles of German Syntax}}, Booktitle = {Scrambling and Barriers}, Editor = {G"unther Grewendorf and Wolfgang Sternefeld}, Publisher = {John Benjamins Publishing Company}, Pages = {93--112}, Series = {Linguistik Aktuell / Linguistics Today}, Adress = {Amsterdam, Philadelphia}, Year = 1990} -------------------------------------------------- Stefan M"uller Institut f"ur deutsche Sprache und Linguistik Lehrstuhl Computerlinguistik Humboldt Universit"at zu Berlin J"agerstra"se 10/11 10099 Berlin Tel: 030-20192-552 WWW-Homepage: http://www.compling.hu-berlin.de/~stefan/
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