Abstract
LFG rule systems that embody the explanatory principles of X-bar
theory appear to allow for arbitrary repetitions of nodes, particularly
complements and coheads, that map to the same f-structure.
Such X-bar compliant grammars thus fail to meet the requirements
for tractable computation that have been identified in recent work
(Wedekind & Kaplan, in press). This raises the question whether
those grammars also fail of descriptive accuracy in that they provide
for derivations with syntactic dependencies that are not attested in
natural languages. We address what may be regarded as a discrepancy
between explanatory and descriptive adequacy by imposing finite
bounds on the degree of discontinuity of grammatical functions
and the number of nodes in functional domains. We introduce additional
filtering conditions on derivations, along the lines of Completeness
and Coherence and the original nonbranching dominance
prohibition, that make it possible to decide that derivations respect
those bounds. Grammars that embody the principles of X-bar theory
and satisfy these bounds and additional requirements are amenable
to tractable processing.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | The Proceedings of the LFG '19 Conference |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Publisher | CSLI Publications |
| Publication status | Accepted/In press - 2019 |
| Event | The 24th International LFG Conference - Canberra, Australia Duration: 8 Jul 2019 → 10 Jul 2019 http://www.dynamicsoflanguage.edu.au/lfg-2019/ |
Conference
| Conference | The 24th International LFG Conference |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | Australia |
| City | Canberra |
| Period | 08/07/2019 → 10/07/2019 |
| Internet address |