- PDF Free Download

Transcription

1 Scrambling in German { Extraction into te Mittelfeld Stefan Muller y Humboldt Universitat zu Berlin August, 199 Abstract German is a language wit a relatively free word order. During te last few years considerable eorts ave been made in all syntactic frameworks to explain so-called scrambling penomena. In te following paper, I deal wit some toug cases of German word order wic cannot be described by assuming at sentence structures or word order domains. Te penomena discussed are PP complements of nouns and adjectives, wic can appear separated from teir eads in te German Mittelfeld, and stranded prepositions. Te similarity to fronting of tese elements is used to explain tese penomena by a generalized version of te ead-ller scema used in te standard HPSG framework. Subject Areas: Nontransformational syntax of German, HPSG 1 Introduction Tere are two basic ideas ow to describe scrambling in languages wit relatively free constituent order in certain syntactic domains. Firstly, one can assume tat a kind of movement takes place, i.e., tere is a position in a string were someting is missing (a trace) and tere is a corresponding position at anoter location in te string were te missing constituent appears. Te alternative is to allow constituents to appear in any order in some particular domain. Tis domain usually is te domain of te ead of a prase. In HPSG [], order variation is commonly associated wit ordering variations among sister constituents in a at structure. Tis concept was extended by Mike Reape [] to allow for complex domain formation operations wic in is approac are driven by a feature called UNIO- NED. In te combination of signs, a functor can specify te UNIONED value of its arguments. Te functor is eiter te ead in a ead-complement structure or te adjunct in a ead-adjunct structure. If one allows adjuncts to domain-union wit teir eads, te fact tat adjuncts can appear at any position between complements in te Mittelfeld can be accounted for. In te following, I will give an account tat employs bot word order domains and te NONLOCAL-mecanism provided by HPSG. I will not use te UNIONEDfeature suggested by Reape since it can be sown tat te clause union penomena wic Reape describes wit domain-union can be accounted for wit argument attraction along te lines of Hinrics and Nakazawa [1]. Stefan.Mueller@dfki.de y Tanks to Frank Keller and Andreas Katol for comments on an earlier version of tis paper. Tis paper appeard in te proceedings of te tent Pacic Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation, Hong Kong, 199. Te full version of tis paper is available via WWW ttp:// scrambling.tml

2 Penomena Te German main sentence is partitioned into at least four topological elds: Vorfeld, linke Satzklammer (nite verb), Mittelfeld and recte Satzklammer or Verbalkomplex (verb cluster). Sentences wit a verb in second position are assumed to be derived from sentences wit verb-initial position by fronting of one constituent. It is possible to front almost all kinds of constituents. In (1) for instance, te indirect object is fronted. (1) [Dem Mann] i at die Frau i das Buc gegegeben. Te man as te woman te book given `Te woman as given te book to te man.' Te fronted element can be extracted from an arbitrarily deep level. () a. [Von Maria] abe ic [ein Bild i ] ins Potoalbum geklebt. of Maria ave I a picture into te album sticked `I ave sticked a picture of Maria into te album.' b. [Dagegen] i at Hans [ein Argument i ] vorgebract. against tis as Hans an argument advanced `Hans as advanced an argument against tis.' c. [Auf seinen Son] i war Karl gestern ser [ i stolz]. of is son was Karl yesterday very proud `Karl was very proud of is son yesterday.' Wereas te fronting of one constituent is usually explained by HPSG's NON- LOCAL mecanism, te free order of te complements of te verb in te Mittelfeld is standardly explained by allowing te complements of one ead to appear in an arbitrary order. Te restrictions on tis order are factored out of te dominance rules. Te restrictions for complements of verbs are very weak, so in () all permutations of te complements of geben are allowed. () Desalb gab der Mann der Frau das Buc. Terefore gave te man te woman te book `Terefore te man gave te book to te woman.' (b) sows tat preposition stranding is possible in certain cases. () a. Hans at ein Argument dagegen vorgebract. Hans as an argument against tis advanced 'Hans as advanced an argument against tis.' b. [Da] i at Hans ein Argument [gegen i ] vorgebract. tis as Hans an argument against advanced However, as te examples in () sow, preposition stranding in general is ungrammatical. Te stranding is restricted to very few cases were so-called R-pronouns [] are extracted from te preposition. () a. * [Diesen Vorsclag] i at Hans ein Argument [gegen i ] vorgebract. tis proposal as Hans an argument against advanced All tese frontable elements can appear disconnected from teir eads in noncanonical positions in te Mittelfeld.

3 () a., da [von Micael Hanson] i jetzt nur noc [wenige Bilder i ] tat of Micael Hanson now only few pictures veroentlict werden. publised are `tat only few pictures of Micael Hanson are publised.' b. Desalb at Hans [dagegen] i [ein Argument i ] vorgebract. Terefore as Hans against-tis an argument advanced `Terefore Hans as advanced an argument against tis.' c. Ic wei, da Karl [auf seinen Son] i gestern ser [ i stolz] war. I know tat Karl of is son yesterday very proud was `I know tat Karl was very proud of is son yesterday.' d. Desalb at Karl [da] i [ein Argument [gegen i ]] vorgebract. Terefore as Karl tis an argument against advanced `Terefore Karl as advanced an argument against tis.' Te sentences in () are not accounted for by te standard HPSG approac. Te elements tat are scrambled into te Mittelfeld are not complements of a verb but rater complements of nouns, prepositions or adjectives. In te following, I will argue tat all tese sentences can be analyzed as instances of leftward movement by means of te NONLOC-mecanism provided by HPSG. Te Analysis.1 Scemata and Domain Formation Instead of aving or scemata for combining eads wit teir complements like Pollard and Sag [], I use only one very general ead-complement scema. It admits exactly one complement in te COMP-DTRS list, wic leads to binary brancing structures. It is clear tat it would not be of muc use to be able to order te ead daugter and te members of te COMP-DTRS list wit respect to eac oter because tis would not be sucient to account for te scrambling of complements (see sentence ()). To allow for scrambling, complements are inserted into te domain of teir eads by te following implication: i dtrs dtrs ead-dtrjdom 1 ead-complement-structure ) comp-dtrs prasal-sign dom 1 Te is te sue relation as used by Reape []. Te sue relation olds between tree lists A, B, and C i C contains all elements of A and B and te order of te elements of A and te order of elements of B is preserved in C. So if a and b are elements of A and a precedes b in A it as to precede b in C too. Te PHON value of a prasal sign is te concatenation of te PHON values of its domain elements. prasal-sign pon 1... n i * # ) dom pon 1,..., sign pon n sign # + () (8)

4 In (8) corresponds to te append relation. Te positioning of one constituent in te Vorfeld is usually accounted for by a ead-ller scema wic is similar to scema of Pollard and Sag [].. Stranded Prepositions For te stranded preposition gegen, I assume te lexical entry in (9), wic is generated by a lexical rule from te lexical entry for te preposition gegen. pon gegen i # loc cat ead pform gegen prep subcat i nonloc inerjslas R-PRONOUN i lexical-sign Te LOCAL value of an R-pronoun is contained in te SLASH list (I assume te value of SLASH to be a list rater ten a set for German, since tere are no parasitic gaps in German. Sets as used in [] would only complicate te NONLOCAL mecanism in a grammar for German.) and can percolate to te top of a nite verbal projection were it can be bound in ller position. Note tat da is never a complement of gegen. It is eiter contained in te word (dagegen) or it is an element of te SLASH list. As te output description of te preposition stranding lexical rule furter instantiates te extracted element and terefore only allows for te extraction of R-pronouns, te dierence between (b) and (a) is explained.. Te SLASH-Embedding Scema Te sentences in () ave in common tat a member of a nonverbal complement's SLASH list appears togeter wit tis complement in te domain of te verb. Tis can be accounted for by scema 1. In tis scema, te valence of te ead daugter is reduced by one element, specically te element given as te value of te COMP-DTRS list. Tis complement as a non-empty SLASH list. One element of te SLASH list is identical to te LOCAL value of te SCRAMBLE-DTR ( 1 ). Tis element of te SLASH list of te complement daugter is bound by te NONLOCAL-feature principle because te TO-BINDjSLASH value of te ead daugter is 1. Te scramble and te complement daugter are inserted into te domain of te ead daugter by anoter implicational constraint. Conclusion A unied account for scrambling in German was given. Bot stranded preposition and te scrambling of PPs into te Mittelfeld ave been explained by te same scema. Te proposed scrambling scema is superior to bot slas-to-argument attraction and domain union analyses by Kasper, Pollard and Levine [], wic are discussed in te full version of te paper []. In te full version of te paper, an account wit binary brancing structures is given. Te scema is part of an implemented fragment of German []. Te fragment covers several types of word order penomena for instance partial verb prase fronting, (9)

5 Scema 1 (SLASH-Embedding Scema) dtrs ead-dtr jnonloc to-bindjslas D 1 E # comp-dtrs * loc cat ead non-verbal i # nonloc inerjslas D 1 E # + scramble-dtrs * loc 1 nonloc inerjslas i + ead-scramble-structure prasal-sign auxiliary ip, scrambling in coerent constructions, free appearance of adjuncts in te Mittelfeld. References [1] Erard W. Hinrics and Tsuneko Nakazawa. Subcategorization and VP Structure in German. In Aspects of German VP Structure, SfS-Report Eberard-Karls-Universitat Tubingen, [] Stefan Muller. Scrambling in German { Extraction into te Mittelfeld, 199. ttp:// scrambling.tml [] Stefan Muller. Head-Driven Prase Structure Grammar fur das Deutsce. Vorlesungsskripte Computerlinguistik. Humboldt Universitat zu Berlin, 199. ttp:// [] Carl Pollard and Ivan A. Sag. Head-Driven Prase Structure Grammar. University of Cicago Press, 199. [] Carl J. Pollard, Robert T. Kasper, and Robert D. Levine. Studies in Constituent Ordering: Toward a Teory of Linearization in Head-Driven Prase Structure Grammar, 199. Researc Proposal to te National Science Foundation. [] Mike Reape. Domain Union and Word Order Variation in German, 199. [] Henk van Riemsdijk. A Case Study in Syntactic Markedness. Te Binding Nature of Prepositional Prases. Te Peter de Ridder Press, Lisse, 198.