On Pseudogapping in HPSG

On Pseudogapping in HPSG* Dong-woo Park Department of Laguage and Literature, Seoul National University 599 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 151-742, Korea pdw83@snu.ac.kr Abstract. This study investigates the constraints imposed on the pseudogapping in the framework of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). Based on the existing schema to account for coordination and gapping, a new pseudogapping schema in coordination structures is proposed in this paper. In the process of capturing the constraints, new DOM lists are added and an existing DOM list is divided into two DOM lists depending on the feature of elements in each domain. Furthermore, new features SEP and INC are introduced. SEP is used for distinguishing prepositions which should be located in the same domain with the following NPs from those which can be separated from the following NPs. INC feature determines whether overlapping adverbs are in non-empty lists or not. Pseudogapping occurs not only in coordination structures, but in comparative or subordination structures. Thus, this paper introduces a pseudogapping schema that can be applied to all structures mentioned above. Keywords: DOM lists, SEP feature, INC feature, pseudogapping schema. Copyright 2009 by Dong-woo Park 1 Introduction English has ellipsis like these examples. (1) a. Sluicing: She read something, but she won’t say what [vP ]. b. Verb Phrase Ellipsis: She read something and he did [vP ] too. c. Pseudogapping: She’ll read something to Sam, but she won’t [vP ] to Billy. d. Gapping: Some read something to Sam and others [vP ] to Billy. e. Right Node Raising: She deliberately [vP ], and he accidentally, read something. f. Comparative Deletion: Mary has read more books than Bill has [vP ]. (Johnson, 2008) Sentences in (1) have a certain phenomenon in common. In those sentences except (1e), reduplicated elements of the right clause are elided, remaining their antecedent in the left clause. vP-ellipsis is referred to phenomenon that the vP in the right clause is elided, except an auxiliary verb. On the other hand, gapping involves the deletion of finite verb, remaining its arguments. Pseudogapping shares its characteristics with gapping and vP ellipsis. Generally, pseudogapping occurs in coordination structures, such as (1c). However, it is related to not only coordination structures, but also subordination structures and comparative structures. 425 23rd Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation, pages 425–434 (2) If you don’t believe me, you will [vP ] the weatherman. (Levin, 1978) (3) John gave Bill a lot more money than Bill will [vP ] Susan. (Bowers, 1998) In HPSG, studies related to gapping have not flourished and even there is no schema which can account for pseudogapping. In this paper, I will examine some previouse studies of pseudogapping within the Minimalist Program. And then, a gapping schema in HPSG will be modified in order to explain pseudogapping in a proper way. So a new schema will be introduced that can capture the characteristics of pseudogapping in subordination and comparative structures as well as coordination structures. 2 Previous studies 2.1 Takahashi (2003) Takahashi (2003) compares two …

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