word order and constituent structure in german

8/12/2019 Word Order and Constituent Structure in German

1/194

CENTER FOR THE STUDY

OF LANGUAGE

AND INFORMATION


2/194

CSLILecture Notes

NumberS

WORD ORDER

AND CONSTITUENT

STRUCTURE

INGERMAN

Hans Uszkoreit


3/194

CSLI was founded ea.rly in 1983 by researchers from Stanford University,

SRI International, and Xerox PARC to further research and development

of integrated theories of language, information, and computation. CSLIheadquarters and the publication offices are located at the Stanford site.

CSLIjSRI International

333 Ravenswood A venue

Menlo Park, CA 94025

CSLljStanford

Ventura Ha.ll

Stanford, CA 94305

CSLIjXerox PARC

3333 Coyote Hill Road

Palo Alto, CA 94304

Library of Congress Catalog Card N uruber: 87-70'215

ISBN 0-937073-09-1 (Cloth)

ISBN 0-937073-10-5 (Paper)

Copyright @1987

Center for the Study of Language and Information

Lela.nd Sta.nford Junior University

Printed in the Uniteel Sta.tes


4/194

Preface

This book is based on my Ph.D. thesis for the University of Texas atAustin. I thank the members of my dissertation committee Lauri

Karttunen, Lee Baker, W.P. Lehmann, Stanley Peters, and Elaine Rich

for their support and patience. Special thanks go to Lauri Karttunen

who has been extremly stimulating as a teacher and colleague and very

supportive as my thesis supervisor. I have also benefitted a great deal

from interaction with Stanley Peters in classes, discussions, and joint

research.

Large parts of the research were conducted at the Center for the

Study of Language and Information at Stanford University. The mul-tidisciplinary research environment at CSLI was an ideal setting for the

enterprise.

I would like to thank very much the people in the Artificial Intel-

ligence Center at SRI where most parts of the book were written. They

have created a very stimulating and pleasant atmosphere for both

research and writing. Let me mention here only a few: John Bear, Bar-

bara Grosz, Fernando Pereira, Jane Robinson, Stuart Shieber, and Susan

Stucky who have helped me through advice or through collaboration in

research groups.It is impossible to mention all the other people who have influenced

the book through personal discussions at The University of Texas, at the

Stanford University Linguistics Department, at the Center for Advanced

Study in the Behavioral Sciences, at SRI, and at the Center for the Study

of Language and Information. Among them are Manfred Bierwisch,

Robin Cooper, Elisabet Engdahl, Oliver Gajek, Irene Heim, Charles

Kirkpatrick, Ivan Sag, Dieter Wunderlich, and Annie Zaenen. I also

want to thank everybody who supplied me with corrections of earlier

drafts, especially Manfred Pinkal and Peter Sells. I have used parts ofthe book in courses at Stanford and in Munich. I am grateful to the

students in these classes, who gave me further comments and corrections,

If I had been able to follow all the advice I received, the outcome would

have become much better.

Thanks to the faculty and students of the Linguistics Department at

The University of Texas who have not only taught me about language

and languages but who have also helped to make my time in Austin a

wonderful and unforgettable experience. This stay would not have been

possible without the educational preparation I received from my linguis-

tics and computer science teachers in Berlin and without a two year

financial support from the German Fulbright Commission.

v


5/194

VI

My wife, Swanni Rusch, has supported me in such a variety of ways

that it would be inappropriate to list all of them here. Just to mention a

few, she has performed as an informant and critic and has assisted me in

typing and editing. I also need to acknowledge the moral support I

received from being with my son Jakob. When I started with theresearch, he was not even born. When I finally got around writing it all

down, his mastery of German had gone far beyond the fragment that is

analyzed in the book.

Parts of the research for -the book were made possible by a gift from

the Systems Development Foundation and carried out in cooperation

with CSLI Stanford. Other parts were funded by NSF Grant No.

IST -8307893.

Savel Kliachko my technical editor at SRI, who edited parts of the

book, not only gave me invaluable advice regarding English style, butwas also able to detect typos in the German examples. Dikran

Karagueuzian, the CSLI editor, directed the production process with a

very supportive mix of patience and insistence. The task of producing

the book was greatly eased by editing, formatting, and printing on com-

puter facilities at SRI and CSLI.

Stanford

December, 1986


6/194

Contents

Introduction 1

1 Issues and Results 12 Some Theoretical Premises 3

3 Theoretical Context 5

4 The Structure of the Book 6

1 Basic Facts About German Word Order 8

1 Introduction 8

2 The Position of the Finite Verb 9

2.1 Three Clause Types 9

2.2 Verb-Second Clauses 9

2.3 Verb-Initial Clauses 11

2.4 Verb-Final Clauses 13

2.5 Summary of the Three Clause Types 13

3 The Order Within the Verb Group 15

4 The Order Within the Field of Verbal Arguments

and Free Adjuncts 18

5 The First Position in Verb-Second Clauses 24

6 Constituents Outside the Clause Core 28

2 The Framework of GPSG 31

1 Introduction 31

2 Basic Outline of the Theory 32

3 The Object Grammar 32

4 The Metagrammar 34

5 The Semantics of GPSG 38

6 Notes on the Generative Power of GPSG 39

7 GPSG and Word Order Freedom 44

Vll


7/194

Vlll

3 The Order of Main and Auxiliary Verbs 48

1 Introduction 48

2 The Position of the Main Verb 49

2.1 Basic VP Rules and Flat Clauses 49

2.2 Apparent Subject-Object Asymmetries 53

2.3 Features and Rules 60

2.4 Notes on the Semantics of VP and Clause Rules 63

3 Auxiliaries and Modals 65

3.1 Auxiliary VP and Clause Rules 65

3.2 Some Consequences and Results of the

Auxiliary Rule 68

3.3 Main Verb Analysis Versus Flat AUX Node 71

3.4 Some Notes on the Semantics of theAuxiliary System 74

4 Verb-Second Clauses 75

4 Separable Prefixes 81

1 Introduction 81

2 The Rules 83

3 Alternative Proposals 88

4 Separable Prefixes and Topicalization 100

5 Conclusion 107

5 The Order of Verbal Complements and Adjuncts 113

1 Introduction 113

2 The Modified Framework 115

3 Discussion of the Analysis 119

3.1 Discussion of the General Approach 121

6 Evaluation and Expendability of the Grammar 128

1 Introduction 128

2 Properties of the Grammar 129

2.1 Basic Theoretical Properties of GFG 129

2.2 Generative Capacity and Implementability 130

3 Expandability 132

3.1 Additional Verb Sub categorization Frames 132

3.1.1. The Specification of the Unmarked Order 133

3.1.2. Subjectless Verbs 143

3.2 Adverbial Phrases 1453.3 Expletive es 147

3.4 Focus Raising 151

3.5 Additional Types of Topicalization 156


8/194

IX

7 Conclusion 161

1 A Selective Summary 161

2 Directions for Further Research 162

A Rules of GFG 164A.l Basic Rules 164

A.2 Metarules 165

A.3 Feature Cooccurrence Restrictions 165

A.4 Linear Precedence Rules 166

Bibliography 167

Author Index 175

Subject Index 177


9/194


10/194

Introd uction

1 Issues and Results

The main problem addressed in this book is the question of whether and

how the syntax of a language with partially free word order can be

analyzed in a nontransformational grammatical framework that is highly

constrained and computationally tractable, and whether such an analysis

can yield an insightful and elegant description of the relevant data. The

language chosen for analysis is German; the grammatical framework is a

modification of the immediate dominance/linear prededence (ID/LP) ver-

sion of Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar (GPSG).

There are a number of reasons that support the choice of German asthe language to be analyzed. German exhibits an interesting interaction

of configurational and nonconfigurational syntactic properties. The lan-

guage has been described and discussed extensively in the linguistic

literature. Most of its syntactic phenomena are well attested. At the

time this research was started, no work had been done on German in one

of the relevant current nontransformational frameworks. With a native

speaker of German as the author, introspection could be substituted for

more time consuming techniques of checking relevant data wherever it

seemed necessary or appropriate.The main reason for choosing GPSG as the framework for the

proposed analysis is the recent addition of the so-called immediate

dominance/linear precedence format to the formalism. The ID/LP ver-

sion of GPSG provides the tools for encoding grammars with different

degrees of word order freedom, while still prohibiting many types of con-

stituent permutations that do not occur in natural languages. The ver-

sion of the framework that is employed for the description of German is

a highly constrained two level phrase structure grammar with desirable

computational properties.The application of this framework to German syntax has been fru.t-

ful. The following is a summary of the main results.

1


11/194

2 Introduction

1.A phrase structure grammar for a fragment of German is

presented that encompasses the basic syntactic structures of

the language including the word-order-related phenomena and

their interactions. The fragment exhibits-among

others-the following phenomena:

a. Word order differences between main clauses and sub-

ordinate clauses.

b. The second position of the verb in assertion mam

clauses.

c. The order among main, auxiliary, and modal verbs.

d. Separable-prefix verbs.

e. The partially free order among the arguments of the

main verb.

2. A modification of the ID /LP version of GPSG is proposed.

The modified framework allows adequate encoding of the

competing principles that determine the order of verb ar-

guments and adjuncts. The suggested interface between syn-

tax and pragmatics permits description of the interaction be-

tween syntactic and discourse-determined ordering principles.

The modifications preserve the desirable formal properties of

the framework.3. The expandability of the grammar to other syntactic

phenomena of German is discussed. This discussion focuses

on the question of whether the grammar can be expanded

without sacrificing any of its desirable formal properties and

elegant encoding strategies. The discussion arrives at positive

perspectives for phenomena such as additional

sub categorization frames for verbs, clausal subjects and

objects, subjectless verbs, adverbial phrases, and focus rais-

mg.4. Within the discussion of the expandability of the grammar,

special attention is given to the question of which linguistic

classes of concepts need to be utilized to express ordering con-

straints. The particular problem is the case of the

unmarked-order principle. Recent work on the topic (Lenerz

(1977)) suggests that this principle should be stated in terms

of grammatical functions such as subject and object. Most

grammars in the GPSG tradition state ordering rules in terms

of syntactic categories such as NP and VP. The grammar ofthe fragment follows the GPSG tradition, but extends the or-

dering rules to refer to case features. In this discussion it is

argued that ordering rules need to refer to both syntactic

categories (including case features) and thematic roles such as

agent and theme, but not to grammatical functions.


12/194


13/194

4 Introduction

ponent proposed in this book implies a different prediction. Languages

with relatively strict word order will possess many simple LP rules; free-

word-order languages, on the other hand, will have fewer LP rules that

are much more complex. These complex ordering rules are based on the

assumption that the order in free-word-order languages can be called freeonly if one restricts one's attention to syntactic ordering principles.

Proponents of several non-Anglocentric linguistic theories, especially

linguists in the school of Functional Sentence Perspective, have stressed

the fact that the perceived word order freedom in Slavic languages and in

German cannot be treated as free variation. That freedom is in fact

severely constrained by the interaction of pragmatic, syntactic, and

phonological principles. Acceptance of this interaction is another premise

underlying the analysis to be presented.

A standard strategy of Tranformational Grammar has been theseparation of so-called stylistic or scrambling transformations from the

other transformation rules. Often a stylistic component of the grammar

has been assumed, that is governed by a completely different set of

regularities. The linguist working within the framework of GPSG does

not have this option. Since he works with only one level of syntactic

representations, that corresponds to the level of surface structure in a

transformational grammar, he cannot detach one kind of ordering

mechanism from others.

Another premise follows from the two-level grammar theory ofGPSG. Since LP rules operate on phrase structure rules, only sibling

constituents can be permuted. This approach is much more restricted

than, say, transformational theories or a recent proposal by Martin Kay1

for FUG. It follows from the way the LP component is defined, that all

LP rules apply in the derivation of a PS rule, i.e., the same ordering

rules apply to all sets of sibling constituents, independently of their

parent and the rest of the tree.

Throughout the presentation of the analysis, semantics is discussed

only where it is not immediately obvious what the semantic counterpartsof the syntactic rules could be. There is some limited discussion of dis-

course roles such as topic and focus. It is indicated how their contribu-

tion to the nontruthconditional part of the meaning of a sentence can be

connected with just the right ordering variants. However, little is said

about the many interesting semantic problems that arise from the inter-

action of discourse role assignment by word order and such semantic con-

cepts as quantifier scope, definiteness, specificity, illocutions, etc.

The assumed relationship between word order and semantics rests on

the following (simplified) premise. The variations that arise throughfreedom in word order belong to the larger class of permutational varia-

tions. These are syntactic relationships associating sets of sentences that

1Talk at CSLI (Stanford University) in Spring 1984.


14/194

Some Theoretical Premises 5

differ from one another only in the order of constituents and in certain

nontruthconditional parts of their meanings. All permutational variants

of a sentence share with it the expressed proposition. Excluded from this

generalization are preferences in the resolution of quantifier scope am-

biguities and anaphora binding.The last premise to be mentioned here is concerned with the criteria

that are applied to the formal properties of the grammar formalism. It

has been demonstrated by Uszkoreit and Peters (1983) that an un-

restricted GPSG has Turing machine power. The restricted version of

GPSG that is described in Gazdar and Pullum (1982a) and that is

employed in many recent applications of the framework permits gram-

mars for context-free languages only. There exists strong evidence that

at least some natural languages are not context-free (Culy (1984), Shieber

(1984)). On the other hand, it seems that the additional power neededdoes not go far beyond context-freeness. Exactly how much additional

power is needed is currently an open question.

Another open question is whether a classification based on the

proper-inclusion classes of the Chomsky hierarchy can be an appropriate

measurement of the computational complexity of natural language syn-

tax. There are indications that it cannot. So far, linguists have not been

able to define or even agree on a useful characterization of necessary and

sufficient complexity. When the grammar to be presented here starts out

from the version of the framework that is constrained to context-freeness,this move does not imply that the particular constraint is linguistically

justified. In fact, we have argued elsewhere that it is not (Uszkoreit and

Peters (1983), Shieber et al. (1983a)). Moreover, it is not known whether

Standard German is a context-free language. However, the strategy is to

start with the artificially constrained version of GPSG and then to show

that neither of the proposed rules nor the redefinition of the formalism

will require any additional generative power. By following this strategy

it can be demonstrated that, independently of any future revelations

regarding the computational complexity of German and other naturallanguages, the presented analysis of German word order, along with t.he

proposed changes in the framework, does not increase the generative

power and thus keeps the formalism computationally tractable.

3 Theoretical Context

The purpose of this short section is to list selected of publications that

have influenced the analysis of German and the extensions to t.he

framework either directly or indirectly.The research was influenced by work in all contemporary major l:in-

guistic theories. In the tradition of generative transformational gram-

mars, it was mainly early work by Bach (1962) and Bierwisch (1971) that

had an impact on all subsequent research on German syntax. Craig


15/194

6 Introduction

Thiersch's dissertation (1978) analyzes a number of problems in German

syntax in the framework of GB.

The first major GPSG for a language with relatively free word order

is that of Stucky (1981). GPSG research on word order entered a new

phase with the introduction of the ID/LP formalism (Gazdar and Pullum(1982b )). Some preliminary results of this research are reported in

Uszkoreit (1982a; 1982b; 1983). An important and comprehensive piece

of work on a free word order language in LFG is found in Simpson

(1983). There is only published application of FUG to a language with

more word order freedom than English-Karttunen and Kay's

(1983) paper on Finnish.

The Prague group has been carrying on the theory of Functional

Sentence Perspective (Sgall, Hajicova, and Benesova (1973)). Their cur-

rent framework has its roots in Dependency Grammar. Montague gram-mars for fragments of German varying in size can be found in von

Stechow (1978), Jacobs (1982) and Zaefferer (1984). Of special impor-

tance for the empirical part of this book were the following books and

papers: Lenerz (1977), Wunderlich (1983a; 1983b), and Heidolph et al.

(1981).

Readers whose bibliographic curiosity has not yet been sated, should

consult Etzensperger (1979) and Scaglione (1981).

4 The Structure of the Book

Chapter 1 provides a descriptive account of the syntactic phenomena

that are exhibited by the fragment. This chapter serves the sole purpose

of familiarizing the reader with well-attested data. New observations are

discussed in later chapters in connection with the proposed analysis.

Chapter 2 offers an overview of the framework of GPSG, concentrat-

ing on the ID/LP version of the formalism.

The grammar for the fragment of German is presented in Chapters

3, 4, and 5. Chapter 3 describes the analysis for the positions of mainand auxiliary verbs. It starts out with a specification of the fragment.

Subsequent sections introduce rules for verb-initial and verb-final clauses,

for auxiliary and modal verbs, and for verb-second sentences.

Chapter 4 is dedicated to the notoriously difficult problem of

separable prefixes. There it is argued that an analysis is required that

employs non-structure-building lexical rules. The solution is compared

with related proposals. Its theoretical relevance for determining the bor-

derline between syntax and morphology is discussed. It is also shown

that the analysis avoids a relaxation of the Lexical Integrity Hypothesis.Chapter 5 deals with the linear order of the main verb's arguments.

Whereas the preceding two chapters had to account for the coexistence of

different word orders in the same language, Chapter 6 provides a gram-

mar for that part of German that exhibits the highest degree of word


16/194

The Structure of the Book 7

order freedom. The LP component of GPSG is redefined to account for

the interaction of several constraints on the ordering freedom. It is

described how the rich feature system can serve as the interface between

syntax and pragmatics.

Chapter 6 discusses the essential properties of the analysis. The dis-cussion then turns to the question of whether these properties could be

preserved if the grammar were to be extended to wider coverage. Pos-

sible extensions to a number of additional phenomena are investigated.

Among the latter are clausal subjects and objects, subjectless sentences,

adverbial phrases, and focus raising.

The conclusion sums up the principal results and suggests directions

for further research.


17/194

Chapter 1

Basic Facts About German Word Order

1 Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to provide the reader with the necessarybackground for the discussion of the GPSG analyses in Chapter 3. The

present chapter suffers somewhat from the well-known but unavoidable

difficulties that arise when linguistic data are introduced separately from

their analysis. To reduce these difficulties to a minimum, many details

have been omitted that will be included later in Chapters 3 and 6. I

have also tried as much as possible to present the data in this chapter in

a theory-independent fashion.

A particular characteristic about German is its different word order

in main clauses and subclauses. Actually, there exist three clause typeswith respect to the position of the finite verb in the clause core.2 These

are described first. Then the order among the nonfinite verb forms and

among the other constituents of the sentence is discussed. The chapter

closes with a description of constituents that occur outside the clause

core, such as extrapositions.

2The meaning of the term clause core will be defined negatively in Section 6 by listing those

elements that do not belong to the clause core.

8


18/194

Introduction 9

2 The Position of the Finite Verb

2.1 Three Clause Types

German sentences have tense.3 The tense-marking morphemes are verb

affixes. Every German clause has exactly one finite top-level element,

which can be a main verb, a modal, an auxiliary, or a conjunction of

such elements. Traditionally, three ordering types of German sentences

are distinguished with respect to the position of the finite element in the

clause core: verb-initial, verb-second, and verb-final clauses.

It is necessary to use the concept of clause core or some equivalent in

its characterization, for there might be additional material preceding or

following the clause core. The order of the verb-second clause type has

often been called basic order,4 since most main clauses as well as a num-

ber of subordinate clauses follow this pattern. But, before I plunge any

deeper into the bottomless maelstrom of German clause structure, I

would like to give a brief characterization of the functional distribution

of the three sentence types.

In a typical assertion main clause, many arguments of the verb, in-

cluding the subject, can precede the finite verb. In addition, adverbs or

free adverbial phrases can occupy the first position. The full range of

constituents that qualify for the first position and the pragmatic con-straints that govern the choice of the fronted element are discussed in

more detail in Section 5; Chapter 3, Section 4; and Chapter 6, Section

3.5.

2.2 Verb-Second Clauses

Examples (la) and (lb) are main clauses with the finite verb in second

position:

3Exceptions can be found in some imperatives.

Immer auf den Verkehr achten!

always at the traffic pay-attention

Do watch the traffic always!

Other exceptions occur in dialects. The following tenseless sentence is acceptable in

Berlin dialect:

Der Olle seene Joren vakloppen, det ham wa jerne.

The old his kids thrash this have we like

That the father beats up his children, we really like that. (Ironic)

4This descriptive use of basic order must not be mistaken for the way the term is used by

typologists or within transformational grammar.


19/194

10 Basic Facts About German Word Order

(1)

a. Du kornmst morgen.

PRES-2S

You come

b. Morgen

tomorrow.

kornmst duoPRES-2S

Tomorrow come you.

As in English, these assertion clauses can also be used to express

questions or orders:

(2) Du kornmst morgen?

(3) Du kornmst morgen!

Main-clause constituent questions (with the possible exception of echo

questions) are another class of sentences that exhibit verb-second order.

(4) Wer kornmt morgen?

PRES-3S

Who comes tomorrow?

(5) Warm kornmst du?PRES-3S

When come you?

In constituent questions-again with the possible exception of echo

questions-the first position is occupied by a phrase containing the inter-

rogative element.

Although the finite verbs of subordinate clauses are usually clause-

final, there are cases in which the sentential complements of certain verbs

are in verb-second order.

(6) Ich weiB, du kornmst morgen.

I know you come tomorrow.

The phenomenon extends to subordinate questions.

(7) Ich frage mich, warm kornmst duo

I ask myself when come you.

These verb-second subordinate clauses carry a quotation character

analogous to their English counterparts in (8a) and (9a) (in contrast to

(8b) and (9b)).


20/194

The Position of the Finite Verb 11

(8)

a. I know, you're coming tomorrow.

b. I know that you're coming tomorrow.

(9)

a. I wonder when does he come.

b. I wonder when you are coming.

The quotation character is not present when the verb-second sub-

ordinate clause uses the first subjunctive to indicate indirect (reported)

speech.

(10) Peter sagte, er komme morgen.

SBJl

Peter said he come tomorrow

Peter said that he would come tomorrow.

2.3 Verb-Initial Clauses

Alternative questions in German, just as in, start with a finite verb form

when they are main clauses.

(11) Kommst du morgen?

come you tomorrow

Will you come tomorrow?

Syntactic imperatives-as distinct from other syntactic clause types,

which are used to convey orders or requests-are also verb-initial.

(12) Kommmorgen.

IMPCome tomorrow.

(13) KommenSie morgen.

IMP(formal)

come you tomorrow

Come tomorrow!

Antecedents of conditionals can be marked either by particles Like

wenn or falls (if or in case) or by the initial position of the finite verb.

(14) Wenn Peter morgen kommt, (dann) komme ich schon heute.

if Peter tomorrow comes (then) come I already today

If Peter comes tomorrow then I shall already come today.


21/194


(15) Kommt Peter morgen, (dann) komme ich schon heute.

comes Peter tomorrow (then) come I already today

If Peter comes tomorrow then I shall already come today.

Verb-initial clauses can also be found in interjections.

(16) Kommst Du doch wieder zu spat!

come you again too late

Oh., you are too late again!

(17) 1st das ein Sauwetter!

is this a sow-weather

This is really terrible weather!

Finally, there is at least one more class of verb-initial sentences:

subjunctive sub clauses introduced by ale, as in (18b) and (19b).5

(18)

a. Er benimmt sich, als ob er selten ptinktlich komme.

SBJ1

he behaves self as if he seldom on time come

He behaves as if he seldom came on time.

b. Er benimmt sich, als komme er selten ptinktlich.

SBJ1

he behaves self as come he seldom on time

He behaves as if he seldom came on time.

(19)

a. Sie behandelten ibn, als wenn er nie ptinktlich

they treated him as if he never on time

kame.

SBJ2

came

They treated him as if he never came on time.

b. Sie behandelten ibn, als kame er nie ptinktlich.

SBJ2

they treated him as came he never on time

They treated him as if he never came on time.

Sentences (18b) and (19b) are considered examples of verb-initial clauses,

even though the verb follows a subordinating conjunction, because in

5The examples are variations of Heidolph et al. (1981), p. 718, Abb. 21.


22/194


most analyses the subordinate clause(~nexpands to a subordinate con-junction (or some other complementizer) plus a clause (S).

2.4 Verb-Final Clauses

Subordinate clauses introduced by a conjunction, a complementizer, or a

phrase containing an interrogative or relative item are verb-final. Excep-

tions are illustrated in (18b) and (1gb) in Section 2.3.

(20) Peter kommt, nachdem Paul nach hause geht.

Peter comes after Paul to home goes

Peter comes after Paul goes home.

(21) Paul weiB, daB Peter nach hause kommt.

Paul knows that Peter to home comes

Peter knows that Peter is coming home.

(22) Paul weiB, wer in die Schule kommt.

Paul knows who to the school comes

Peter knows who is coming to school.

(23) PaulXennt den Mann, der zu spat kommt.Paul knows the man who too late comes

Paul knows the man who is late.

2.5 Summary of the Three Clause Types

With the exception of the position of the finite verb, I have not yet said

anything about German word order as such. Fortunately, there is a very

natural way of decomposing the problem further. To this end, let me

introduce the following four abbreviations: F will stand for the first ele-ment in verb-second clauses; A will be an abbreviation for syntactic ar-

guments of verbs, including the subject, and for any free adjuncts; VF1N

will be the finite verb; V1NF

symbolize any nonfinite verb form.

Strictly for expository purposes, without any claims being made with

regard to the constituent structure, the clause core strings for the three

clause types can be represented as follows.

(24)

a. F VFIN A* V;NF

b. VFIN A* V;NF

c. A* V;NF VFIN


23/194


The asterisk stands for the Kleene star as it is used in regular expres-

sions. Thus, the verb-second clause consists of some undetermined first

constituent, followed by a finite verb form, in turn followed by zero or

more arguments or adjuncts, finally followed by zero or more nonfinite

verb forms.

Only F and VFIN

are obligatory. F might be the subject of an in-

transitive verb, as in (25), or the sole argument of a subjectless verb'' as

in (26).

(25) Peter kommt.

Peter comes.

(26) Ihn friert.ACC 3S

him freezes

He is cold.

An example with one A and V1NF

each is (27).

(27) Das Paket hat die Post gebracht.

ACC PRES-3S NOM PSP

the parcel has the mail broughtThe parcel has come in the mail.

A verb-initial clause with a finite main verb and without any overt

arguments is the imperative in (28).

(28) Komm!

Come!

Verb-final sub clauses, as notated in (24c), are still incomplete becausethey have to be preceded by a relative phrase to form a relative clause or

by a subordinating conjunction to form other types of sub clauses. A*

can be empty only if the subject (or the obligatory argument of a sub-

jectless clause) has been relativized as in (29).

(29) Der Mann, der

NOM NOM

schlift, schnarcht.

PRES-3S

The man who sleeps snores.

The clause type schemata in (24) suggest the following useful sub-

division of the word order phenomena not yet discussed: the order within

6Subjectless verbs will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 6, Section 3.1.2.


24/194


A* (i.e., the ordering of subject, objects, other complements, and

adjuncts), the order of the nonfinite verb forms, and the nature of the

first element in verb-second sentences. I shall discuss each of these sub-

problems briefly. A section on those constituents that can be found out-

side the clause core will conclude this chapter.

3 The Order Within the Verb Group

In English, auxiliaries and modals occur in fixed order. In (30) no per-

mutations are allowed within the verb group.

(30) Peter could have been seen.

The German translation of (30), put in the verb-final subclause or-

der, shows a mirror image of the English verb sequence:

(31) ...weil Peter gesehen worden sein konnte.

because Peter seen been have could

... because Peter could have been seen.

In the corresponding main clause, the finite verb form occupies

second position. The sequence within the nonfinite verbs remains the

mirror image of the corresponding sequence in English:

(32) Peter konnte gesehen worden sein.

Again, in both (30) and (32), no permutations are possible within the

verb group. However, there are a number of differences between German

and English auxiliary strings; at this point I would like to mention just a

few of them.

There is no progressive aspect marking like the one achieved in

English by combining the auxiliary be with the suffix -ing.

(33) *Peter ist suchend.

Peter is searching.

The present-participle verb forms are restricted to adjectival use, as

in (34a) and (34b), to nominal modifiers, as in (34c), and to adjuncts, as

in (34d).

(34)

a. Peter ist fordernd.

Peter is demanding.

b. Paul ist noch fordernder.

Paul is even (more) demanding.


25/194


c. Der das Buch suchende Mann ist Peter.

the the book searching man is Peter

The man searching for the book is Peter.

d. Peter lief umher, das verlorene Buch suchend.

Peter ran around the lost book searchingPeter ran around, searching for the lost book.

There can be more than one modal in the verb group, as in (35).

(35) Peter will nach Hause gehen durfen.

Peter wants to home go may

Peter wants to be allowed to go home.

Will is a modal and has semantic scope over the other verbs. Example(36) is also a syntactically well-formed German sentence.

(36) Peter darf nach Hause gehen wollen.

Peter may to home go want

Peter is allowed to want to go home.

This time the modal dar f has widest scope.

Just as in certain Romance languages, there are two auxiliaries in

German that mark the perfective aspect of verbs: haben and sein. Thechoice depends on the individual main verb.

(37)

a. Peter hat geschlafen.

Peter has slept.

b. *Peter ist geschlafen.

Peter has slept.

(38)a. *Peter hat gelaufen.

Peter has run.

b. Peter ist gelaufen.

Peter has run.

Obviously, German modals need to have nonfinite as well as finite

forms to allow for double modals. This enables them to occur as well

between the main verb and the future auxiliary werden (39), or between

the main verb and the perfective auxiliaries haben or sein (40).

(39) Peter wird kommen durfen.

Peter will come may

Peter will be allowed to come.


26/194

The Order Within the Verb Group 17

(40) Peter hat kommen durfen.

Peter has come may

Peter has been allowed to come.

Many German verbs have, i.e., prefixes that seem to form a wordtogether with the verb in some cases and that are separated from its

stem in others. One class of these prefixes resembles the English verb

particles like up in (41).

(41) Peter picks the mail up.

The German translation in (42) shows the prefix separated from the

verb, just like the English particle in (41).

(42) Peter holt die Post abo

Peter picks the mail up.

It is only when the main verb assumes the first or second posrtron that

the particle is separated from the stem. In all other cases, including

deverbal members of other categories, the prefix appears as in (43).

(43)

a. Peter kann die Post abholen.Peter can the mail up-pick

Peter can pick the mail up.

b. Die Abholung ist urn 3 Uhr.

The pickup is at 3:00.

The position of the separated prefix is identical to the position of t.he

nonfinite verb group, i.e., at the end of the clause core. The (almost

complete) complementary distribution of separated prefix and nonfinite

verb string derives from the fact that the prefix can be separated only if

the main verb itself is finite. Separable prefixes will be discussed in

greater detail in Chapter 4.

The following schema summarizes the most relevant facts about the

order of the nonfinite verb string if it is neither empty nor formed by a

separated prefix.

(44) MY (PA) MA*(AA) MA*(FA)

MY- main verbPA -passive auxiliary

MA- modal auxiliary

AA -aspectual aux.

FA -future tense aux.

(geben)(werden)

[konnen}

(haben)

(werden)


27/194


28/194

The Order Within the Field of Verbal Arguments 19

b. Dann hatte es ihm einen groBen Spielzeuglaster

Then had it him a big toy truck

gegeben.

given.

All other grammatical permutations of the nominal elements of (4Gb)

are judged with respect to their acceptability somewhere between (4Gb)

and (46a). An important property of the ordering variation is the con-

textual dependence of permutation variants. A variant that appears ap-

propriate in one context might sound awkward in another. Word order

variability in German shares this property with many, if not all, free

word-order phenomena across languages. The investigation of contextual

dependence has led to interesting theoretical results for Hungarian,Japanese, and many Slavic languages, nor is the phenomenon lacking in

English. Sentences (47a) and (47b), which are related by permutation

and share the same propositional content, can differ in appropriateness,

depending upon their respective specific content.

(47)

a. I'll talk to you over lunch about the proposal.

b. I'll talk to you about the proposal over lunch.

Sentence (47a) would be more appropriate as an answer to (48a,),

while (47b) could be a response to (48b).

(48)

a. Why are you asking me to have lunch with you?

b. When can I have your comments?

The two phrases that are permuted in (47), over lunch and about the

proposal, are both adjuncts. In (48a) lunch has been mentioned. In thereply (47a) the talk about the proposal constitutes new information. In

the sequence (48b) and (47b), the opposite is the case. Here the question

is obviously about the proposal and the time of discussion is added as

new information in (47b). There seems to be a tendency for old infor-

mation to precede new information. This is also a regularity observed in

German, where it extends to all arguments of verbs and to adverbial

phrases as well. If one hears (49) below, one can deduce with high prob-

ability prior knowledge regarding the existence of a doctor and a pill, but

one could not deduce such prior knowledge of the fact that there wouldbe a man to whom the pill would be given.


29/194


(49) Dann wird der Doktor die Pille einem Patienten geben.

then will the doctor the pill a patient give

Then the doctor will give the pill to a patient.

Here too the last element in the permutable string expresses part ofthe new information. But now let us consider the following silly sequence

of sentences about a pill needed for different reasons by a patient and by

a detective.

(50)

a. Der Doktor hat nur noch eine Pille zu vergeben.

The doctor has only one pill left to give out.

b. Um diese Pille bitten ein Patient und ein Detektiv.

A patient and a detective are both asking for this pill.c. Dann wird der Doktor die Pille dem Patienten geben.

then will the doctor the pill the patient give

Then the doctor will give the pill to the patient.

In this context dem Patienten in (50c) which is identical to our pre-

vious example (45), does not refer to an individual that is new in the

context. This is made even clearer by the choice of the definite article.

Simplistic views about new information following old information will

not suffice. There are two solutions to this apparent problem; eitheranother regularity must be stated (50c) or the concept of new infor-

mation must be refined. Both strategies have been pursued. The ad-

ditional regularity could be stated as: relevant information follows less

relevant information. The refined concept of new information would af-

firm that elements of new information follow elements of old infor-

mation. In (50c), the new information would be dem Patienten geben

(give to the patient), although both the act of giving and the patient

have been mentioned previously.

The inherent difficulty of ascertaining exactly what should be thecorrect characterization of the dichotomy underlying the tendency of

phrases that denote new, relevant information to follow other phrases has

led to a multitude of informal definitions. Some of these attempt to

create such complex concepts as psychological subject and psychological

predicate, while others break the problem down into two or more

dichotomies, e.g., mentioned/new and known/unknown. Most ap-

proaches that seek to explain ordering regularities among complements

and adjuncts do not ascribe responsibility to pragmatics alone for the

detected preferences and restrictions.In addition to pragmatically based regularities, syntactic and phono-

logical ordering principles have been suggested. The most interesting

syntactic principle is the so-called unmarked order. It has been claimed

that there is a preferred or unmarked order that has to be adhered to


30/194

The Order Within the Field of Verbal Arguments

unless sufficiently cogent pragmatic or stylistic factors compel violation.

The assumption is not new; many generations of students of German as a

foreign language have benefited from the principle of unmarked order as

a helpful guideline.

Unfortunately, most arguments in defense of the principle have beenbased largely on intuition. Lenerz (1977) breaks with this tradition by

designing a small number of easy tests. As for the sequence of SUBJ,

DOBJ, IOBJ, Lenerz finds evidence for the unmarked order: SUBJ,

IOBJ, DOBJ. He extends this principle to include different types of ad-

verbial phrases as well.

The principle of unmarked order explains why the following sentence

appears well-formed even when it appears in a context where das Lied, a

certain song, has been mentioned before-whereas ein Kind, some un-

specified child, is part of the new information.

(51) Gestern hatte ein Kind das Lied gesungen.

yesterday had a child the song sung

Yesterday a child had sung the song.

Here the subject precedes the direct object.

Lenerz's tests also correctly predict that violation of the unmarked

order, together with violation of the pragmatic principle, results in far

less acceptable sentences. In Sentence (52) the direct object precedes thesubject, even though it refers to a part of the new information; the sub-

ject itself refers to a known individual.

(52) ?Gestern hatte ein Lied dieses Kind gesungen.

yesterday had a song this child sung

Yesterday this child had sung a song.

The assumption of an unmarked order and Lenerz's findings ob-

viously raise more questions than can be answered in this overview.

Some of these issues, however, will be discussed later in Chapter 6, SEC-

tion 3.1.1.

More syntactic principles governing the order of complements and

adjuncts have been suggested. It has been observed that definite noun

phrases usually come before indefinite ones. Personal pronouns show tile

tendency to precede nonpronominal noun phrases. In Chapter 5, Section

3, I shall come back to the question whether these syntactical principles

can be explained in terms of the aforementioned pragmatic regularities.

The last group of ordering principles I would like to mention is based

on the phonological structure of the sentence. There is a well-known

phenomenon in English called Heavy-NP-Shift. Ross (1967) labels noun

phrases as heavy if they exhibit a high degree of internal complexity, i.e.,

if they contain conjunctions or complex modifiers. The movement trans-


31/194


formation of Heavy-NP-Shift was designed to account for the fact that

some heavy noun phrases, such as object NPs, can occur at the end of

the sentence even if the resulting sequence departs from the standard or-

der. The heavy object noun phrase in (53b) follows the prepositional ob-

ject.

(53)

a. Peter took the airgram to the office.

b. Peter took to the office all the large parcels he had

packed the night before.

From this example and the first characterization of the phenomenon

it does not follow that heaviness is a phonological concept. It could also

refer to the complexity in syntactic structure or to the amount of seman-tic information. However, to the native speaker the deviant position of

the object in (54a) seems to be less acceptable than its counterpart in

(54b) although the two object noun phrases differ only with respect to

the lengths of their words.

(54)

a. Peter saw at the party his rich friends.

b. Peter saw at the party nurnerous

industrial entrepreneurs.

In German there is also a tendency for heavier phrases to follow

lighter ones. Following Behaghel (1932), this principle has been called

das Gesetz der wachsenden Glieder (literally: the law of the growing

constituents). This law which simply states that a shorter constituent

precedes a longer one, if possible, accounts for the contrast between (55a)

and (55b).

(55)

a. ?Ich erklarte die Relativitatstheorie den Kindem.

I explained the theory of relativity the children

I explained the theory of relativity to the children.

b. Ich erklarte die Relativitatstheorie den Kindem

I explained the theory of relativity the children

in meiner Klasse, die die notwendigen Vorkenntnisse

in my class who the necessary knowledge

haben.

have

I explained the theory of relativity to those children

in my class who have the necessary knowledge.


32/194


A phonologically conditioned ordering principle often omitted from

descriptions of German word order is based on the rhythm of the sen-

tence. Behaghel (1932) formulates it as a striving for tonal dynamics.

This principle might not be as strong as those previously mentioned, but

it can affect the acceptability of borderline sentences. Many nativespeakers will prefer (56a) over (56b) when they are asked to judge their

respective acceptability, although the perceived difference is rather sub-

tle. The primary accent in the examples is indicated by', secondary ac-

cent by'.

(56)

a. Ich zeigte das Schauspiel Marlene.

I showed the play Marleene.

b. Ich zeigte die Parod1e Kurt.I showed the parody Kurt.

c. Ich zeigte Kurt die Parodie.

I showed Kurt the parOdy.

The metric structure of German (as well as English) sentences is per-

ceived as superior if stress clashes as in (56b) are avoided. An obvious

alternative to (56b) is (56c).

If we assume an invariant context, the primary stress of the sentence

will remain on the focus, even if the focus is not the last element. This istypical for the type of interaction between prosody and word order that

has not yet been discussed. If the pragmatically suggested order is

violated-usually because other principles are being observed-then the

prosodic structure of the sentence will deviate from the standard pattern.

The regularity behind this change can be seen as the manifestation of

two ways to mark the focus or comment of the sentence. It is marked

either by having it follow all nonfocus elements of the clause core (except

for the nonfinite verbs) or by assigning it a primary accent even if it is

not in accent position. This is also a well-known phenomenon in Englishprosodies. In this connection, the reader is asked to recall sentence (47b),

which is repeated below in (57).

(57) I'll talk to you about the proposal over lunch.

It was asserted earlier that this sentence would be most appropriate

in a context in which it is shared knowledge that the proposal is likely

to be talked about but that the time still needs to be agreed upon. But

this claim can easily be refuted if deviations from standard (or

unmarked) intonation are allowed. If the main accent is on proposal, the

sentence would be appropriate in a context that deals with a lunch date

and in which the subject of conversation has not yet been established.


33/194


In English the range of cases in which the speaker has a choice be-

tween a marked intonation or a simple phrasal permutation is of course

much narrower than in German. Other syntactic constructions that ful-

fill functions similar to focus intonation or focus permutation are Left

Dislocation, Cleft Formation, and Left Dislocation.Let us now summarize the most relevant regularities that constrain

the constituent order among complements of the verb and adjuncts.

There are two alternative ways to describe this partially free word order.

One is based on the premise that the order is actually fixed-e.g., by

virtue of some interaction of the pragmatic principle (focus after

nonfocus) with the unmarked order; provision could then be made for

any exceptions. The other approach is to start out with the notion of a

completely free order and then, as necessary, to impose a number of

restrictions. As one might expect, this choice has led to serious theoreti-cal arguments. For explanatory reasons I prefer the latter alternative

here, but I shall return briefly to the theoretical question in Chapter 6,

Section 3.1.1.

The sequential order of the constituents considered here can then be

regarded as basically free. However, the permutations that do occur con-

form to certain principles (not all of which are always observed). The

most relevant principles are these:

Focus follows nonfocus The unmarked order is SUBJ, IOBJ, DOBJ.

Personal pronouns precede other NPs.

Definite NPs precede non definite NPs.

Light constituents precede heavy constituents.

If a focussed constituent precedes a nonfocussed it will carry

the focus accent.

The interaction of the principles will receive more attention in Chap-

ter 5.

5 The First Position in Verb-Second Clauses

It was Erich Drach (1963) who first formulated the general rule stating

that every major clausal constituent (Satzglied), with the exception of

the finite verb, can occupy the first position in verb-second clauses. Von

Stechow (1978) therefore proposed that this generalization be called

Drach's Law. It represented the first attempt to break with the tradi-

tional view that German had a basic order in which the subject precededthe finite verb and that all clause patterns deviating from this order were

inversions of one kind or another. Exactly which strings would qualify

as Satzglieder, however, is still an open question. I shall investigate this

problem in some detail in Chapter 3, Section 4 and Chapter 6, Section

3.5. In this section I simply list some of the generally accepted


34/194


regularities that may be found in standard descriptive grammars of Ger-

man. These will serve as sufficient background for discussion of the

analysis presented in Chapter 3.

The first position can be occupied either by the subject or by any

object (including prepositional objects).

(58)

a. Peter schickte den Kindem das Paket.

Peter sent the children the parcel

Peter sent the parcel to the children.

b. Den Kindern schickte Peter das Paket.

the children sent Peter the parcel


or To the children Peter sent the parcel.c. Das Paket schickte Peter den Kindem.

the parcel sent Peter the children


or The parcel Peter sent to the children.

d. Um schnelle Beforderung hatte er gebeten.

about fast transportation h ad he asked

He had requested fast delivery.

The first position can also be occupied by subcategorized-for free ad-verbial phrases, adverbs, and predicatives.

(59)

a. Auf die Waage hatte er das Paket gelegt.

on the scale had he the parcel put

He had put the parcel onto the scale.

b. Am Morgen hatte er es gepackt.

in-the morning had he it packed

In the morning he had packed the parcel.c. Auf der Post hatte er gewartet.

at the post office had he waited

At the post office he had waited.

d. Weil er warten muBte, war er nicht plinktlich

because he wait must was he not on time

gekommen.

come

Because he had to wait he did not come on time.e. Schnell war er gefahren.

fast was he driven

He had driven fast.


35/194


f. Aergerlich war er.

angry was he

He was angry.

It could even be a nonfinite verb that precedes the finite verb, as in (60).

(60) Abgeschickt hatte er das Paket.

off-sent had he the parcel

He had sent the parcel off.

There are many phrases that cannot be fronted. They could be ex-

cluded on independent grounds from the class of major phrasal

categories. The fronted determiner in (61) does not belong to a major

category.

(61) *Das hatte er

The had he

Paket abgeschickt.

parcel off-sent.

The fronted noun phrase in (62) is a major phrasal category but it is

a major phrasal constituent of a lower (or embedded) phrase.

(62) *Peter wuBte Paul daB ein Paket abschickt.

One restriction, therefore, is that the fronted constituent has to be a

major phrasal constituent of the matrix clause. Of course, this is still a

very informal and fuzzy characterization.

In addition to the syntactic restrictions, there are also pragmatic

constraints on the set of constituents that can be fronted. For the time

being I prefer to simplify matters considerably by postulating that there

are only two conditions under which constituents qualify. The thing

denoted by the phrase might constitute the topic of the sentence. The

question in (63a) makes Peter the topic of (63b)_7 The demonstrative

pronoun dem, as it is used in (63b), corresponds to the English personal

pronoun him.

(63)

a. Und was war mit Peter?

and what was with Peter

And what about Peter?

b. Den hat die Polizei geschnappt.

him has the police caught

He was caught by the police.

7For a characterization of the notion topic refer to Chapter 3, Section 4.


36/194


The fronting of a constituent together with an emphatic accent on it

could also mark the fact that its denotation (or a part thereof) is contras-

tively sed upon. In (64b) Peter is once again the topic of the sentence.

The tax authority is contrasted with the police and thus the phrase

denoting it is fronted.

(64)

a. Und was war mit Peter?

and what was with Peter

And what about Peter?

b. Das Ff.nanzamt, hat ihn geschnappt (und nicht

the finance authority has him caught (and not

die Polizei) .the police)

It was the IRS that caught him (and not the police).

or

It was the IRS he was caught by (and not the police.)

The emphatic focus on the fronted denotation of the constituent does

not necessarily have to be contrastive. The emphasis on the fronted con-

stituent can be the expression of different kinds of emotional involve-

ment. Consider (65), which is another possible reply to (64a).

(65) Einem lausigen Schnuffler ist er in die Fange geraten.

a lousy snooper is he in the clutches got

A lousy snooper got him in his clutches.

Before I go on to the first position in constituent questions, let me

briefly summarize the restrictions on filling this slot in assertion clauses.

If a major phrasal constituent of an assertion main clause denotes either

the topic of the sentence or if its denotation receives emphatic focus, theconstituent can occupy the position before the finite verb form. This

fronting of constituents resembles English topicalization in a number of

ways. These similarities will be discussed in Chapter 3, Section 4.

In German, just as in English constituent questions, the constituent

containing the wh-item is fronted.

(66)

a. Welchen Kindem hat Peter ein Paket geschickt?

which children has Peter a parcel sentTo which children has Peter sent a parcel?

b. Was hat Peter den Kindem geschickt?

what has Peter the children sent

VVhat has Peter sent the children?


37/194


c. Wer hat den Kindem ein Paket geschickt?

who has the children a parcel sent

Who has sent the children a parcel?

There is no preposition stranding as in English.

(67)

a. *Was hatte er gebeten urn?

What had he asked for?

b. Um was hatte er gebeten?

For what had he asked?

The problem of deciding whether topicalization and constituent ques-

tion formation in English syntax can be regarded as two instances of amore general syntactic process, i.e., Wh-Movement, is equally applicable

for German. Although I do not claim to have a solution, I refer the in-

terested reader to Chapter 3, Section 4 and Chapter 6, Section 3.5, for

more data on both phenomena.

6 Constituents Outside the Clause Core

The foregoing description of the basic facts of German word order has

been restricted to the clause core. This limitation has already provenhelpful in defining the three basic clause types. There are some con-

stituents that can precede the clause core. Among those are utterance

modifiers, as in (68a) and (68b), conjunctions (68c), focus particles (68d),

and noun phrases fronted by left-dislocation (68e).

(68)

a. Uebrigens, Peter kommt morgen.

By the way, Peter comes tomorrow.

b. Was Peter betrifft, der kommt morgen.what Peter concerns, he comes tomorrow

As to Peter, he is coming tomorrow.

c. Und Peter kommt morgen.

And Peter comes tomorrow.

d. Nur Peter kommt morgen.

Only Peter comes tomorrow.

e. Peter, der kommt morgen.

Peter, he comes tomorrow.

The clause core can be followed by extrapositions. As in English, the

range of constituent types that can be extraposed varies among speakers.

Some examples of common extrapositions are given below. In (69a) a

relative clause is extraposed, in (69b) a that-clause, in (69c) an infinitival


38/194

The Order Within the Field of Verbal Arguments "29

verb phrase complement, in (69d) a prepositional phrase, and in (6ge) a

heavy noun phrase.

(69)

a. Morgen werden die Kinder kommen, die unstomorrow will the children come who us

noch nicht kennen.

yet not know

Tomorrow the children will come who do not yet know us.

b. Peter hat gewuBt, daB die Kinder kommen werden.

Peter has known that the children come will

Peter knew that the children would come.

c. Er hatte die Kinder gebeten, zu uns zu kommen.he had the children asked to us to come

He had asked the children to come to us.

d. Morgen werden auch Kinder kommen mit

tomorrow will also children come with

erheblichen Schulproblemen.

significant school problems

Children with significant school problems will be

coming tomorrow as well.e. In seinem Buch hat Peter vor allem beschrieben

in his book has Peter especially described

Kinder, die in der Schule gescheitert waren.

children who in the school failed were

In his book Peter described especially children who had

failed in school

In addition to extraposed elements, the German clause core can alsobe followed by elliptical phrases that could be intuitively described as ex-

pressing afterthoughts (70).

(70) Peter hatte solche Kinder oft selbst getroffen,

Peter had such children often self met

wahre Opfer ihrer Umgebung.

true victims of-their environment

Peter had often himself met such children, true victims oftheir environment.

These postscripts cannot be subsumed under extrapositions.


39/194


For the sake of completeness, one last type of phrase should be men-

tioned that is not part of the clause core, even though it is sometimes

enclosed therein. As in English, parentheticals can interrupt a German

sentence at many points. The same phrases can often also precede or

follow the sentence.

(71)

a. Peter, glaube ich, hatte eine Vorliebe fur lange

Satze.

Peter, I believe, had a preference for long sentences.

b. Peter hatte, glaube ich, eine Vorliebe fur lange

Satze.

c. Peter hatte eine Vorliebe fur lange Satze, glaube

ich.

Nothing else need at this time be said about. Although clearly

belonging to the phenomena of configurational variation, they do not in-

teract in any interesting way with the word order regularities so charac-

teristic of German that I discuss in this book.


40/194

Chapter 2

The Framework of GPSG

1 Introduction

Nontransformational grammatical frameworks have been on the rise for

at least the past five years. The versions of one of the most widespread

nontransformational theories are subsumed today under the name

Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar (GPSG). The framework hasgrown out of pioneering work by Gerald Gazdar in the years 1978 and

1979. Today there exists a considerable number of publications that use

or discuss GPSG. (For references check Gazdar and Pullum (1982c)).

This chapter will not reiterate my reasons for choosing GPSG dis-

cussed in the Introduction. I will not be concerned with the history of

the theory nor will I try to discuss all versions of the framework that are

currently under consideration. The chapter will concentrate instead on

the general features of the framework and on the description of some

tools that are central to the analysis of German word order presented inChapters 4 and 5. For more extensive descriptions and definitions of the

components of GPSG, the reader is referred to Gazdar (1982a), Gazdar

and Pullum (1982a), Klein and Sag (1982), and Thompson (1982).

The chapter starts with a general outline of the framework. Then

the phrase structure component of GPSG is characterized. The com-

ponents of the metagrammar are discussed in Section 4. Another section

presents a superficial survey of the framework's semantics. Section 6

describes some recent results with respect to the power of the formalism.

The last section contains a discussion of some metatheoretical problemsthat are relevant to research in the area of word order freedom.

31


41/194

32 The Framework of GPSG

2 Basic Outline of the Theory

In an unpublished paper, Gerald Gazdar (1979) challenged the widely

held claim that context-free phrase structure (CF-PS) grammars are not

powerful enough to serve as appropriate tools for the description ofnatural language.

The attacked claim was based on two assumptions, either of which

alone could be used to justify the need for more powerful formalisms,

such as Generative Transformational Grammar (TG) of Chomsky (1957;

1965) or of subsequent versions. One assumption held that the set of

natural languages is not properly included in the set of CF languages.

This assumption was supported by several examples of constructions that

supposedly could not be generated by CF-grammars. Gazdar and Pul-

lum (1982d) and others have questioned the validity of the examplesgiven in support of this hypothesis.

The second assumption was that, even if CF-PS grammars were ob-

servationally adequate (i.e., if they were able to generate the string sets

of any natural languages) they would nevertheless still not be able to ex-

press the linguistic generalizations necessary for characterizing linguistic

competence in an illuminating manner.

The proponents of GPSG have opposed both assumptions. I will

postpone the discussion of their theoretical argumentation and will

procede instead directly to their practical arguments. The first assump-tion can be refuted by demonstrating that natural languages-including

the constructions used as examples countering the context-freeness

claim-can in fact be generated by CF-PS grammars with finite sets of

rules that have finite length.

But such grammars might still be subject to the criticism that fol-

lows from the second assumption, for they are really not the appropriate

tool for expressing all the syntactic relations that can be embodied by

transformations. However, a grammar of this kind is only one major

component of a particular GPSG, i.e., the object grammar, which can beutilized for generation or recognition in a straightforward manner.

The second major component of a GPSG is a metagrammar. An in-

ductive definition of the object grammar, it can be viewed as a grammar

that generates the object grammar. In a TG, syntactic relations among

sentences are reflected in their derivational history. In a GPSG, these

relations are usually reflected in the derivation of the rules that generate

those sentences.

3 The Object Grammar

The object grammar combines CF-PS syntax and model-theoretic

semantics. Its rules are ordered triples (n; r; t), where n is an integer,the rule number, r is a CF-PS rule, and t is the tranelaiion of the rule.


42/194

The Object Grammar :33

The term rule number for n is slightly misleading, since the same integer

can occur in several rules. Element n is better described as the

subcategorization marker, for every preterminal category in the right-

hand side of r can expand only to those words in the lexicon that are

marked n.8

Rule r is a CF-PS rule. Its nonterminal symbols are complex

categories, i.e., bundles of features. The features that mark the member-

ship of the symbol in one of the traditional syntactic categories conform

to the notation of X-syntax (Jackendoff, (1977)). The exact nature of

the feature system has been a much-disputed topic. I assume here that a

category is a set of features, although it has been suggested that more

structure should be assigned to categories (e.g., Gazdar and Pullum

(1982a)).Translation t is a schema that expresses the denotation of the left-

hand-side constituent as a function of the denotation of its right-hand-

side constituents. It is similar to translation rules espoused by Montague

(1974a; 1974b). The target language is a version of intensional logic that

can be interpreted by using the standard apparatus of Montague-style

model-theoretic semantics.

The rules of the object grammar are interpreted as tree-admissibility

conditions in which syntax and semantics apply in tandem. Example

(72) shows a (simplified) object grammar rule for English:

This rule admits a (sub )tree of the following form:

(73) v2

/~2V N

The root node of category VP directly dominates a verb node and a

noun phrase node (in that order). The verb node must immediately

dominate a verb whose sub categorization marker is 23 (in this case a

transitive verb). The semantic translation of the verb phrase is the value

the function denoted by the verb acquires when it is applied to the inten-

sion of the noun phrase denotation.

8The special status of n, as opposed to the features of the left-hand-side category, will

become apparent when I describe the functioning of metarules. However, there exist

proposals to replace the rule number with a feature (Carl Pollard and Mark Gawron,

personal communication).


43/194


4 The Metagrammar

The metagrammar consists of four different kinds of rules that are used

by three major components to generate the object grammar in a stepwise

fashion.g The chart (74) illustrates the basic structure of a GPSGmetagrammar:

(74)

Metarule application Metarules

Rule ext. princpls.

LP rules

Object-grammar

(CF-PS rules)

First, there is a set of basic rules. These are

immediate-dominance-rule (IDR) doubles, ordered pairs (n,i), where n is

the rule number and i an IDR.IDRs closely resemble CF-PS rules, but, whereas the CF-PS rule

(75a) contains information about both immediate dominance and linear

precedence in the subtree to be accepted, the corresponding IDR (75b) en-

codes only information about immediate dominance.

(75)

a. 'I --> 81

82

8n

b. 'I --> 81

, 82

, , 8n

The order of the right-hand-side symbols, which are separated in

IDRs by commas, has no significance.

gMore declarative definitions of this procedural model are in preparation (Sag, personal

communication).


44/194

The Metagrammar 35

Example (76) could be the basic rule for simple English transitive-

verb phrases:

This rule is equivalent to (77):

Metarules are the second kind of rules. They map IDR doubles to

other IDR doubles. Metarules apply both to basic rules and to rules

derived by applications of metarules. Viewed formally, metarules are

relations between sets of IDRs. They are written in the format A=} B,where A and B are rule templates. This can be read as: For every IDR

double in the grammar that matches A, the grammar also contains an

IDR double of form B. In each case, the rule number is copied from A to

B.10

Metarule (78) is a fictitious, oversimplified passive rule for English.

(78) V2 ~ V, N2, X =} V2 ~ V, X, (p2)

+PASS +by

Variable X ranges over strings of terminal and nonterminal symbols

separated by commas. Variables such as X whose range is not exten-

sionally specified in the grammar, are called essential variables.

The metarule states that, for every ID r ule that expands a verb

phrase to a verb, a noun phrase, and some optional additional material,

there is also a ID rule that expands a passive verb phrase to a verb, to

whatever the X ranges over in the input rule, and to an optional preposi-

tional phrase. The prepositional phrase carries a feature -l-by. This fea-

ture, by virtue of some other mechanism, ensures that the optional agen-tive phrase will be marked by the appropriate preposition.

The application of (78) to (76) or (77) yields (79):

(79) (23; V2 ~ V, (p2))

+PASS +by

In this case, X stands for the empty string. The metarule carries the rule

number over to t he output rule. Thus, the verbs that are accepted in

10As was pointed out in Section 3, rule number might be a misleading term for n because

this copying assigns the same integer to the whole class of rules that were derived from

the same basic rules. This rule number propagation is a prerequisite of the GPSG

account of subcategorization.


45/194


verb phrases generated (or admitted) by the output rule are the same

ones that are selected by the input rule.

Several metarules can apply in the derivation of a single IDR double.

However, the principle of Finite Closure, defined by Thompson (1982),

allows every metarule to apply only once in the derivational history of an

IDR double. The invocation of this principle avoids the derivation of in-

finite rule sets. If infinite rule sets were allowed, non-CF, non-CS, and

nonrecursive languages could also be generated.ll

Another component adds semantic translations and instantiates syn-

tactic features. It maps IDR doubles to IDR triples, which are ordered

triples {n;i;t}, where n is a rule number, i an IDR, and t a translation.

The symbols of the resulting IDRs are fully instantiated feature sets (or

structures) and therefore identical to object grammar symbols. These

triples are like the rules of the object grammar except that they do not

indicate constituent order. The mapping is controlled by a set of rule

extension principles including feature instantiation principles, as well

as by an algorithm that assigns the right kind of translation to each rule

on the basis of the encoded syntactic information.

The semantic translation algorithm will be described in Section 5.

Here I will only list some relevant feature instantiation-mechanisms.

Feature cooccurrence restrictions (FCR) are ordered pairs of feature sets

("I, 8), usually written as 'I -+ 8. They are rules that constrain the set of

categories. FCR 'I -+ 8 is interpreted as the statement: if a category in-

cludes 'I, it also includes 8. For example, +MASSN --> +SING states

that a mass noun is singular.

Default value assignments (DVA) specify default values for features.

If a feature has a DVA, the feature has its default value unless otherwise

specified by an ID rule. DVAs might stipulate that the default value for

a feature VOICE is active or that the default for case in English is the

object case.

The Head Feature Convention (HFC) copies all head features (a

designated subset of features) from the mother node onto the syntactic

head of the rule. In some versions of GPSG, unification is used for head

feature percolation. In rule (79), only the mother category had to be

marked +PASS; the feature will be copied onto the verb, since the verb

is the head of the rule and PASS (along with any multivalued features

for voice or verb form) is a head feature.

Some recent unification-based versions of the framework also include

a Foot Feature Convention (FFC). The FFC percolates certain features

called foot features. The values for foot features of a mother category

are unified with its daughters' foot features. If a gap feature is used to

link filler and gap in unbounded dependencies, this feature must per-

colate up to the mother category even if the gap is not in the head of the

rule. Therefore, gap features of this kind are foot features.

llFor a discussion, see Uszkoreit and Peters (1983) and Shieber et al. (1g83a).


46/194

The Metagrammar 37

Finally, there is the Control Agreement Principle (CAP) that re-

quires that a controller and a controllee-usually an argument and a

functor category (see Klein and Sag (19S2) for an explicit

definition)-share the values of their agreement features. Agreement fea-

tures constitute another designated feature set. Depending on the versionof the framework, agreement is defined either in terms of identity check-

ing or unification. This principle encodes the fact that agreement always

holds between functor and argument categories. The control relation is

defined in such a way that it always triggers agreement. It therefore be-

comes unnecessary to state agreement feature checks on individual rules.

All features whose values are not determined by any of the rules and

principles will be freely instantiated-i.e., all permitted value assign-

ments will be realized in object grammar rules.

The IDR triple (SO) is an example-though still simplified-of the

result of applying a rule extension component to IDR double (76)

(80) (23; V2 ~ V,

+ACf +ACf +OC

+PL +PL +SG

+3rd +3rd +MASSN

The rule has assigned features for object case, singular number, and the

mass noun property of the noun phrase. The verb phrase -and through

the also the verb-carries features that mark active voice, plural num-

ber, and third person.

The last component of the metagrammar maps the IDR triples to the

rules of the object grammar. For each IDR triple, all the object gram-

mar triples are generated whose CF-PS rules conform to the linear

precedence (LP) rules, the fourth rule set of the metagrammar. LP rules

are members of the LP relation, a partial ordering on V T U VN' An LP

rule (a, 13) is usually written as a < 13 and simply states that a precedes13 whenever they both occur in the right-hand side of the same CF-PSrule. Example (SI) might be an appropriate LP rule of English:

(81) V < N2

The rule will disallow any CF-PS rule in whose right-hand side a noun

phrase category linearly precedes a verb category. Thus, only one CF-PS

rule can be derived from the IDR triple (SO):

(82) (23; V2 ~ V N2; V' CN2 '))

+ACf +ACf +OC

+PL +PL +SG

+3rd +3rd +MASSN


47/194


It is the separation of linear precedence from immediate-dominance

statements in the metagrammar that is referred to as ID/LP format.

This extension to GPSG, which was first sugested by Gazdar and Pullum

(1982b), makes the theory attractive for application to languages with a

high degree of word-order freedom. Potential applications are discussed

in Section 7.

5 The Semantics of GPSG

It was mentioned in Section 3 that all object grammar rules consist of a

syntactic and a semantic rule. The semantic rules are expressions in in-

tensional logic that specify how the denotations of the daughter nodes

will be combined to yield the denotation of the mother node. Semantic

translations, notated in intensional logic, are model theoretically inter-

preted in the spirit of Montague (1974b). The semantic rule of (82)

states that the denotation of the verb, (which is a function from noun

phrase intensions to functions from noun phrase intensions to truth-

values) is applied to the intension of the denotation of the object noun

phrase. Therefore, the meaning of the verb phrase will be a function

from noun phrase intensions to the denotations of sentences, i.e., truth-

values.

(83) (23; V2 -+ V,

+ACf +ACf

N2

;

+OC

+PL +PL +SG

+3rd +3rd +MASSN

At earlier stages in the development of the framework, all ID rules

contained semantic rules. The translation part of an object grammar PS

rule was determined by the semantic component of the basic rule the PS

rule was derived from, as well as by operations applied to the semanticpart of the rule. There was no prohibition against metarules that did

nothing but change the semantics of a rule. Klein and Sag

(1982) hypothesized the existence of an algorithm that could deduce the

translation schema of any ID rule solely on the basis of the encoded syn-

tactic information. They constructed such an algorithm for a limited

grammar of English. For most ID rules, the algorithm relies completely

on the assignment of semantic types to syntactic categories. The default

combination operation is functional application, as in (83).

However, there are cases in which either other semantic operationshave to be used or additional syntactic information must be evaluated.

For raising and equi verbs, straightforward functional application does

not allow the appropriate binding of the complement's subject. Since in

GPSG syntax no subject node is created for infinitival complements, ad-

ditional semantic operations are necessary for this binding. For formula-

tions of such operations, see Klein and Sag (1982).


48/194

The Semantics of GPSG 39

The algorithm needs further syntactic information if a functor can be

applied to arguments in more than a single order, but only one order is

the correct one. An example is English ditransitive verb phrases. The

algorithm cannot determine the order in which the verb applies to t.he

objects by considering semantic types alone, since both objects are of t.he

same type. Since standard versions of GPSG do not encode grammatical

functions in their categorial information, there is no way to specify t.he

function-argume

word order and constituent structure in german

Documents