Minimal C-structure: Rethinking Projection in Phrase Structure

Lovestrand, Joseph; Lowe, John J.

Abstract

This paper addresses the formal properties of constituent structure (cstructure). We demonstrate inadequacies in the formalization of traditional X0 theory by Bresnan (2001) and Bresnan et al. (2016), and in the alternative proposal of Marcotte (2014). We propose “minimal c-structure” as a new approach to phrase structure within Lexical-Functional Grammar, which almost entirely eliminates non-branching nodes, and neatly captures the distinction between projecting and non-projecting words. Our proposal is fully formalized, and has been successfully tested by an XLE implementation.

Citation

Lovestrand, J., & Lowe, J. J. (2017). Minimal C-structure: Rethinking Projection in Phrase Structure. In M. Butt, & T. H. King (Eds.), Proceedings of the LFG’17 Conference (285-305). CSLI Publications

• Publication Date: Dec 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: May 4, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 2, 2117
• Pages: 285-305
• Book Title: Proceedings of the LFG’17 Conference
• Keywords: constituent-structure, phrase structure, projecting nodes, non-branching nodes, XLE
• Publisher URL: https://web.stanford.edu/group/cslipublications/cslipublications/LFG/LFG-2017/lfg2017-lovestrand-lowe.pdf
• Related Public URLs: https://web.stanford.edu/group/cslipublications/cslipublications/LFG/LFG-2017/index.shtml
• Additional Information: Additional Information : ISSN: 1098-6782