Ivan A. Sag: HPSG Research Activity

I've worked on a number of grammatical problems using the framework of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Here are some of my current projects:

The English Auxiliary System: I've been working on this topic for (I'm embarrassed to say) 25 years now. My latest paper, `Rules and Exceptions in the English Auxiliary System' will appear in revised form in the Journal of Linguistics.

• Sag, Ivan A. 2001. (currently unavailable) Rules and Exceptions in the English Auxiliary System'. Version of July, 2001.

Bob Levine and I have recently completed a couple of papers arguing that HPSG treatments of filler-gap dependencies and parasitic gaps account for various important facts that seem to be inconsistent with (current or previous) transformational approaches. These are:

• Levine, Robert D., and Ivan A. Sag. 2003. Some Empirical Issues in the Grammar of Extraction. Proceedings of the HPSG03 Conference. Michigan State University, East Lansing, Stefan Mueller (Editor). CSLI Publications, available at (.pdf file)

• Levine, Robert D., and Ivan A. Sag. WH-Nonmovement. 2003. Gengo Kenkyu. (.ps file) (.pdf file)

Minimal Recursion Semantics (MRS): The framework of MRS, a `flat' semantic representation scheme that simulates embedding via `handle' identity and which allows scope ambiguities to be underspecified, grew out of work at the CSLI LinGO Lab. A new version of our introductory paper on this will be available soon. For the moment, one can consult:

• Copestake, Ann, Dan Flickinger, Ivan A. Sag, and Carl Pollard. Minimal Recursion Semantics: an Introduction (.ps ) ( .pdf). Draft of September, 1999.

Warlpiri Word Order: When we can find time, Cathryn Donohue and I work on word order in Australian languages using Linearization Theory -- a formal framework for dealing with word order variations and discontinuous constituency developed by Mike Reape, Andreas Kathol and others. Our first stab at Warlpiri word order can be found in the following draft (comments welcome):

• Donohue, Cathryn and Ivan A. Sag. 1999. Domains in Warlpiri (.pdf file). Paper presented at HPSG-99 -- University of Edinburgh.