Sign-Based Construction Grammar

134 Pages·2012·0.78 MB·English

September4,2012
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Sign-Based Construction Grammar:
An Informal Synopsis
IVAN A. SAG
1 Introduction
Thischapter1 isintendedasanintroductiontosomeofthecentralnotionsof
Sign-Based Construction Grammar (SBCG).2 For a more general discussion
of SBCG, including an informal, high-level summary of the framework, its
historicaldevelopment,motivation,andrelationtootherapproachestogram-
mar,thereaderisreferredtoSagetal.thisvolume.
1.1 Preliminaries
SBCG isaframeworkblendingideasdevelopedoveraquartercenturyofre-
search in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG3) with those pre-
1Aboveall,I’dliketothankPaulKayforhoursofdiscussionandusefulfeedbackatevery
stageintheseeminglyendlessprocessofwritingthischapter.I’malsogratefultoChuckFillmore
andLauraMichaelisformanyusefuldiscussionsofbothcontentandexpositionandforcom-
mentsonanearlierdraft,whichwasalsobeenimprovedbythecommentsofRuiChaves,Adele
Goldberg,BillCroft,AdamPrzepiórkowski,RussellLee-Goldman,andHansBoas.Inaddition,
discussionswiththefollowingpeoplehavebeenquitehelpful:FarrellAckerman,EmilyBender,
DanFlickinger,MarkGawron,AndreasKathol,BethLevin,BobLevine,StefanMüller,Frank
VanEynde,TomWasow,GertWebelhuth,andSteveWechsler.Noneoftheviewsexpressed
hereshouldbeattributedtoanyoftheseindividuals;norshouldtheybeheldresponsibleforany
remainingerrors.
2SBCGowesaconsiderabledebttotheimplementationworkcarriedoutwithinCSLI’sLinGO
LabandtheDELPHINconsortium,whosegrammardevelopmenteffortshaveproceededinparal-
lelwiththeevolutionofSBCG.SeeCopestake2001,Flickinger2000,Uszkoreitetal.2000,and
theonlineresourcesavailableathttp://lingo.stanford.edu/andhttp://www.delph-in.net/.
3SeePollardandSag1987PollardandSag1994,GinzburgandSag2000,andRichter2004,
interalia.
Sign-BasedConstructionGrammar.
Editors:HansC.Boas&IvanA.Sag.
Copyright(cid:2)c 2012,CSLIPublications.
69
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sented within the tradition of Berkeley Construction Grammar (BCG4) over
roughlythesameperiod.ItsgoalistoexpandtheempiricalcoverageofHPSG,
whileatthesametimeputtingBCGonafirmertheoreticalfooting.
To readers steeped in HPSG theory, SBCG will no doubt seem like a mi-
norvariantofconstructionalHPSG(asdevelopedinSag1997,Ginzburgand
Sag 2000, and elsewhere), with the principal innovation being the introduc-
tion of the distinction between signs and constructs. There is a certain truth
to this, but at the same time, it is my sincere hope that construction gram-
marians of all stripes will find that SBCG is recognizable as a formalized
version of BCG, with a few straightforward (and only minimal) notational
adjustments.WhatisgainedfromtheincreasedanalyticprecisionofSBCGis
plain:clearerempiricalpredictionandfalsifiability,enhanced comparability
of analyses across languages, and a general theoretical clarity. Certain dif-
ferencesbetweenSBCGandBCGorotherversionsofConstructionGrammar
(CxG)willbenotedwhererelevant.(SeealsoSagetal.thisvolume.)
Like Pollard and Sag (1987, 1994), Fillmore et al. (1988), Fillmore and
Kay(1996),andKayandFillmore(1999),thisstudywilltakeEnglishasits
focus. However, the goal of our enterprise, like that of other researchers in
HPSG and BCG, is to provide a basis for the description of all human lan-
guages.Construction-basedgrammarhasanadvantageinthisendeavor,asit
concernsitselfdirectlywithwords,generalizationsaboutlexicalclasses,and
thepatternsaccordingtowhichcomplexexpressionsareconstructed.Every
human language has these components; hence there is no need to transform
a language into a mold that ill suits it in order to provide a typologically
realistictheoryofgrammar–onethatalsomeetstheobjectionstotheChom-
skyan conception of Universal Grammar raised, for example, by Evans and
Levinson(2009).Itisclearthatconstruction-based grammarhasdeeproots
inStructuralLinguistics.Mygoalhereistoconvincethereaderthataprop-
erlyformalizedtheoryofconstruction-basedgrammarcaninadditionsatisfy
thedemandsofmodernlinguistictheory,e.g.thoseoutlinedbyLees(1957:
376):
1. freedomfromcontradiction,
2. maximalcohesionwithotherbranchesofknowledge,
3. maximalvalidityincoverageofknowndata,and
4. maximaleleganceofstatement.
1.2 Preview
Let us take a language to be an infinite set of signs and assume that the job
of a grammarian is to provide a systematic account of those signs and their
4See,forexample,Fillmoreetal.1988,Goldberg1995,FillmoreandKay1996,Kayand
Fillmore1999,P.Kay2002a,andMichaelisandLambrecht1996.
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SIGN-BASEDCONSTRUCTIONGRAMMAR:ANINFORMALSYNOPSIS/71
properties,includinghowtheyfunctioninlanguageprocessingandlanguage
use. The notion of ‘sign’ of course comes from Saussure (1916). However,
whiletheSaussauriansignisanassociationofsound(signifiant)andmeaning
(signifié),thesignsofSBCGembodymorecomponents.Theseincludeatleast
phonologicalstructure,(morphological)form,syntacticcategory,semantics,
andcontextualfactors,includinginformationstructure.
Signs, like all linguistic entities in SBCG, are modeled as feature struc-
.tures(FSs),whichareoftwobasickinds:
. atoms5(e.g.accusative,+,finite,...),
functions(asexplainedbelow).
Afunctional FS mapseachfeatureinitsdomain(somepropersubsetofthe
setoffeatures)toanappropriatevalue(atomorfunction).6 Ingeneralterms
then,functionalFSsmapfeaturestofeaturestructures.Theparticularfeatures
andvaluesutilizedinthischapteraregivenintheappendix.
As in LFG (Lexical-Functional Grammar; see Bresnan 2001), HPSG, and
BCG,SBCGmakesastrictdistinctionbetweenentitiesinthelanguagemodel
(model objects for short) and descriptions of those objects.7 As in HPSG,
the most important model objects are signs (the formal representations of
actual words and phrases, including sentences). Each lexical sign or fixed
phrasalexpressionislicensedbyalisteme(a‘listed’descriptionofawordor
phrase).8Another,distinctkindofmodelobjectinSBCGistheconstruct.As
5Thesetofatomsincludes,foranalyticconvenience,aninfinitesetofindices.
6AfunctionF canbedefinedsimplyasasetoforderedpairs,wherethefirstmemberof
eachpairisamemberofthesetthatisF’s‘domain’andthesecondisamemberofthesetthat
isF’s‘range’.Theonlyfurtherconditionthathastobemetisuniqueness–theconditionthat
foranydistinctbandcinF’srange,F cannotcontainboth(cid:2)x,b(cid:3)and(cid:2)x,c(cid:3)(foranyxinF’s
domain).
AtotalfunctionF isasetofsuchpairsthatcontainsapair(cid:2)a,...(cid:3) foreachmemberaofF’s
domain.FinallynotethatallFSsmust‘bottomout’inatoms.Thatis,themostdeeplyembedded
functionswithinaFSmustmaptoanatom.Otherwise,i.eifF mapstoanotherfunction,F is
bydefinitionnotthemostdeeplyembeddedfunctioninthefeaturestructure.
7Thoughthedistinctionbetweenmodelandmodeldescriptionmayseemunfamiliartomany
linguists, drawing such a distinction reflects the standard practice of research in most scien-
tific disciplines. Representational models allow the theorist to abstract away from irrelevant
propertiesofthephenomenaunderinvestigation,whilethedescriptionsthemselvesconstitute
the theory of the modeling objects. By placing the modeling objects in correspondence with
thereal-worldphenomena,thedescriptionsbecomeatheoryofthosephenomena–morepre-
cisely,atheoryofthepropertiesofthoseobjectsthatarebeingmodeled.Inthepresentcase,
forexample,wewanttomodeltheobservablephoneticandsemanticpropertiesofsigns.Other
modelobjects,e.g.syntacticcategories,casevalues,orcontextualconditions,areintroduced
becausewebelievetheyarenecessaryinordertomodelotherpropertiesofsignsdeemedof
interest.
8Theterm‘listeme’isfirstproposedbyDiSciulloandWilliams1987asageneralizationof
thenotion‘lexicalentry’toincludemultiwordexpressionsofvariouskinds.Multiwordexpres-
sionsarediscussedinsection7.1below.
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in Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar (GPSG – see Gazdar et al. 1985),
constructsarelocaltreesthatarelicensedbyaparticularkindofconstruction:
a combinatoric construction. As we will see, a construct can be naturally
accommodatedwithinaFS-systemasafunctionalFSthatspecifiesvaluesfor
the MOTHER (MTR)feature and the DAUGHTERS (DTRS)feature. The value
ofMTRisasignandthevalueofDTRSisanonemptylistofsigns.
Signsandconstructs,asalreadynoted,are FSs–theyarepartofthelan-
guagemodel.Listemesandconstructionsaredescriptionsthatlicenseclasses
oflinguisticobjects(signsorconstructs)–theyarepartofthegrammar(the
descriptionofthelanguagemodel;thetheoryofthelanguage).
Thelinguisticobjectsin SBCG hereareclassifiedintermsofasystemof
types,whichareorganizedintoalattice-likestructurethatreflectsalinguisti-
callymotivatedclassification.Thus,polar-interrogative-clauseisamaximal
type (a type without subtypes) that is instantiated by clausal constructs like
(1):9
(1) {[Will][Sandy][bethere]?}
But in order to be well-formed according to our theory, this construct must
also satisfy the constraints the grammar imposes on all the supertypes of
polar-interrogative-clause. These constraints take the form of further con-
structions–thosewhichdefinetheparticularpropertiesofthesupertypesaux-
iliary-initial-construct, headed-construct, interrogative-clause, core-clause,
andclause.
AnSBCGgrammaralsocontainsasignature.Justasthetimeandkeysig-
natureofamusicalcompositionspecifyhowmusicaldescriptions(e.g.notes,
rests, and measures) are to be interpreted, the grammar signature delineates
the basic ontology of the grammar, and thus specifies how grammatical de-
scriptionsaretobeinterpreted.Itisherethatthedetailsofthetypehierarchy
are laid out, along with a characterization of the general properties of each
typeoffeaturestructure.Thesignatureassociateseachtypeoffunctionalfea-
ture structure with a domain (a set of features) and assigns an appropriate
valuetypetoeachfeatureofthedomain,asillustratedin(2):
⎡ ⎤
FEATURE1 type1
⎢ ⎥
(2) type0:⎣... ⎦
FEATUREn typen
9Theinformalnotationin(1),usedforabbreviatingconstructs,isduetoChuckFillmore.The
entireconstructisenclosedincurlybraces,witheachdaughterinsquarebrackets.Annotations
arealsopossible,asindicatedbytheFsin(i):
(i) {F[FD1],...,[FDn]}
SeeFillmoreetal.thisvolume.
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Thisistobeinterpretedas:ThegrammarrecognizesFSsoftype0,whichare
functionswhosedomainincludesFEATURE1 ...FEATUREn andwhichmap
eachFEATUREitoaFSoftypetypei,asindicated.10
AgainstthisbackgroundofpossibleFSs,aparticularSBCGofagivenlan-
guagespecifieswhichparticularfamilyofFSsexistsinthatlanguage–those
thatarelicensedbyalistemeoraconstruction.11 Thegrammarsignatureas-
sumedinthischapterissummarizedintheappendix.
2 FeatureStructures
Asalreadynoted,grammaticalobjectsofallkinds(includingsigns,caseval-
ues, parts of speech, and constructions) are modeled as FSs, either atoms or
else functions from features to FSs.12 This is a simple, but powerful way of
modeling linguistic objects, one that is already familiar from early work in
generativephonology,wherespeechsegmentsareoftenanalyzedinthisway.
Forexamplethefollowingfunctioncharacterizesthephone[t]inthefeature
systemofChomskyandHalle(1968):
⎡ ⎤
−
CONTINUANT
⎢ ⎥
⎢ −⎥
⎢VOICED ⎥
⎢ +⎥
⎢ANTERIOR ⎥
⎢ ⎥
(3) ⎢CORONAL +⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎢SONORANT −⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎣ +⎦
CONSONANTAL
−
VOCALIC
Similarly, a fundamental tenet of ‘X Theory’13 is that familiar atomic cate-
gorieslikeNPorVParetobereanalyzedasfunctions,e.g.asin(4):14
⎡ ⎤
+
NOUN
⎢ ⎥
(4) ⎣VERB −⎦
BAR 2
10TherangeofagivenFStype,i.e.theunionofthepossiblevaluesofitsfeatures,doesnot
generallyconstituteaparticularlyusefulorcoherentset.AFSofthissortcanberegardedasa
particularkindoffunctioncalledan‘ad-hocpolymorphism’(Strachey1967).
11Thoughthedistinctionbetweenthesignature’stypedeclarationsandthegrammar’scon-
structionsissometimesmoreoneofconvenience,therearecomputerimplementationsoftype
systemswherethetypedeclarations(butnotthetypeconstraints)areusedina‘top-down’man-
nerduringprocessing.
12Carpenter1992.SeealsoSagetal.2003.
13SeeHarris1946,Chomsky1970,Jackendoff1977,andKornaiandPullum1990.
14ThesearethedistinctivefeaturesofthecategoryNPintheanalysisproposedinGazdaret
al.1985.
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Note that the functional nature of this kind of analysis can be obscured by
linguists’tendencytowritethevalueofafeaturebeforethefeature’sname,
e.g. [+CORONAL] or [+V] or to use other notations, e.g. X1 (Harris 1946)
orX(Chomsky1970).Yetitisclearthattheanalyticintentofsuchnotions
is accurately rendered by functions whose domain is a set of features and
whose range is a set of feature values (e.g. the set {+,−} in the system of
ChomskyandHalle1968orthatofChomsky1974).Theuseoffunctionsto
model linguistic objects is thus nothing out of the ordinary, though lack of
formalizationandidiosyncraticorabstrusenotation(especiallyinthecaseof
generative-transformationalsyntactictheories)oftenobscuresthisfact.
Building on the more explicit ideas pioneered by computational linguis-
tic work of the late 1970s, e.g. Martin Kay’s Functional Unification Gram-
mar (M. Kay 1979), and the extensive subsequent work in GPSG, LFG, and
HPSG,15 every grammatical object used here is modeled by a function that
mapseachmemberofasetoffeaturestooneofitspossiblevalues,asspeci-
fiedin(2)above.Grammaticalcategories,forexample,areanalyzedascom-
plexesofvariouspropertiesrepresentedasfeature-valuepairs:nounsinclude
specificationsforthefeaturesCASE,NUMBER,andGENDER;verbsarespeci-
fiedintermsofthefeatureVERB-FORM(VF)fortheirinflectionclass(as[VF
finite],[VF present-participle],etc.)andwillhavea‘+’or‘−’valueforthe
featureAUXILIARY(AUX).Thisapproachalsotakesadvantageofthepower
offunctionstomodelcomplexlinguisticentities.Unlikethephonologicaland
X illustrations given above, where the values of the features are all atomic,
thevalueofanSBCGfeaturemaybeanatomoritmaybeafunction(another
complexFS).Thisallowsforrecursiveembeddingoffeaturestructureswithin
FSs,analogoustotheembeddingoffunctionsthatisnowstandardpracticein
formalizedapproachestosemanticanalysis.
Signsarenoexception.Saussure(1916)regardedasignasan‘associative
bond’betweenasoundconceptandasemanticconcept.Addinginsyntactic
information, we arrive at representations like the ones in Figure 1, rendered
hereintheSaussureanstyle(CNstandsforcommonnoun;Nforpropernoun;
Vforverb).
As already noted, signs are modeled as functions that specify a phono-
logicalandmorphologicalstructure,ameaning,contextualconnections,and
relevant syntactic information (including traditional syntactic category and
combinatoric potential). These functions are described intermsof attribute-
valuematrices,i.e.diagramslikethefollowing:16
15SeeGazdaretal.1985,Bresnan1982,Dalrympleetal.1995,PollardandSag1987,1994,
King1989,1994,andCarpenter1992.
16Theinformalsemanticsin(5)and(6)isatemporaryexpedient,andwillbereplacedbya
morepreciserepresentationinsection3.4below.
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SIGN-BASEDCONSTRUCTIONGRAMMAR:ANINFORMALSYNOPSIS/75
/tejbl/ /kIm/
"
CN N
‘beingatable’ ‘apersonnamedKim’
/læf-d/
V
‘aneventoflaughing
(inthepast)’
FIGURE1 SaussureanRepresentation
⎡ ⎤
(5) a. PHONOLOGY /kIm/
⎢ ⎥
⎣SYNTAX NP ⎦
SEMANTICS ‘theintendedpersonnamedKim’
⎡ ⎤
b. PHONOLOGY /læf-d/
⎢ ⎥
⎢⎢SYNTAX V[fin] ⎥⎥
⎣SEMANTICS ‘alaughingeventsituated ⎦
priortothetimeofutterance’
And, following work in HPSG (Pollard and Sag 1987, 1994), the notion of
‘sign’ is extended to phrases, recognizing FSs like those in (6) for complex
linguisticexpressions:
⎡ ⎤
(6) a. PHONOLOGY /Evri#lINwIst/
⎢ ⎥
⎣SYNTAX NP ⎦
SEMANTICS ‘thesetofpropertiesalllinguistsshare’
⎡ ⎤
b. PHONOLOGY /pæt#læf-d/
⎢ ⎥
⎢SYNTAX S[fin] ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎢ ‘thepropositionthattherewasalaughingevent⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎣ ⎦
SEMANTICS situatedpriortothetimeofutterancewherea
certainpersonnamedPatdidthelaughing’
The non-atomic FSs used to model linguistic objects are total functions.
That is, once an appropriate feature domain is established for a particular
type of feature structure, every FS of that type assigns an appropriate, fully
determinatevaluetoeveryfeatureinthatdomain.Thevalueassignedtoany
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featuremustalsobeafeaturestructure,i.e.eitheranatomorafunctionthat
inturnassignsavaluetoeveryfeatureinitsappropriatedomain.AFSisthus
always ‘complete’ in a simple, intuitive sense: every feature in a function’s
domainisassignedavalueintheappropriaterange.
ItisimportanttonotethatwhereasFSsaretotalfunctions,FSdescriptions
areinpracticealmostalwayspartial.Forthisreason,mostofthediscussions
below, indeed throughout the chapters of this book, will include partial de-
scriptionsoflinguisticobjects.ListemesareformulatedaspartialFSdescrip-
tions(typicallybeingtrueof(or‘satisfiedby’)alargeclassof FSs);combi-
natoric constructions are also quite sparse, when compared with the feature
structures that instantiate them. But underlying all our concerns will be the
setofFSsthatislicensedbythegrammarwedevelop.Ifsomeaspectofour
grammargoesawry,weshouldbeabletolearnwhybyisolatingcertain FSs
thatshouldsatisfytheconstraintsofourtheory,butdonot.Alternatively,we
shouldbeabletofindsomeFSthatincorrectlysatisfiesourtheory.Inpartic-
ular, an SBCG grammar must not license signs that fail to model something
in the target language (they must not license an unacceptable sentence, for
example).Inaddition,itmustnotfailtolicenseasignthatisneededtoserve
as a model of a sentence that the grammarian decides is part of the target
language.
FSs have one more property that is not part of the basic theory of func-
tions(whichIwillassumeonlycursoryfamiliaritywith): FSsareorganized
in terms of linguistic types. A type is a classification associated with a set
of FSs that have certain stated properties in common. One benefit derived
from assigning FSs to types is that we can then better organize the proper-
tiesthatclassesofgrammaticalobjectshaveandsimplifytheirdescriptionin
the process. Intuitively, it makes no sense (in English, anyway) to ask what
caseaverbhasorwhetheranounisanauxiliary–certaingrammaticalfeatu-
raldistinctionsareappropriateonlyforcertainkindsofgrammaticalobjects.
Thisintuitionisgivenformalexpressionintermsofthetypesthatparticular
FSsinstantiate.EachFSinstantiatesaparticularmaximaltypeandthefeature
appropriatenessconditionstogetherdeterminewhichsubsetoffeaturesisap-
propriatefor FSsofthattype,rulingoutverbalcategoriesthatspecify CASE
values,nominalcategoriesthatspecifyVFvalues,andsoforth.
Thespaceoftypesishierarchicallystructured.Infact,thetypesareinter-
related in terms of a multiple inheritance hierarchy. If a type B is a sub-
type of another type A, then FSs of type B must satisfy all constraints that
thegrammarimposesonobjectsoftypeA,aswellasthegrammaticalcon-
straints imposed on type B.17 In this case, the FSs of type B form a subset
17Iamassumingthatconstraintinheritanceismonotonic,i.e.thatthereisno‘overriding’of
grammaticalconstraints.Butthisassumptionisdebatable,andthegeneralframeworkofSBCG
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literarywork
verse prose Asian European
epic lyric Greek English
Greek-epic English-epic English-lyric
(e.g.OdetoaNightingale) (e.g.TheOdyssey) (e.g.Beowulf)
FIGURE2 AMultiple-InheritanceHierarchy
oftheFSsoftypeA.Thissituationisinformallycharacterized,followingthe
terminologyofBCG,bysayingthat‘typeBinheritsfromtypeA’.18Inamul-
tipleinheritancehierarchy,atypecaninheritfrommorethanoneimmediate
supertype.Thatis,typehierarchiesbehavelikethenonlinguisticexamplein
Figure2,whereaninstanceofeachmaximaltypeisgivenbelowit.Multiple-
inheritance hierarchies are useful for analyzing cross-classifying properties
ofasetofobjects,whethertheyareliteraryworks,words,orconstructs.
InSBCG,themoregeneralnotionof‘typehierarchy’takesovertheinher-
itance functions that constructional inheritance performed in some earlier
traditionsof CxG.19 Forexample,Fillmore(1999)treatsthevariouskindsof
auxiliary-initialclauseintermsofconstructionalinheritancefromthesuper-
typehecalls‘subject-auxiliaryinversion’(SAI).SomeoftheseSAIconstruc-
tionsareillustratedin(7):
(7) a. {[Has][he][left?]}
b. {[Am][I][tired!]}
c. Never{[will][I][harmyou.]}
d. What{[did][Merle][know?]}
e. {[May][you][livelongandprosper!]}
f. {[Had][he][beenontime]},hewouldn’thavegonehungry.
couldbeoutfittedtoincludedefaultconstraintsandconstraintoverriding.Mostlinguistically
interestingexamplesofdefaultconstraints,however,canbecastas‘nonpersistent’defaultsin
thesenseofLascaridesandCopestake1999,andhencecanbestraightforwardlyreanalyzedin
purelymonotonicterms,asIhaveattemptedtodohere.
18Thisterminologyisinfactsomewhatmisleading,asitisthefeaturestructuresinstantiating
agiventypethatinheritthepropertiesassociatedwiththetype’ssupertypes.
19See,forexample,Fillmoreetal.1988,Goldberg1995,FillmoreandKay1996,Fillmore
1999,KayandFillmore1999,P.Kay2002a,2002b,MichaelisandLambrecht1996.
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IntheSBCGanalogofFillmore’sanalysis,eachofthebracketedsequencesin
(7)instantiatesatypeofconstructthatisasubtypeofthemoregeneraltype
auxiliary-initial-construct (aux-initial-cxt). The Aux-Initial Construction (a
combinatoricconstruction)placesgeneralconstraintsoninstancesofthetype
aux-initial-cxt,assketchedin(8):
(8) Aux-InitialConstruction(PreliminarySketch)
(cid:5) (cid:6)
MTR S[...]
Anaux-initial-cxtmustsatisfy:
DTRS (cid:2)V[AUX+],...(cid:3)
Amorespecificconstruction,i.e.aconstructionthatcharacterizes asub-
typeofaux-initial-cxt,needstospecifyonlythepropertiesthatarespecificto
thatsubtype.Inthecaseofaux-initialclauses,thesubconstructionsinques-
tion specify primarily semantic information, but also syntactic constraints
about independent clause status, modifier status, etc. For example, the In-
vertedWishConstruction(ofwhich(7e)isaninstance)definesthecharacter-
isticpropertiesoffeaturestructuresinstantiatingthemaximaltypeinverted-
wish-construct (inv-wish-cxt). It specifies the appropriate semantics and the
constraintthataFSofthistypemustbeanindependentclause.Invertedwish
constructswillofcoursealsoexhibitthegeneralpropertiesof(obeythegen-
eral constraints on) aux-initial constructs. This is accomplished simply by
specifyingthatinv-wish-cxtisasubtypeofaux-initial-cxt.
3 Signs
Thefollowingsectionsintroducethespecificfeatureswhosevaluesserveto
distinguishthesignsofalanguagefromoneanother.
3.1 PHONOLOGYandFORM
Little will be said here about morphology, and nothing at all about phonol-
ogy,buttheintentionisthatphonologicalandmorphologicalentitiesbepart
oflinguisticsigns.Iassumethatalargelyautonomoussetofconstraintschar-
acterizetherelationbetweenthephonologicalandmorphologicalaspectsof
signs.20Therearethustwodistinctsign-levelfeatures:PHONOLOGY(PHON)
andFORM:
(9) a. ThevalueofthefeaturePHONisaphonologicalstructurei.e.aFS
oftypephonological-object.
20Anumberofresearchershavedevelopedrelatedapproachestotheanalysisofphonological
andmorphologicalstructureintermsoftypedfeaturestructuresofthesortassumedhere.See
BirdandKlein1994,Orgun1996,2000,Klein2000,AsudehandKlein2002,BonamiandBoyé
2002, 2006, Haji-Abdolhosseini 2003, Tseng 2003, 2008, and Bonami and Delais-Roussarie
2006,amongothers.