HPSG and Construction Grammar
Author: Stefan MüllerKeywords: HPSG, CxG
2021. In Stefan Müller, Anne Abeillé, Robert D. Borsley & Jean-Pierre Koenig (eds), Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar: The handbook (Empirically Oriented Theoretical Morphology and Syntax 9), 1163–1202. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5599882
This paper discusses the main tenets of Construction Grammar (CxG) and shows that HPSG adheres to them. This discussion includes surface orientation, language acquisition without UG, inheritance networks and shows how HPSG (and other frameworks) are positioned along these dimensions. Formal variants of CxG will be briefly discussed and their relation to HPSG will be pointed out. It is argued that lexical representations of valence are more appropriate than phrasal approaches, which are assumed in most variants of CxG. Other areas of grammar seem to require headless phrasal constructions (\eg the NPN construction and certain extraction constructions) and it is shown how HPSG handle these. Derivational morphology is discussed as a further example of an early constructionist analysis in HPSG.