Avery Andrews Online Papers

Avery D Andrews (retired Senior Lecturer)
School of Literatures, Languages and Linguistics
The Australian National University

Prepublications (Refereed)

A Speculation about What Linguistic Structures Might Be to appear in Modular Design of Grammar Edited by I Wayan Arka, Ash Asudeh, and Tracy Holloway King, OUP 2021

Recent Publications (Refereed)

A One Level Analysis of Icelandic Quirky Case (2019) LFG'19 conference paper, showing that the DBA glue proposal of Andrews (2007, 2008) below can extend to provide a reasonable treatment of some peculiar properties of `Quirky Case' in Icelandic.
Sets, Heads and Spreading in LFG (2018) Another go at analysing some constructions (Romance complex predicates and scoping adjectival modifiers) where LFG has problems because f-structures are arguably too flat. Andrews and Manning (1993, 1999) analysed these with changes to the LFG architecture; here it is proposed to use the concept of 'distributive attribute' to allow LFG's f-structures to be more hierarchical. And, some additional material in the form of 'more appendices' that didn't make it into the final version: More Appendices
Pre-typsetting version of Case: Oblique, Semantic, Inherent, Quirky (2017) a chapter in the 2nd edition of the Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax. I can't get any of the Wiley Blackwell URLs to work in this page, if if you want to look at what you probably can't have, you'll have to hunt it with a search engine.
Reconciling NSM and Formal Semantics (2016) my downloaded copy but legit, since the 1-year embargo period is over.
Propositional Glue and the Correspondence Architecture of LFG (final typescript, Dec 2010). Linguistics and Philosophy, 33:141-170. Argues that glue semantics can and should be done with propositional linear logic rather than some kind of quantified linear logic as is standard. Many of the basic ideas are presented in a more relaxed and discursive manner in 'Grammatical vs. Lexical Constructors for Glue Semantics' above, and 'Yet Another Attempt to Explain Glue' in the Drafts section below.
Grammatical vs. Lexical Constructors for Glue Semantics (2010, ALS Proceedings). A brief stab at addressing some issues in semantic typology by limiting the kinds of meaning-constructors (assembleable pieces of meaning) that can take things of complex types as arguments. In Selected papers from the 2009 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society.
'Splitting vs. Lumping in Morphological Analysis: Evidence from Greek', in Bowern, Evans and Miceli (eds) Morphology and Language History: in Honor of Harold Koch, Benjamins 2008. downloadable late draft version
The Role of PRED in LFG+Glue (2008). LFG'08 paper, adapting the proposal of 'Input and Glue in LFG+Glue (2007, below) to non-OT LFG. The main idea is to use `Description by Analysis' to introduce meaning contributions on the basis of what is present in the assembled f-structure, rather than the prevailing 'co-descriptional' technique whereby the meaning contrubutions are included in individual lexical items.
'Input and Glue in OT-LFG', in J. Grimshaw, J. Maling, C. Manning, J. Simpson, and A. Zaenen (eds) Architectures, Rules, and Preferences: A Festschrift for Joan Bresnan, CSLI Publications. 2007. Adapts glue semantics to function in the context of OT-LFG. downloadable late draft version
'Relative Clauses', in second edition of Shopen (ed) Language Typology and Syntactic Description, CUP. 2007. downloadable late draft version
'The Major Functions of the Noun Phrase', in second edition of Shopen (ed) Language Typology and Syntactic Description, CUP. 2007. downloadable late draft version
`Homeric Recitation, with input from Phonology and Philology', Antichthon vol 39:1-20, 2005. (Journal of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies; volume published 2006). downloadable late draft version.
Semantic Composition for NSM, Using LFG+Glue in Proceedings of the 2005 meeting of the Australian Linguistic Society (at Monash University). An attempt to work out a few basics for doing semantic composition in Anna Wierzbicka's Natural Semantic Metalanguage framework.
Glue logic vs. spreading architecture in LFG (April 2004), Proceedings of the 2003 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society, Sept 2003. Attempt to make glue semantics more accessible with proof-nets, and shows how it can be used to replace the `spreading architecture' used in Andrews and Manning 1999. Glue Logic, Projections, and Modifiers in Drafts section below is older, but provides more coverage.

Recent Drafts

Prenominal Possessive in English: What does the Stimulus Look like. Looking at the CHILDES corpus to see how frequent the things relevant to the acquisition of complex and recursive possessives are. Some of of the materials.

Propositional Glue Semantics is Fully Variable-Free (Dec 2016). Shows that the propositional glue system proposed by Andrews (2010) is equivalent to a free SMCC over the basic types, which is a subcategory of the free CCC over those types, and therefore truly variable-free in the sense of Jacobson (1999), in spite of the practical utility of variables in doing glue-semantics. A likely side-effect is that Chomsky's Merge idea is less original than it initially appears to be.

Tutorials

The intent with these is not to publish them, but update them here.

Yet Another Attempt to Explain Glue. Mar 15, 2010. A tutorial introduction to the ideas behind glue semantics. The earlier parts of the paper are intended to be at least somewhat accessible to people knowing little or no formal semantics, while the later parts are more demanding. Changelog.
Variables without Assignments (lightly revised, Mar 2011, somewhat extended April 2001). Presents a category-theory based technique for interpreting variables in logical forms, without assignment functions to interpret them. The April version contains the main additional content from Semantic Interpretation by CC Functors for LFG+Glue, so should perhaps be regarded as superseding it.

Conference Papers (Unrefereed)

The Role of PRED in LFG+Glue, paper delivered at LFG 2008. Advocates a description-by-analysis version of glue-semantics.
Projections and Glue for Clause Union Complex Predicates, paper delivered at LFG 2007. Uses glue derivations as a formalization of or substitute for concepts of 'argument structure' in Lexical-Functional Grammar. Other associated materials:
- Handout (updated from July version)
- Slides (updated from July version)
Iofu and Spreading Architecture in LFG, Paper delivered LFG 2004. Resolves a problem with combining Inside-Out Functional Uncertainty with the `Spreading Architecture' proposed by Andrews and Manning 1999.

Drafts, etc.

Guessing Rule 1: Towards a `Modest UG'. An attempt to make universal grammar more substantive and accessible, without also being just wrong.
Quirky Case and `Co-Generative' LFG+Glue, version 3. In this paper I combine Andrews' (1982, 1990) 'two layer' analysis of Quirky Case in Icelandic with a version of LFG in which glue semantics serves as a 'co-generative' component, pairing meanings with f-structures that must match well enough with those produced by a standard LFG grammar that pairs f-structures with c-structures. This architectural change allows certain stipulative features of the original analysis to be eliminated, such as the use of the distinction between constraining vs. defining equations.
V3 changes: some exposition streamlined, explicit comparison to some of Boboljik's recent work on agreement.
V2 changes: additional material on Faroese and various other topics, as well as numerous corrections.
Semantic Interpretation by CC Functors for LFG+Glue (v2). Mostly superseded by Variables without Assignments above.
Attempts to remove or at least reduce the appearance that semantic interpretation of glue proofs is a collection of arbitrary formal decisions. Supersedes Semantics as a functor in LFG+Glue. Unfortunately, a grasp of basic category theory up to the rudiments of CCCs is required (some presentation included, but not enough to actually learn it from). V2 includes typo corrections and presentational improvements, as well as some additional content.
F-structural Spellout in LFG Morphology, Mar 2005: a suggested change to Sadler and Nordlinger's (2004) interface between LFG and Paradigm Function Morphology.
Glue Logic, Projections and Modifiers: Updated June 4, 2003. Expanded but older version of Glue logic vs. spreading architecture in LFG above.
>LFG Textbook Draft (1994 version).

More Speculative

Unificational Glue, Mar 2005: A proposal to use unification rather than lambda-calculus to build meanings with glue-logic, revised from version of Nov 2004. Probably not the right way to go, but section 3 raises some issues of apparent monotonicity that conventional glue does not address.
Model Theoretic Semantics as Structural Semantics
An argument to the effect that MTS is a useful and perhaps essential tool for the pursuit of `cognitivist' semantics as developed by Jackendoff and others, with some adverse comment on neo-Davidsonian `T Theories'. The essential content appears in Reconciling NSM and Formal Semantics in the Refereed Papers section above

Created by: Avery Andrews
Maintained by: Avery Andrews
Last modified: 4 Sept 2018