Yet Another Paper about Partial Verb Phrase Fronting in 
German 
Stefan Mfiller* 
Humboldt University Berlin 
Philosophische Fakult~it II 
Institut fib deutsche Sprache und Linguistik 
Lehrstuhl Computerlinguistik 
J£gerstrage 10/11 
D-10099 Berlin 
st ef an@compling, hu-berl in. de 
Abstract 
I describe a very simple HPSG analysis 
for partial verb phrase fronting. I will ar- 
gue that the presented account is more 
adequate than others made during the 
past years because it allows the descrip- 
tion of constituents in fronted positions 
with their modifier remaining in the non- 
fronted part of the sentence. 
A problem with ill-formed signs that are 
admitted by all HPSG accounts for par- 
tial verb phrase fronting known so far 
will be explained and a solution will be 
suggested that uses the difference be- 
tween combinatoric relations of signs and 
their representation in word order do- 
mains. 
1 Introduction 
During the last years, several different analy- 
ses for partial verb phrase fronting have been 
proposed (Pollard, To appear; Nerbonne, 1994; 
Baker, 1994; Hinrichs and Nakazawa, 1994b). The 
most promising account so far has been the one of 
Hinrichs and Nakazawa. This account, however, 
suffers from some drawbacks that will be discussed 
in section 4. I will present a rather simple ac- 
count that, uses the standard NONLOC mechanism 
HPSG (Pollard and Sag, 1994) provides. In sec- 
t, ion 3.3, I will discuss a problem that arises for 
all accounts of partial verb phrase fronting: un- 
derspecified COMPS lists. By the means of a new 
daughter (licensing daughter) in a schema for the 
introduction of nonloeal dependencies this prob- 
lem will be solved. 
*This paper is available via the WWW: http:// 
www. compling, hu-berlin, de/~ st ef an/Pub/e_pvp, html 
Thanks to Prank Keller for comments oil earlier ver- 
sions of this paper. 
2 The Phenomena 
Ill German, it is possible to front non-maximal 
verbal projections} 
(1) a. \[Erz~hlen\] wird er seiner Tochter 
tell will he his daughter 
ein M~rchen. 
a fairy tail 
'He will tell his daughter a fairy tale.' 
b. \[Erz~hlen mfissen\] wird er 
tell must will he 
seiner Tochter ein M£rchen. 
his daughter a fairy tale 
'He will have to tell his daughter a 
fairy tale.' 
In a series of papers, Hinrichs and Nakazawa ar- 
gued for a special rule schema that combines the 
verbs of a so-called verbal complex before the ar- 
guments of the involved verbs are combined with 
the verbal complex. Because the verbal complex is 
build before any nonverbal argument of a verb gets 
saturated, it is possible to account for phenomena 
like auxiliary flip. As the verbal complex is an- 
alyzed as a constituent, the fi'onting of erz~ihlen 
miissen in (lb) can be explained as well. There is 
no problem with sentences like those in (1) for the 
standard NONLOC mechanism. Erziihlen miissen 
is a constituent in the non-fronted position in 
(2) and the same holds if the verbal complex is 
fronted. 
(2) Er wird seiner Tochter ein M~rchen \[erz£hlen 
miissen\]. 
There are, however, examples where a partly sat- 
urated verbal complex is fronted. 
(3) a. \[Seiner Tochter ein M£rchen erz~hlen\] 
wird er. 
b. \[Ein M£rchen erz£hlen\] wird er seiner 
Tochter. 
c. \[Ein M~irchen erz~ihlen\] wird er seiner 
Tochter miissen. 
1The examples (1) and (3) are taken from Hinrichs 
and Nakazawa (1994b). 
800 
d. \[Seiner Tochter erzghlen\] wird er das 
Mgrchen. 
A verb with some of its arguments may appear in 
the Vorfeld leaving other arguments in the Mit- 
telfeld. 
As (4) shows, it is possible that a PP in the 
Mittelfeld modifies a fronted verbal complex. 
(4) Den Kanzlerlmndidaten ermorden 
the chmlcellor.candi(late kill 
wollte die Frau mit diesem Messer. 
wanted the woman with this knife 
'The woman wanted to kill the candidate 
with this knife.' 
Sentences like (5a) are ungrammatical. It is not 
possible to front parts of tile verbal comi)lex that 
would be located in the middle of the verbal eom~ 
plex in a verb tinal sentence (Sb). 
(5) a. * Miissen wird er ihr 
must will he her 
ein M~irchen erz/ihlen. 
a story tell 
b. , well er ihr ein Mgrchen erz'ahlen m{issen 
wird. 
3 The Analysis 
3.1l Basic AssumI)tions 
In what follows, I assume a version of IIPSG that 
deviates from standard HI'SG in that the surface 
string of a t)hrasal sign is not determined by a 
relation that relates the PIION vahms of a sign to 
the PI:ION values of its daughters (Pollard and Sag, 
1987, p. 169). Instead I will follow Reape's (1994) 
at)preach. Reape assumes word order domains as 
an additional level of representation. In such a 
domain, all daughters of a head occur. These do- 
mains differ from the daughter list, in that the el- 
e, ments in a domain (signs) correspond in their 
serialization to the surface order of the words in 
the string. LP-eonstraints apply to elements of 
the order domain. Another basic assumption of 
Reape is that constituents may be discontinuous. 
As Hinriehs and Nakazmva (1994a) have shown, 
it is reasonable to assume in addition to the head 
complement schema a schema that licenses the 
-verbal complex. Hinri(:hs and Nakazawa intro- 
duced the concept of argument attraction into the 
HPSG framework. If a vert)al (:omI)lex is build two 
verbs are combined and the resulting sign inher~ 
its all arguments from both verbs. In their paper, 
Hinrichs and Nakazawa treat verbal complements 
as ordinary complements that, are included in the 
COMPS list of their heads. It has however proven 
1,o be useful to distinguish the verbal complement 
from other complements (Rentier, 1994a; Mfiller, 
1995a). The merits of this move will t)e discussed 
shortly, l~br the Imrpose of representing the in- 
tbrmation at)out verbal colnt)lements , the fl;ature 
VCOMP is introduced. Its vahle is a synscm-objeet 
if the verb embeds another verb and none other- 
wise. '.\['he entry in the stem lexicon for tile fll- 
t;ure tense auxiliary we(den (will) is shown in (6). 
1,Yore this stem the mort)hology eomt)onent pro- 
werden: 
verb J 
I COMPS \[~\] 
vcoMp , ,COMPS 
VCOMP 7t07%e\] 
cat 
(6) 
duces the finite form shown in (7). In German, 
ahnost any complemellt of a verb can be fronted, 
subjects as well as objects. Therefore, fox' tinite 
forms the subject is in(:luded into the COMPS list, 
from where extraction is possible, l~br nonfinite 
forms the subject does not appear on COMPS hut 
stays in the SUBJ list. 2 Schema 1 licenses verb 
vird: 
W'(mM fin 
m Al) s .J <) 
verb 
VCoMPV\[LEXJv,bse,SUBJ ~, COMPS U\]' 
VCOMP nofte\] 
cat 
(7) 
(:luster structures. 3 A head is combined with its 
Schema 1 (Verb Cluster Schema) 
I \[i,o  pJJ 
head-cluster-structure~ 
0 
. phrasal-sign 
verbal complement (\[~). The resulting sign is a 
2see (Kiss, 1993) tbr details 
aI will not go into the details of the domain forma- 
lion in verb cluster structures. N)r details see (Miilh;r, 
1.995t)). 
801 
verbal complex or a part of a verbal complex. It is 
marked LEX+ because it can in turn be embedded. 
(8) , well er ihm ein M/irchen 
because he him a fairy talc 
\[\[erz~hlen lassen\] hat\]. 
tell let has 
'because he has let him tell the story.' 
3.2 The LEX Feature 
The LEX feature in the entry for werden ensures 
that a matrix verb is combined with its verbal 
complement before the verbal complement is sat- 
urated by one of its complements. It is therefore 
possible to avoid multiple structures in the Mit- 
telfeld. 
(9) a. Er wird seiner Tochter ein M/irchen 
\[erzghlen mfissen\]. 
b. Er wird sciner Toehter \[\[ein M/irchen 
erz/ihlen\] miissen\]\]. 
c. Er wird \[\[seiner Tochter ein Miirchen 
erz//hlen\] miissen\]\]. 
But exactly those constituents that have to be 
avoided in the Mittclfeld are needed in the Vor- 
reid. Very complicate mechanisms have been in- 
troduced to cope with this problem without a lot 
of spurious ambiguities (Nerbonne, 1994; Hinrichs 
and Nakazawa, 1994b). I will suggest a solution 
to the problem that is very simple: If it is the 
case that an embedded verb or verbal complex has 
to be LEX+ when verb and complement are tom- 
bitted locally and if it is the case that this does not 
hold if a nonlocal dependency is involved than the 
simplest solution is to view LEX not as a local fea- 
ture. If one assumes that LEX lives under the path 
SYNSEM instead of SYNSEMILOC than the problem 
turns into a non-issue. 
Figures 1 and 2 show the analyses of the sen- 
tences in (10). 4 In the analyses of (10a), a trace 
flmctions as a verbal complement. In (10b) a trace 
for a verb is modified by an adverb. 
(10) a. Seiner Tochter erziihlen wird er das 
M/irchen. 
b. Vortragen wird er es morgen. 
Sentences like (5a) are ruled out because wird 
selects a complement in bse-form that has a 
VCOMP value none. As erziihlen does not appear 
in any COMPS list it is not possible for the verb to 
count as an argument of the fronted verbal com- 
plex that is saturated in the Mittel\]eld. This is the 
case in Pollards account. Hinrichs and Nakazawa 
have to block this case by stating type constraints 
4In the original grammar, I use a binary branching 
schema for head-complement and verb cluster struc- 
lures. Adjuncts and complements are inserted into 
the domain of their head so that word order facts are 
accounted for. Due to space limitations, the figures 
show a tree for a flat head-complement structure. 
on lists of attracted arguments. With a separate 
VCOMP feature this problem disappears. 
3.3 The Problem of Underspeeified 
COMPS Lists 
In this section, I will address a problem that seems 
to have gone unnoticed until now. All analyses 
that involve argument attraction admit signs with 
underspecified COMPS lists. So in (1), wird is coin- 
bined with a trace or a lexical rule is applied to 
it. The LOC value of the verbal complement is put 
into SLASII and the argmnents of the verbal com- 
plement are attracted by the matrix verb. This 
list of argmnents, however, is not instantiatcd in 
the resulting sign. It remains variable until the 
SLASIt element becomes bound. Therefore, the 
HPSG principles admit any kind of combination 
of totally unrelated signs. Since the COMPS list of 
the head is variable, any constituent is a possible 
complement. 5 As an HPSG theory is assumed to 
be a set of constraints that describe well formed 
descriptions of linguistic objects, this is clearly 
not wanted. If a grammar contains phonologically 
empty elements (traces, relativizers, and the like) 
the set of ill-formed signs will be infinite because 
wird -i could be combined with arbitrarily many 
empty elements. 6 
It is clear that we want the matrix verb to be- 
have in a very well defined way. It shall attract 
exactly the arguments of the fronted verbal pro- 
jection that were not saturated by this projection, 
i.e., the matrix verb shall perform the argmnent 
attraction that would take place in base position, 
abstracting away from tile value of LEX. The de- 
sired effect can be reached if a rule schema is used 
for the introduction of nonlocal dependencies. To 
introdnce a nonlocal dependency for a verbal com- 
plex, this schema requires an additional licensing 
condition to be met. The extracted element is li- 
censed by an actually existing verbal projection 
in the string. When a hearer of a sentence hears 
the words that have to be combined with a trace 
or introduce the nonlocal dependency in another 
way, he or she has already heard the phrase actu- 
ally located in the Vorfeld. Therefore, the infor- 
Ination about the nonlocal dependency is present 
and can be used to license the extracted element. 
The COMPS list of the extracted element, therefore 
is specified. The specified COMPS are attracted 
by tile matrix verb and the COMPS list of the ma- 
trix verb therefore does not contain any variables 
and our theory does not admit signs that don't 
describe linguistic objects. 
~The same problem exists for analysises that treat 
verb second as verb movement (Kiss and Wesche, 
1991; Netter, 1992). 
6For a bottom-up parser, this would mean non- 
termination. 
802 
S(lin\] 
V II.I';X-I 
LOC\[~I 
SUBJ <\[~, 
SUBCAT \[3\]<\[4\]>1 
\[~\]N P\[ilal\] V Ibse, 
LEX+, 
SUBJ <12~, 
SUI\]CA'I" <\[~ \[~,1 
I 
S¢illcr Tiichter cr Wdhlen 
Slfin, 
SI.ASII <Jill 
V\[tin, \[~\]NP\[noml \[20NP\[acc\] \[i~V\[bse,I.EX-;, 
SUBCAT <\[~ • \[~\], ~ SUI\]CAT \[~\], 
VCOMP ~\] SI,ASH <\[\]\]>\] 
wird er das M~lrchen 
Figure 1: Analysis of Seiner Tochtcr erziihlen wird er das Mfirchen. 
SIlin\] 
V\[\]~\[bse,l.EX+, S\[lin, 
SI\]I\]J <L~, SLASII <\[\[\]>\] 
silnCA'r 03< ~3~, 
CONT ~-II 
Vllin, 
SUIICAT <\[2}> oL3\], 
VCOMP ~\]1 
__ 7 - --- -~--- VC 
\[2\]Nl'\[,oml \[~\]NPlaccl l~.flV\[bse, 
CONT ~rl 
SI.ASI\[ <\[I\]>\] 
ADV\[MOD~q. \[~ Vlbsc, 
CONT \[~ulorgen( \[~l & CONT \[51. 
\[311 SLASII <\[\[\]>\[ 
I 
cr eR IIlOrgL~ll Worlragell wird 
Figure 2: Analysis of Vortragen wird cr es morgen. 
803 
Schema 2 (PVP-SLASH-Introduction-Schema) 
SYNSEM I 
LOC \[CATIVCOMPnOne \] 
\[ 
LEX + 
Ivoo ,l oo\[ \] 
vcoMe-DT~ ... Loc \[\] N,....IsL 
{} 
complement- slash-licencing- structure 
DOM \[\] 
• phrasal-sign 
Schema 2 shows how this is implemented. A ver- 
bal complement of a matrix verb is saturated. The 
VCOMP value of the resulting sign is none. The 
LOC value of the saturated verbal complement is 
moved into SLASH. This LOC value is licensed by 
another verbal projection that meets the local re- 
quirements of the matrix verb but may be posi- 
tioned in the Vorfeld. As there are no constraints 
for daughters to be adjacent to each other, there 
may be an arbitrary munber of constituents be- 
tween the licensing daughter and the head daugh- 
ter. The licensing daughter has licensing function 
only and is not inserted into the domain of the 
resulting sign (\[~) at this point of combination. 
However, an appropriate sign is inserted into the 
domain of its head when the nonlocal dependency 
is bound. 
4 Alternatives 
The drawback of the approaches of Pollard (To ap- 
pear) and Nerbonne (1994) are discussed in (Hin- 
richs and Nakazawa, 1994b). I will not repeat 
the arguments against these approaches here. In- 
stead, I will explain some of the problems of the 
Hinrichs and Nakazawa approach\] 
Hinrichs and Nakazawa changed the value of 
SLASII into a set of signs rather than local objects. 
The fronted phrase is a maximal projection with 
the missing constituents moved to SLASH. The 
fronted partial phrase is the filler for a nonlocal 
dependency which is introduced by their PVP- 
Topicalization Lexical Rule. As SLASII elements 
are signs, the lexical rule can refer to the SLASH 
set of a SLASlt element and it is thus possible to 
establish a relation between the COMPS list of the 
auxiliary and the SLASH set of the fronted verbal 
7Due to space limitations, I cannot give a detailed 
discussion of their approach here. The interested 
reader is referred to (Mfiller, 1996). 
projection. However, the assumption that SLASH 
contains signs rather than local objects is a change 
of the basic HPSG formalism with far reaching 
consequences that is not really needed and that 
has some side effects. 
In the following, I discuss two problems for this 
approach. Firstly, it is not possible to account for 
cases where a modifier in the Mittelfeld modifies 
the fronted verbal projection without, assuming an 
infinite lexicon because the only way for a mod- 
ifier to stay in the Mittelfeld while the modified 
constituent is fronted is that the modifier is con- 
tained in the SLASIt set of the fronted constituent. 
It, therefore had to be a member of the COMPS 
list. An infinite lexicon is both not very nice from 
a conceptual point of view and an implementa- 
tional problem. Without; a complex control strat- 
egy (late evaluation) it is not possible to imple- 
ment an infinite lexicon. Another problem that 
was pointed out by Hinrichs and Nakazawa them- 
selves is sentences like (11). 
(11) * Gewuflt, daft Peter-i sehlggt, habe 
known that Peter hit have 
ich siei. 
I her 
'I knew that Peter hit her.' 
In (11), sic is extracted from the complement sen- 
tence of gewuflt and than inserted into the COMPS 
list of babe and saturated in the Mittelfeld. The 
same problem arises for other constructions in- 
volving nonlocal dependencies, s 
(12) a. \[Da\]i hatte Karl \[-i mit\] gerechnet. 
this had Karl with counted 
'Karl expected this.' 
b. * \[\[-i mit\] gerechnet \] hatte \[da\]i Karl. 
(13) a. Bus/ will Karl\[_/ fahren\]. 
bus wants Karl drive 
'Karl wants to go by bus.' 
b. * \[ -i fahren\] will Karl bus/. 
5 Conclusion 
A very simple solution for the PVP problem was 
found. A minor change in the feature geometry 
of signs was sufficient to cope with the spurious 
ambiguity problem of Pollard's (To appear) ac- 
count. The account, argued for in this paper can 
describe the fronting phenomena without the as- 
sumption of an infinite lexicon. A solution for the 
problem of underspecified COMPS lists was found. 
This solution makes use of a schema to introduce 
the nonlocal dependency. An introduced nonlocal 
dependency is licensed by an actually present, el- 
ement in the syntax analysis of a string. At; the 
SFor an analysis of stranded prepositions in terms 
of nonlocal dependencies see (Rentier, 1994b) and 
(Miiller, 1995@ 
804 
point; of (:onlbination, this element plays a licens- 
ing role only and does not at)pear in the surface 
string of the buihl sign. This is possible because 
two different levels of representation for combina- 
torial and order information are used. 
The analysis is part; of an implemented fragment 
of German (Miiller, 1996). 
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