Lexical functional grammar (LFG) is a reaction to the direction research in the area of transformational grammar began to take in the 1970s. It mainly focuses on syntax, morphology and semantics but does not include phonology (although ideas from Optimality Theory have recently been popular in LFG research). Unlike Chomskian theories of syntax, which have always involved separate levels of linguistic representation being mapped onto each other via transformations, LFG analysis is based on two mutually constraining structure types: Transformational grammar is a broad term describing grammars (almost exclusively those of natural languages) which have been developed in a Chomskyan tradition. ... This article provides extensive lists of events and significant personalities of the 1970s. ... In linguistics, syntax is the study of the rules, or patterned relations, that govern the way the words in a sentence are arranged. ... Morphology is the following: In linguistics, morphology is the study of the structure of word forms. ... In general, semantics (from the Greek semantikos, or significant meaning, derived from sema, sign) is the study of meaning, in some sense of that term. ... Phonology (Greek phone = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), or phonemics, is a subfield of grammar (see also linguistics). ... Optimality theory or OT is a linguistic theory proposed by the linguists Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky in 1993. ... Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an Institute Professor Emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and creator of the Chomsky hierarchy, a classification of formal languages. ...

• the structure of functions (f-structure). See feature structure.
• the structure of syntactic constituents (c-structure).

Many syntactic phenomena are explained by the imperfect correspondence between these two kinds of structure, which must be unified in order to create grammatical sentences. In technical terms, LFG rejects the "projection principle" characterising recent work in transformational grammar, which states that syntactic structures are direct representations of certain kinds of lexical information. Instead, LFG proposes more flexible relationships between syntactic and semantic structure, thereby obviating the need for transformations. In phrase structure grammars, such as generalised phrase structure grammar, head-driven phrase structure grammar and lexical functional grammar, a feature structure is essentially a list of variable assignments. ...

The development of the theory was initiated by Joan Bresnan and Ronald Kaplan in the 70s. A central goal is to create a model of grammar with a depth which appeals to linguists while at the same time being efficiently parseable and having the rigidity of formalism which computational linguists require.

See also

• Generalised phrase structure grammar
• Head-driven phrase structure grammar
• Movement paradox
• syntax
• Transformational grammar
• the minimalist program

Generalised phrase structure grammar (GPSG) is a theory of syntax and semantics initially developed by Gerald Gazdar. ... The Head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG) is a non-derivational generative grammar theory developed by Carl Pollard and Ivan Sag (1985). ... A movement paradox is a grammatical phenomenon which, particularly according to proponents of lexical functional grammar, presents some problems for a transformational approach to syntax. ... In linguistics, syntax is the study of the rules, or patterned relations, that govern the way the words in a sentence are arranged. ... Transformational grammar is a broad term describing grammars (almost exclusively those of natural languages) which have been developed in a Chomskyan tradition. ...

External links

• What is LFG?
• Stanford LFG Website

References

Bresnan, Joan (2001). Lexical Functional Syntax. Blackwell.
Falk, Yehuda N. (2001). Lexical-Functional Grammar: An Introduction to Parallal Constraing-Based Syntax. CSLI.
(Introductions to LFG which assume a basic knowledge of syntactic theory.)