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Concept
Lexical functional grammar
Summary
Lexical functional grammar (LFG) is a constraint-based grammar framework in theoretical linguistics. It posits two separate levels of syntactic structure, a phrase structure grammar representation of word order and constituency, and a representation of grammatical functions such as subject and object, similar to dependency grammar. The development of the theory was initiated by Joan Bresnan and Ronald Kaplan in the 1970s, in reaction to the theory of transformational grammar which was current in the late 1970s. It mainly focuses on syntax, including its relation with morphology and semantics. There has been little LFG work on phonology (although ideas from optimality theory have recently been popular in LFG research).
LFG views language as being made up of multiple dimensions of structure. Each of these dimensions is represented as a distinct structure with its own rules, concepts, and form. The primary structures that have figured in LFG research are:
the representation of grammatical functions (f-structure). See feature structure.
the structure of syntactic constituents (c-structure). See phrase structure rules, ID/LP grammar.
For example, in the sentence The old woman eats the falafel, the c-structure analysis is that this is a sentence which is made up of two pieces, a noun phrase (NP) and a verb phrase (VP). The VP is itself made up of two pieces, a verb (V) and another NP. The NPs are also analyzed into their parts. Finally, the bottom of the structure is composed of the words out of which the sentence is constructed. The f-structure analysis, on the other hand, treats the sentence as being composed of attributes, which include features such as number and tense or functional units such as subject, predicate, or object.
There are other structures which are hypothesized in LFG work:
argument structure (a-structure), a level which represents the number of arguments for a predicate and some aspects of the lexical semantics of these arguments. See theta-role.
semantic structure (s-structure), a level which represents the meaning of phrases and sentences.
Official source
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