Category Cooccurrence Restrictions and the Elimination of Metarules

This paper builds upon and extends certain ideas developed within the framework of Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar (GPSG). ill A new descriptive device, the Category Cooccurrence Restriction (CCR), is introduced in analogy to existing devices of GPSG in order to express constraints on the cooccurrence of categories within local trees (i.e. trees of depth one) which at present are stated with Immediate Dominance (ID) rules and metarules. In addition to providing a uniform format for the statement of such constraints, CCRs permit generalizations to be expressed which presently cannot be captured in GPSG. Sections l.l and 1.2 introduce CCRs and presuppose only a general familiarity with GPSG. The ideas do not depend on details of GPSG and can be applied to other grammatical formalisms. Sections 1.3-1.5 discuss CCRs in relation to particular principles of GPSG and ass~ne familiarity with Gazdar et al. (].985) (henceforth abbreviated 'GKPS'). Finally, section 2 contains proposals for using CCRs to avoid the analyses with metarules given for English in GKPS.