Dependencies in language


Book Description

Dependency is a fundamental concept in the analysis of linguistic systems. The many if-then statements offered in typology and grammar-writing imply a casually real notion of dependency that is central to the claim being made—usually with reference to widely varying timescales and types of processes. But despite the importance of the concept of dependency in our work, its nature is seldom defined or made explicit. This book brings together experts on language, representing descriptive linguistics, language typology, functional/cognitive linguistics, cognitive science, research on gesture and other semiotic systems, developmental psychology, psycholinguistics, and linguistic anthropology to address the following question: What kinds of dependencies exist among language-related systems, and how do we define and explain them in natural, causal terms?




A Dependency Grammar of English


Book Description

Dependency grammar (DG) is an approach to the syntax of natural languages with a long and venerable tradition, yet awareness of its potential to serve as a basis for principled analyses of natural language syntax is minimal due to the predominance of phrase structure grammar (PSG). This book presents a DG of English with two main goals in mind. The first is to make the principles of dependency syntax accessible to a general audience so that the novice linguist as well as the seasoned syntactician becomes fully aware of what makes DG unique as an approach to the study of natural language syntax. The second is to present and develop a version of DG that then serves as a principled basis for the investigation of central areas of the syntax of English, such as long-distance dependencies, coordination, ellipsis, valency, etc. An overarching theme in all this is that DG is simple compared to PSG, yet despite this simplicity, it is quite effective at shedding light on the nature of syntactic phenomena.




Dependency in Linguistic Description


Book Description

The book covers three major topics crucial for contemporary syntactic research. Firstly, it offers a sketch of a general theory of dependency in natural language. Different types of linguistic dependencies are distinguished (semantic, syntactic, and morphological), the criteria for their recognition are formulated, and all possible combinations are discussed in some detail. Secondly, it demonstrates the application of the general theory in two specific domains: establishing the system of Surface-Syntactic Relations in French and linear positioning of clitics in Serbian. Thirdly, it presents a formal sketch of Head-Driven Phrase-Structure Grammar modelled in terms of syntactic dependencies.




Chapters of Dependency Grammar


Book Description

Was Tesnière the founding father of dependency grammar or merely a culmination point in its long history? Leaving no doubt that the latter position is correct, Chapters of Dependency Grammar tells the story of how dependency-oriented grammatical description developed from Antiquity up to the early 20th century. From Priscian’s Rome to Dmitrievsky’s Russia, from the French Encyclopaedia to Stephen W. Clark’s school grammars in 19th century America, it is shown how the concept of dependencies (asymmetric word-to-word relations) surfaced again and again, assuming a central place in syntax. A particularly intriguing aspect of the storyline is that even without any direct contact or influence, authors were making key breakthroughs in similar directions. In the works of Sámuel Brassai, a Transylvanian polymath, and Franz Kern, a German grammarian, the first dependency trees appear in 1873 and 1883, respectively, predating Tesnière’s stemmas by several decades.




Unbounded Dependency Constructions


Book Description

This book is about one of the most intriguing features of human communication systems: the fact that words that go together in meaning can occur arbitrarily far away from each other. In the sentence This is technology that most people think about, but rarely consider the implications of, theword "technology" is interpreted as if it were simultaneously next to the words "about" and "of". This kind of long-distance dependency has been the subject of intense linguistic and "It fully supports the course and I would highly recommend it."--Karen Shury, University of West LondonDNUFamily Law takes a practical approach to family law and procedure, supporting students with a range of learning features such as self-test questions, chapter summaries, and diagrams. Case studies and examples are included throughout to show the practicalapplications of the law and are accompanied by worked sample documents.Covers all family law topics taught on the LPC, including both adult and child law, making it suitable for a wide range of modules.Also suitable for legal apprentices or students enrolled on other vocational courses.Providesfocused, clearly written chapters which include summaries and self-test questions to help reinforce




An Introduction to Syntax


Book Description

The book guides students through the basic concepts involved in syntactic analysis and goes on to prepare them for further work in any syntactic theory, using examples from a range of phenomena in human languages. It also includes a chapter on theories of syntax.




Dependency Linguistics


Book Description

This volume offers the reader a unique possibility to obtain a concise introduction to dependency linguistics and to learn about the current state of the art in the field. It unites the revised and extended versions of the linguistically-oriented papers to the First International Conference on Dependency Linguistics held in Barcelona. The contributions range from the discussion of definitional challenges of dependency at different levels of the linguistic model, its role beyond the classical grammatical description, and its annotation in dependency treebanks to concrete analyses of various cross-linguistic phenomena of syntax in its interplay with phonetics, morphology, and semantics, including phenomena for which classical simple phrase-structure based models have proven to be unsatisfactory. The volume will be thus of interest to both experts and newcomers to the field of dependency linguistics and its computational applications.




Quantitative Analysis of Dependency Structures


Book Description

Dependency analysis is increasingly used in computational linguistics and cognitive science. Surprisingly, compared with studies based on phrase structures, quantitative methods and dependency structure are rarely integrated in research.This is the first book that collects original contributions which quantitatively analyze dependency structures across different languages and text genres.




Types of Ā-dependencies


Book Description

Types of A'-Dependencies develops the theories of Bonding and Government of the"principles and parameters" approach to syntax pioneered by Noam Chomsky. Using data from Romancelanguages, Cinque argues for a particular way of delimiting the descriptive generalizations thatconcern the grammar of constituent extraction, and the principles from which they derive.Cinquestarts by distinguishing four major cases of A'-Dependencies on the basis of their differentbehavior with respect to island conditions. He discusses the distinction between "long" and"successive cyclic" wh-movement, indicating restrictions on the class of elements able to undergo"long" wh-movement and offering a simplification of the locality conditions on the two types ofmovement.Cinque then introduces a Romance construction, Clitic Left Dislocation, to show the valueof separating the two types of wh-movement and offers a theory that explains certain differencesbetween NPs and non-NPs under extraction.Guglielmo Cinque is a Professor on the Faculty ofLinguistics at the University of Venice.




Analyzing Syntax


Book Description

Analyzing Syntax: A Lexical-Functional Approach is a comprehensive and accessible 2004 textbook on syntactic analysis, designed for students of linguistics at advanced undergraduate or graduate level. Working within the 'Lexical Functional Grammar' (LFG) approach, it provides students with a framework for analyzing and describing grammatical structure, using extensive examples from both European and non-European languages. Topics covered include: tests for constituency, passivization and other relation-changing processes, reflexive pronouns, the control relation, Topic and Focus, relative clauses and Wh-questions, causative constructions, serial verbs, 'quirky case', and ergativity. As well as building on what linguists have learned about language in general, particular attention is paid to the unique features of individual languages. While its primary focus is on syntactic structure, the book also deals with aspects of meaning, function and word-structure that are directly relevant to syntax. Clearly organised into topics, this textbook is ideal for one-semester courses in syntax and grammatical analysis.