1988 DependencySyntax

• (Mel'čuk, 1988) ⇒ Igor Mel'cu. (1988). “Dependency Syntax: Theory and Practice.” The SUNY Press.

Subject Headings: Dependency Grammar

Quotes

Abstract

• “This work presents the first sustained examination of Dependency Syntax. In clear and stimulating analyses Mel'cuk promotes syntactic description in terms of dependency rather than in terms of more familiar phrase-structure. The notions of dependency relations and dependency structure are introduced and substantiated, and the advantages of dependency representation are demonstrated by applying it to a number of popular linguistic problems, e.g. grammatical subject and ergative construction. A wide array of linguistic data is used -- the well-known (Dyirbal), the less known (Lezgian), and the more recent (Alutor). Several "exotic" cases of Russian are discussed to show how dependency can be used to solve difficult technical problems.
• "The book is not only formal and rigorous, but also strongly theory-oriented and data-based. Special attention is paid to linguistic terminology, specifically to its logical consistency. The dependency formalism is presented within the framework of a new semantics-oriented general linguistic theory, Meaning-Text theory.

The Case "Dependency vs. Phrase Structure"

• "PS-syntax's main working principle is CONSTITUENCY and CONSTITUENT CATEGORIES, which tends to insist on taxonomy, i.e. classification and distribution. Dependency (= D-) syntax is based on RELATIONS between ultimate syntactic units, and it therefore tends to be concerned with meaningful links, i.e. semantics.

= Constituence vs. Relation

• "A D-tree reveals the structure of an expression in terms of hierarchical links between its actual elements.

References

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	Author	volume	Date Value	title	type	journal	titleUrl	doi	note	year
1988 DependencySyntax	Igor Mel'cu			Dependency Syntax: Theory and Practice			http://www.sunypress.edu/details.asp?id=50184			1988