|
Topicalization
Topicalization is a mechanism of syntax that establishes an expression as the sentence or clause topic by having it appear at the front of the sentence or clause (as opposed to in a canonical position further to the right). This involves a phrasal movement of determiners, prepositions, and verbs to sentence-initial position. Topicalization often results in a discontinuity and is thus one of a number of established discontinuity types, the other three being ''wh''-fronting, scrambling, and extraposition. Topicalization is also used as a constituency test; an expression that can be topicalized is deemed a constituent. The topicalization of arguments in English is rare, whereas circumstantial adjuncts are often topicalized. Most languages allow topicalization, and in some languages, topicalization occurs much more frequently and/or in a much less marked manner than in English. Topicalization in English has also received attention in the pragmatics literature. Examples Typical cas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constituent (linguistics)
In syntactic analysis, a constituent is a word or a group of words that function as a single unit within a hierarchical structure. The constituent structure of sentences is identified using ''tests for constituents''. These tests apply to a portion of a sentence, and the results provide evidence about the constituent structure of the sentence. Many constituents are phrases. A phrase is a sequence of one or more words (in some theories two or more) built around a head lexical item and working as a unit within a sentence. A word sequence is shown to be a phrase/constituent if it exhibits one or more of the behaviors discussed below. The analysis of constituent structure is associated mainly with phrase structure grammars, although dependency grammars also allow sentence structure to be broken down into constituent parts. Tests for constituents in English Tests for constituents are diagnostics used to identify sentence structure. There are numerous tests for constituents that are co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constituent (linguistics)
In syntactic analysis, a constituent is a word or a group of words that function as a single unit within a hierarchical structure. The constituent structure of sentences is identified using ''tests for constituents''. These tests apply to a portion of a sentence, and the results provide evidence about the constituent structure of the sentence. Many constituents are phrases. A phrase is a sequence of one or more words (in some theories two or more) built around a head lexical item and working as a unit within a sentence. A word sequence is shown to be a phrase/constituent if it exhibits one or more of the behaviors discussed below. The analysis of constituent structure is associated mainly with phrase structure grammars, although dependency grammars also allow sentence structure to be broken down into constituent parts. Tests for constituents in English Tests for constituents are diagnostics used to identify sentence structure. There are numerous tests for constituents that are co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Discontinuity (linguistics)
In linguistics, a discontinuity occurs when a given word or phrase is separated from another word or phrase that it modifies in such a manner that a direct connection cannot be established between the two without incurring crossing lines in the tree structure. The terminology that is employed to denote discontinuities varies depending on the theory of syntax at hand. The terms ''discontinuous constituent'', ''displacement'', ''long distance dependency'', ''unbounded dependency'', and ''projectivity violation'' are largely synonymous with the term ''discontinuity''. There are various types of discontinuities, the most prominent and widely studied of these being topicalization, wh-fronting, scrambling, and extraposition. Natural languages vary with respect to the types of discontinuities that they permit. The fixed word order of English allows for relatively few discontinuities compared to, for instance, the Slavic languages, which are much more permissive. Even compared to a closely ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Discontinuity (linguistics)
In linguistics, a discontinuity occurs when a given word or phrase is separated from another word or phrase that it modifies in such a manner that a direct connection cannot be established between the two without incurring crossing lines in the tree structure. The terminology that is employed to denote discontinuities varies depending on the theory of syntax at hand. The terms ''discontinuous constituent'', ''displacement'', ''long distance dependency'', ''unbounded dependency'', and ''projectivity violation'' are largely synonymous with the term ''discontinuity''. There are various types of discontinuities, the most prominent and widely studied of these being topicalization, wh-fronting, scrambling, and extraposition. Natural languages vary with respect to the types of discontinuities that they permit. The fixed word order of English allows for relatively few discontinuities compared to, for instance, the Slavic languages, which are much more permissive. Even compared to a closely ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ellen Prince
Ellen F. Prince (born Brooklyn, February 29, 1944 – died Philadelphia, October 24, 2010) was an American linguist, known for her work in linguistic pragmatics. Education and career Prince earned her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1974. She served on the faculty there from 1974 until her retirement in 2005, including serving as chair of the department from 1993 to 1997. During her career, she contributed to more than 60 publications, 150 talks and presentations. She supervised 20 doctoral dissertations and served on dozens of dissertation committees at University of Pennsylvania and other universities around the world. Research Prince pioneered in the area of linguistic pragmatics. Her research contributed largely to pragmatic borrowing, syntax and discourse functioning, and centering theory. Research on centering theory was one of her main focuses later in her career, which marries the three areas of information structure, psycholinguistics, and computer scienc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scrambling (linguistics)
Scrambling is a syntactic phenomenon wherein sentences can be formulated using a variety of different word orders without any change in meaning. Scrambling often results in a discontinuity since the scrambled expression can end up at a distance from its head. Scrambling does not occur in English, but it is frequent in languages with freer word order, such as German, Russian, Persian and Turkic languages. The term was coined by Haj Ross in his 1967 dissertation and is widely used in present work, particularly with the generative tradition. Examples The following examples from German illustrate typical instances of scrambling: : These examples illustrate typical cases of scrambling in the midfield of a subordinate clause in German. All six clauses are acceptable, whereby the actual order that appears is determined by pragmatic considerations such as emphasis. If one takes the first clause (clause a) as the basic order, then scrambling has occurred in clauses b–f. The thre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dependency Grammar
Dependency grammar (DG) is a class of modern grammatical theories that are all based on the dependency relation (as opposed to the ''constituency relation'' of phrase structure) and that can be traced back primarily to the work of Lucien Tesnière. Dependency is the notion that linguistic units, e.g. words, are connected to each other by directed links. The (finite) verb is taken to be the structural center of clause structure. All other syntactic units (words) are either directly or indirectly connected to the verb in terms of the directed links, which are called ''dependencies''. Dependency grammar differs from phrase structure grammar in that while it can identify phrases it tends to overlook phrasal nodes. A dependency structure is determined by the relation between a word (a head) and its dependents. Dependency structures are flatter than phrase structures in part because they lack a finite verb phrase constituent, and they are thus well suited for the analysis of languages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dependency Grammar
Dependency grammar (DG) is a class of modern grammatical theories that are all based on the dependency relation (as opposed to the ''constituency relation'' of phrase structure) and that can be traced back primarily to the work of Lucien Tesnière. Dependency is the notion that linguistic units, e.g. words, are connected to each other by directed links. The (finite) verb is taken to be the structural center of clause structure. All other syntactic units (words) are either directly or indirectly connected to the verb in terms of the directed links, which are called ''dependencies''. Dependency grammar differs from phrase structure grammar in that while it can identify phrases it tends to overlook phrasal nodes. A dependency structure is determined by the relation between a word (a head) and its dependents. Dependency structures are flatter than phrase structures in part because they lack a finite verb phrase constituent, and they are thus well suited for the analysis of languages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extraposition
Extraposition is a mechanism of syntax that alters word order in such a manner that a relatively "heavy" constituent appears to the right of its canonical position. Extraposing a constituent results in a discontinuity and in this regard, it is unlike shifting, which does not generate a discontinuity. The extraposed constituent is separated from its governor by one or more words that dominate its governor. Two types of extraposition are acknowledged in theoretical syntax: standard cases where extraposition is optional and ''it''-extraposition where extraposition is obligatory. Extraposition is motivated in part by a desire to reduce center embedding by increasing right- branching and thus easing processing, center-embedded structures being more difficult to process. Extraposition occurs frequently in English and related languages. Examples Standard cases of extraposition are optional, although at times the extraposed version of the sentence is strongly preferred. The following ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scrambling (linguistics)
Scrambling is a syntactic phenomenon wherein sentences can be formulated using a variety of different word orders without any change in meaning. Scrambling often results in a discontinuity since the scrambled expression can end up at a distance from its head. Scrambling does not occur in English, but it is frequent in languages with freer word order, such as German, Russian, Persian and Turkic languages. The term was coined by Haj Ross in his 1967 dissertation and is widely used in present work, particularly with the generative tradition. Examples The following examples from German illustrate typical instances of scrambling: : These examples illustrate typical cases of scrambling in the midfield of a subordinate clause in German. All six clauses are acceptable, whereby the actual order that appears is determined by pragmatic considerations such as emphasis. If one takes the first clause (clause a) as the basic order, then scrambling has occurred in clauses b–f. The thre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syntactic Movement
Syntactic movement is the means by which some theories of syntax address discontinuities. Movement was first postulated by structuralist linguists who expressed it in terms of ''discontinuous constituents'' or ''displacement''. Some constituents appear to have been displaced from the position in which they receive important features of interpretation. The concept of movement is controversial and is associated with so-called ''transformational'' or ''derivational'' theories of syntax (such as transformational grammar, government and binding theory, minimalist program). Representational theories (such as head-driven phrase structure grammar, lexical functional grammar, construction grammar, and most dependency grammars), in contrast, reject the notion of movement and often instead address discontinuities with other mechanisms including graph reentrancies, feature passing, and type shifters. Illustration Movement is the traditional means of explaining discontinuities such as w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catena (linguistics)
In linguistics, a catena (English pronunciation: , plural catenas or catenae; from Latin for "chain") is a unit of syntax and morphology, closely associated with dependency grammars. It is a more flexible and inclusive unit than the constituent and may therefore be better suited than the constituent to serve as the fundamental unit of syntactic and morphosyntactic analysis. The catena has served as the basis for the analysis of a number of phenomena of syntax, such as idiosyncratic meaning, ellipsis mechanisms (e.g. gapping, stripping, VP-ellipsis, pseudogapping, sluicing, answer ellipsis, comparative deletion), predicate- argument structures, and discontinuities (topicalization, wh-fronting, scrambling, extraposition, etc.). The catena concept has also been taken as the basis for a theory of morphosyntax, i.e. for the extension of dependencies into words; dependencies are acknowledged between the morphs that constitute words. While the catena concept has been applied mainl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_picture_1.png "Click for more on -> Constituent (linguistics)")
.jpg "Click for more on -> Dependency Grammar")
.png "Click for more on -> Extraposition")
