The term phrase structure grammar was originally introduced by
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
as the term for
grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...
studied previously by
Emil Post
Emil Leon Post (; February 11, 1897 – April 21, 1954) was an American mathematician and logician. He is best known for his work in the field that eventually became known as computability theory.
Life
Post was born in Augustów, Suwałki Govern ...
and
Axel Thue
Axel Thue (; 19 February 1863 – 7 March 1922) was a Norwegian mathematician, known for his original work in diophantine approximation and combinatorics.
Work
Thue published his first important paper in 1909.
He stated in 1914 the so-called wo ...
(
Post canonical system
A Post canonical system, also known as a Post production system, as created by Emil Post, is a string-manipulation system that starts with finitely-many strings and repeatedly transforms them by applying a finite set j of specified rules of a cert ...
s). Some authors, however, reserve the term for more restricted grammars in the
Chomsky hierarchy
In formal language theory, computer science and linguistics, the Chomsky hierarchy (also referred to as the Chomsky–Schützenberger hierarchy) is a containment hierarchy of classes of formal grammars.
This hierarchy of grammars was described by ...
:
context-sensitive grammar
A context-sensitive grammar (CSG) is a formal grammar in which the left-hand sides and right-hand sides of any production rules may be surrounded by a context of terminal and nonterminal symbols. Context-sensitive grammars are more general than co ...
s or
context-free grammar
In formal language theory, a context-free grammar (CFG) is a formal grammar whose production rules are of the form
:A\ \to\ \alpha
with A a ''single'' nonterminal symbol, and \alpha a string of terminals and/or nonterminals (\alpha can be empt ...
s. In a broader sense, phrase structure grammars are also known as ''constituency grammars''. The defining trait of phrase structure grammars is thus their adherence to the constituency relation, as opposed to the dependency relation of
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 Tesni ...
s.
Constituency relation
In
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
, phrase structure grammars are all those grammars that are based on the constituency relation, as opposed to the dependency relation associated with dependency grammars; hence, phrase structure grammars are also known as constituency grammars. Any of several related theories for the
parsing of natural language
Parsing, syntax analysis, or syntactic analysis is the process of analyzing a string of symbols, either in natural language, computer languages or data structures, conforming to the rules of a formal grammar. The term ''parsing'' comes from Lati ...
qualify as constituency grammars, and most of them have been developed from Chomsky's work, including
*
Government and binding theory
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
*
Generalized phrase structure grammar Generalized phrase structure grammar (GPSG) is a framework for describing the syntax and semantics of natural languages. It is a type of constraint-based phrase structure grammar. Constraint based grammars are based around defining certain syntacti ...
*
Head-driven phrase structure grammar Head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG) is a highly lexicalized, constraint-based grammar
developed by Carl Pollard and Ivan Sag. It is a type of phrase structure grammar, as opposed to a dependency grammar, and it is the immediate successor to ...
*
Lexical functional grammar
* The
minimalist program
In linguistics, the minimalist program is a major line of inquiry that has been developing inside generative grammar since the early 1990s, starting with a 1993 paper by Noam Chomsky.
Following Imre Lakatos's distinction, Chomsky presents minima ...
*
Nanosyntax
Nanosyntax is an approach to syntax where the terminal nodes of syntactic parse trees may be reduced to units smaller than a morpheme. Each unit may stand as an irreducible element and not be required to form a further "subtree." Due to its reduc ...
Further grammar frameworks and formalisms also qualify as constituency-based, although they may not think of themselves as having spawned from Chomsky's work, e.g.
*
Arc pair grammar In linguistics, arc pair grammar (APG) is a theory of syntax that aims to formalize and expand upon relational grammar. It primarily builds upon the relational grammar concept of an arc, but also makes use of more formally stated ideas from model ...
, and
*
Categorial grammar
Categorial grammar is a family of formalisms in natural language syntax that share the central assumption that syntactic constituents combine as functions and arguments. Categorial grammar posits a close relationship between the syntax and semant ...
.
The fundamental trait that these frameworks all share is that they view sentence structure in terms of the constituency relation. The constituency relation derives from the
subject-
predicate
Predicate or predication may refer to:
* Predicate (grammar), in linguistics
* Predication (philosophy)
* several closely related uses in mathematics and formal logic:
**Predicate (mathematical logic)
**Propositional function
**Finitary relation, o ...
division of Latin and Greek grammars that is based on
term logic
In philosophy, term logic, also known as traditional logic, syllogistic logic or Aristotelian logic, is a loose name for an approach to formal logic that began with Aristotle and was developed further in ancient history mostly by his followers, th ...
and reaches back to
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
in antiquity. Basic
clause
In language, a clause is a constituent that comprises a semantic predicand (expressed or not) and a semantic predicate. A typical clause consists of a subject and a syntactic predicate, the latter typically a verb phrase composed of a verb with ...
structure is understood in terms of a binary division of the clause into
subject (
noun phrase
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
NP) and
predicate
Predicate or predication may refer to:
* Predicate (grammar), in linguistics
* Predication (philosophy)
* several closely related uses in mathematics and formal logic:
**Predicate (mathematical logic)
**Propositional function
**Finitary relation, o ...
(
verb phrase
In linguistics, a verb phrase (VP) is a syntactic unit composed of a verb and its arguments except the subject of an independent clause or coordinate clause. Thus, in the sentence ''A fat man quickly put the money into the box'', the words ''quic ...
VP).
The binary division of the clause results in a one-to-one-or-more correspondence. For each element in a sentence, there are one or more nodes in the tree structure that one assumes for that sentence. A two word sentence such as ''Luke laughed'' necessarily implies three (or more) nodes in the syntactic structure: one for the noun ''Luke'' (subject NP), one for the verb ''laughed'' (predicate VP), and one for the entirety ''Luke laughed'' (sentence S). The constituency grammars listed above all view sentence structure in terms of this one-to-one-or-more correspondence.
::
Dependency relation
By the time of
Gottlob Frege
Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic phil ...
, a competing understanding of the logic of sentences had arisen. Frege rejected the binary division of the sentence and replaced it with an understanding of sentence logic in terms of
logical predicate
In logic, a predicate is a symbol which represents a property or a relation. For instance, in the first order formula P(a), the symbol P is a predicate which applies to the individual constant a. Similarly, in the formula R(a,b), R is a predicat ...
s and their arguments. On this alternative conception of sentence logic, the binary division of the clause into subject and predicate was not possible. It therefore opened the door to the dependency relation (although the dependency relation had also existed in a less obvious form in traditional grammars long before Frege). The dependency relation was first acknowledged concretely and developed as the basis for a comprehensive theory of syntax and grammar by
Lucien Tesnière
Lucien Tesnière (; May 13, 1893 – December 6, 1954) was a prominent and influential French linguist. He was born in Mont-Saint-Aignan on May 13, 1893. As a maître de conférences (senior lecturer) in University of Strasbourg (1924), and ...
in his posthumously published work ''Éléments de syntaxe structurale'' (Elements of Structural Syntax).
[See Tesnière (1959).]
The dependency relation is a one-to-one correspondence: for every element (word or morph) in a sentence, there is just one node in the syntactic structure. The distinction is thus a
graph-theoretical distinction. The dependency relation restricts the number of nodes in the syntactic structure of a sentence to the exact number of syntactic units (usually words) that that sentence contains. Thus the two word sentence ''Luke laughed'' implies just two syntactic nodes, one for ''Luke'' and one for ''laughed''. Some prominent dependency grammars are listed here:
*
Functional generative description Functional generative description (FGD) is a linguistic framework developed at Charles University in Prague since the 1960s by a team led by Petr Sgall. Based on the dependency grammar formalism, it is a stratificational grammar formalism that treat ...
*
Lexicase
*
Link grammar
Link grammar (LG) is a theory of syntax by Davy Temperley and Daniel Sleator which builds relations between pairs of words, rather than constructing constituents in a phrase structure hierarchy. Link grammar is similar to dependency grammar, but d ...
*
Meaning-text theory
*
Operator grammar
Operator grammar is a mathematical theory of human language that explains how language carries information. This theory is the culmination of the life work of Zellig Harris, with major publications toward the end of the last century. Operator gram ...
*
Recursive categorical syntax
Michael K. Brame (January 27, 1944 — August 16, 2010) was an American linguist and professor at the University of Washington, and founding editor of the peer-reviewed research journal, ''Linguistic Analysis''. He was known for his theory of recu ...
, sometimes called ''algebraic syntax''
*
Word grammar
Since these grammars are all based on the dependency relation, they are by definition NOT phrase structure grammars.
Non-descript grammars
Other grammars generally avoid attempts to group syntactic units into clusters in a manner that would allow classification in terms of the constituency vs. dependency distinction. In this respect, the following grammar frameworks do not come down solidly on either side of the dividing line:
*
Cognitive grammar
*
Construction grammar
Construction grammar (often abbreviated CxG) is a family of theories within the field of cognitive linguistics which posit that constructions, or learned pairings of linguistic patterns with meanings, are the fundamental building blocks of human ...
*
Stochastic grammar
Stochastic (, ) refers to the property of being well described by a random probability distribution. Although stochasticity and randomness are distinct in that the former refers to a modeling approach and the latter refers to phenomena themselv ...
See also
*
Catena
Catena (Latin for chain) or catenae (plural) may refer to:
Science
* ''Catena'' (fly), a genus in the family Tachinidae
*Catena (linguistics) is a unit of syntax and morphology, closely associated with dependency grammars
* Catena (computing), nu ...
Notes
References
*Allerton, D. 1979. Essentials of grammatical theory. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
*Borsley, R. 1991
Syntactic theory: A unified approach London: Edward Arnold.
*Chomsky, Noam 1957.
Syntactic structures
''Syntactic Structures'' is an influential work in linguistics by American linguist Noam Chomsky, originally published in 1957. It is an elaboration of his teacher Zellig Harris's model of transformational generative grammar. A short monograph ...
. The Hague/Paris: Mouton.
*Matthews, P. Syntax. 1981. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, .
*McCawley, T. 1988. The syntactic phenomena of English, Vol. 1. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
*Mel'cuk, I. 1988
Dependency syntax: Theory and practice Albany: SUNY Press.
*
Sag, I. and T. Wasow. 1999. Syntactic theory: A formal introduction. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
*Tesnière, Lucien 1959. Éleménts de syntaxe structurale. Paris: Klincksieck.
*van Valin, R. 2001. An introduction to syntax. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
{{div col end
Generative syntax
Syntax
Noam Chomsky
Natural language processing