Endocentric Structure
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

In
theoretical linguistics Theoretical linguistics is a term in linguistics which, like the related term general linguistics, can be understood in different ways. Both can be taken as a reference to theory of language, or the branch of linguistics which inquires into the n ...
, a distinction is made between endocentric and exocentric constructions. A
grammatical construction In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntax, syntactic string of words ranging from Sentence (linguistics), sentences over phrase structure rules, phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs. Grammatical constr ...
(for instance, a
phrase In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can consi ...
or
compound Compound may refer to: Architecture and built environments * Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall ** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struct ...
) is said to be ''endocentric'' if it fulfils the same linguistic function as one of its parts, and ''exocentric'' if it does not. The distinction reaches back at least to Bloomfield's work of the 1930s, who based it on terms by
Pāṇini , era = ;;6th–5th century BCE , region = Indian philosophy , main_interests = Grammar, linguistics , notable_works = ' (Sanskrit#Classical Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit) , influenced= , notable_ideas=Descript ...
and
Patañjali Patanjali ( sa, पतञ्जलि, Patañjali), also called Gonardiya or Gonikaputra, was a Hinduism, Hindu author, mystic and philosopher. Very little is known about him, and while no one knows exactly when he lived; from analysis of his ...
in
Sanskrit grammar The grammar of the Sanskrit language has a complex verbal system, rich nominal declension, and extensive use of compound nouns. It was studied and codified by Sanskrit grammarians from the later Vedic period (roughly 8th century BCE), culminating ...
. Such a distinction is possible only in
phrase structure grammar The term phrase structure grammar was originally introduced by Noam Chomsky as the term for grammar studied previously by Emil Post and Axel Thue (Post canonical systems). Some authors, however, reserve the term for more restricted grammars in the ...
s (constituency grammars), since in
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 all constructions are necessarily endocentric.


Endocentric construction

An endocentric construction consists of an obligatory
head A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple animals may ...
and one or more dependents, whose presence serves to modify the meaning of the head. For example: # sub>NP_[A_big[N_house.html" ;"title="sub>A_big.html" ;"title="sub>NP [A big">sub>NP [A big[N house">sub>A_big.html" ;"title="sub>NP [A big">sub>NP [A big[N house #[VP [V sing] [N songs #[AP [Adv very] [A long These phrases are indisputably endocentric. They are endocentric because the one word in each case carries the bulk of the semantic content and determines the grammatical category to which the whole
constituent Constituent or constituency may refer to: Politics * An individual voter within an electoral district, state, community, or organization * Advocacy group or constituency * Constituent assembly * Constituencies of Namibia Other meanings * Const ...
will be assigned. The phrase ''big house'' is a
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 ...
in line with its part ''house'', which is a noun. Similarly, ''sing songs'' is a
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 ...
in line with its part ''sing'', which is a verb. The same is true of ''very long''; it is an
adjective phrase An adjective phrase (or adjectival phrase) is a phrase whose head is an adjective. Almost any grammar or syntax textbook or dictionary of linguistics terminology defines the adjective phrase in a similar way, e.g. Kesner Bland (1996:499), Crystal (1 ...
in line with its part ''long'', which is an adjective. In more formal terms, the distribution of an endocentric construction is functionally equivalent, or approaching equivalence, to one of its parts, which serves as the center, or head, of the whole. An endocentric construction is also known as a ''headed'' construction, where the head is contained "inside" the construction.


Exocentric construction

An exocentric construction consists of two or more parts, whereby the one or the other of the parts cannot be viewed as providing the bulk of the semantic content of the whole. Further, the syntactic distribution of the whole cannot be viewed as being determined by the one or the other of the parts. The classic instance of an exocentric construction is the sentence (in a
phrase structure grammar The term phrase structure grammar was originally introduced by Noam Chomsky as the term for grammar studied previously by Emil Post and Axel Thue (Post canonical systems). Some authors, however, reserve the term for more restricted grammars in the ...
). The traditional binary division of the sentence (S) into a 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 a
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) was exocentric: ::Hannibal destroyed Rome. - Sentence (S) Since the whole is unlike either of its parts, it is exocentric. In other words, since the whole is neither a noun (N) like ''Hannibal'' nor a verb phrase (VP) like ''destroyed Rome'' but rather a sentence (S), it is exocentric. With the advent of
X-bar theory In linguistics, X-bar theory is a model of phrase-structure grammar and a theory of syntactic category formation that was first proposed by Noam Chomsky in 1970Chomsky, Noam (1970). Remarks on Nominalization. In: R. Jacobs and P. Rosenbaum (eds.) ...
in
Transformational Grammar In linguistics, transformational grammar (TG) or transformational-generative grammar (TGG) is part of the theory of generative grammar, especially of natural languages. It considers grammar to be a system of rules that generate exactly those combin ...
in the 1970s, this traditional exocentric division was largely abandoned and replaced by an endocentric analysis, whereby the sentence is viewed as an
inflection phrase In linguistics, X-bar theory is a model of phrase-structure grammar and a theory of syntactic category formation that was first proposed by Noam Chomsky in 1970Chomsky, Noam (1970). Remarks on Nominalization. In: R. Jacobs and P. Rosenbaum (eds.) ...
(IP), which is essentially a projection of the verb (a fact that makes the sentence a big VP in a sense). Thus, with the advent of X-bar theory, the endocentric vs. exocentric distinction started to become less important in transformational theories of syntax, for without the concept of exocentricity, the notion of endocentricity was becoming vacuous. By contrast, in constraint-based
syntactic theories In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...
, such as Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG), exocentric constructions are still widely used, but with a different role. Exocentricity is used in the treatment of non-configurational languages. As constraint-based models such as LFG do not represent a "deep structure" at which non-configurational languages can be treated as configurational, the exocentric S is used to formally represent the flat structure inherent in a non-configurational language. Hence, in a constraints-based analysis of Warlpiri, an exocentric structure follows the auxiliary, dominating all of the verb, arguments and adjuncts which are not raised to the specifier position of the IP: :: sub>IP_[NP_Ngarrka-ngkuAUX_ka.html" ;"title="sub>NP_Ngarrka-ngku.html" ;"title="sub>IP [NP Ngarrka-ngku">sub>IP [NP Ngarrka-ngkuAUX ka">sub>NP_Ngarrka-ngku.html" ;"title="sub>IP [NP Ngarrka-ngku">sub>IP [NP Ngarrka-ngkuAUX kaS [NP wawirri][V panti-rni] ::'The man is spearing the kangaroo' In addition, in theories of morphology (linguistics), morphology, the distinction remains, since certain compound (linguistics), compounds seem to require an exocentric analysis, e.g. ''have-not'' in ''Bill is a have-not''. For a class of compounds described as exocentric, see
bahuvrihi A ''bahuvrihi'' compound (from sa, बहुव्रीहि, tr=bahuvrīhi, lit=much rice/having much rice, originally referring to fertile land but later denoting the quality of being wealthy or rich) is a type of compound word that denotes ...
.


The distinction in dependency grammars

The endo- vs. exocentric distinction is possible in
phrase structure grammar The term phrase structure grammar was originally introduced by Noam Chomsky as the term for grammar studied previously by Emil Post and Axel Thue (Post canonical systems). Some authors, however, reserve the term for more restricted grammars in the ...
s (= constituency grammars), since they are constituency-based. The distinction is hardly present in
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, since they are dependency-based. In other words, dependency-based structures are necessarily endocentric, i.e. they are necessarily headed structures. Dependency grammars by definition were much less capable of acknowledging the types of divisions that constituency enables. Acknowledging exocentric structure necessitates that one posit more nodes in the syntactic (or morphological) structure than one has actual words or morphs in the phrase or sentence at hand. What this means is that a significant tradition in the study of syntax and grammar has been incapable from the start of acknowledging the endo- vs. exocentric distinction, a fact that has generated confusion about what should count as an endo- or exocentric structure.


Representing endo- and exocentric structures

Theories of syntax (and morphology) represent endocentric and exocentric structures using tree diagrams and specific labeling conventions. The distinction is illustrated here using the following trees. The first three trees show the distinction in a constituency-based grammar, and the second two trees show the same structures in a dependency-based grammar: :: The upper two trees on the left are endocentric since each time, one of the parts, i.e. the head, projects its category status up to the mother node. The upper tree on the right, in contrast, is exocentric, because neither of the parts projects its category status up to the mother node; Z is a category distinct from X or Y. The two dependency trees show the manner in which dependency-based structures are inherently endocentric. Since the number of nodes in the tree structure is necessarily equal to the number of elements (e.g. words) in the string, there is no way to assign the whole (i.e. XY) a category status that is distinct from both X and Y. Traditional phrase structure trees are mostly endocentric, although the initial binary division of the clause is exocentric (S → NP VP), as mentioned above, e.g. :: This tree structure contains four divisions, whereby only one of these division is exocentric (the highest one). The other three divisions are endocentric because the mother node has the same basic category status as one of its daughters. The one exocentric division disappears in the corresponding dependency tree: :: Dependency positions the finite verb as the root of the entire tree, which means the initial exocentric division is impossible. This tree is entirely endocentric.


In languages


Chinese

The
Chinese language Chinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the wor ...
is known for having rich
compound Compound may refer to: Architecture and built environments * Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall ** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struct ...
s. Linguists often classify compound verbs in Chinese into five types: Subject-Predicate 主謂結構 (SP), Verb-Object 述賓結構 (VO), Verb-Complement 述補結構 (VC), Coordinative 並列結構 (VV), and Endocentric 偏正結構. The Coordinative, Verb-Complement, and Endocentric types are also known as Parallel, Verb-Resultative, and Modifier-Head, respectively.Liao, W.-W. R. (2014). Morphology. In C.-T. Huang, Y.-H. Li, & A. Simpson (Eds), ''The Handbook of Chinese Linguistics'' (pp. 3-25). Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell. Below are a few examples of the exocentric compounds in Chinese.


Warlpiri

The
Warlpiri language The Warlpiri ( or ) ( wbp, Warlpiri > waɭbɪ̆ˌɻi language is spoken by about 3,000 of the Warlpiri people from the Tanami Desert, northwest of Alice Springs, Central Australia. It is one of the Ngarrkic languages of the large Pama–Ny ...
is widely held as the canonical example of a
non-configurational language In generative grammar, non-configurational languages are languages characterized by a flat phrase structure, which allows syntactically discontinuous expressions, and a relatively free word order. History of the concept of "non-configurationality" ...
. As such, Warlpiri sentences exhibit exceptionally flat surface structure. If a non-derivational approach is taken to syntactic structure, this can best be formalised with exocentric S dominated by the auxiliary in I. Thus, an example analysis of the constituent structure of the Warlpiri sentence: would be as follows: Where S is a non-projected exocentric structure which dominates both heads and phrases with equal weight. The elements in spec of IP and under S can be freely moved and switch places, as position in c-structure, except for I, plays a pragmatic rather than syntactic role in a constraints-based analysis of Warlpiri sentence structure.


A note about coordinate structures

While exocentric structures have largely disappeared from most theoretical analyses of standard sentence structure, many theories of syntax still assume (something like) exocentric divisions for coordinate structures, e.g. :: amand
arry Arry is the name of the following communes in France: * Arry, Moselle, in the Moselle department * Arry, Somme, in the Somme department 'Arry is also a nickname, an example of H dropping ''H''-dropping or aitch-dropping is the deletion of the ...
arrived. ::She aughedand ried :: hould Ior hould I notgo to that conference? The brackets each time mark the conjuncts of a coordinate structure, whereby this coordinate structure includes the material appearing between the left-most bracket and the right-most bracket; the coordinator is positioned between the conjuncts. Coordinate structures like these do not lend themselves to an endocentric analysis in any clear way, nor to an exocentric analysis. One might argue that the coordinator is the head of the coordinate structure, which would make it endocentric. This argument would have to ignore the numerous occurrences of coordinate structures that lack a coordinator (
asyndeton Asyndeton (, ; from the el, ἀσύνδετον, "unconnected", sometimes called asyndetism) is a literary scheme in which one or several conjunctions are deliberately omitted from a series of related clauses. Examples include ''veni, vidi, vici ...
), however. One might therefore argue instead that coordinate structures like these are multi-headed, each conjunct being or containing a head. The difficulty with this argument, however, is that the traditional endocentric vs. exocentric distinction did not foresee the existence of multi-headed structures, which means that it did not provide a guideline for deciding whether a multi-headed structure should be viewed as endo- or exocentric. Coordinate structures thus remain a problem area for the endo- vs. exocentric distinction in general.


Notes

{{Reflist, 2


References

*Barri, Nimrod. Note terminologique: endocentrique-exocentrique. Linguistics 163, November 1975, pp. 5–18. * Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Language. New York: Henry Holt. *
Chomsky, Noam 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 ...
. 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. *Emonds, J. 1976. A transformational approach to English syntax: Root, structure-preserving, and local transformations. New York: Academic Press. *Falk, Y. 2001. Lexical-Functional Grammar: An introduction to parallel constraint-based syntax. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications. *Matthews, P. H. 1981. Syntax. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. *Osborne, T. 2019
A Dependency Grammar of English: An Introduction and Beyond
Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/z.224 * Wujastyk, Dominik. 1982. Bloomfield and the Sanskrit Origin of the Terms 'Exocentric' and 'Endocentric'. In ''Historiographica Linguistica'', Volume IX, no 1/2 (1982). pp 179–184.


See also

*
Bahuvrihi A ''bahuvrihi'' compound (from sa, बहुव्रीहि, tr=bahuvrīhi, lit=much rice/having much rice, originally referring to fertile land but later denoting the quality of being wealthy or rich) is a type of compound word that denotes ...
(exocentric compound) *
Compound (linguistics) In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or sign) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. Compounding occurs whe ...
*
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 portio ...
*
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 ...
*
Endocentric environment In the field of user interfaces, an endocentric environment refers to a virtual reality or some other immersive environment which is introduced directly into the user's senses (for example by using VR goggles). Systems which display a virtual re ...
*
Phrase In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can consi ...
*
Phrase structure grammar The term phrase structure grammar was originally introduced by Noam Chomsky as the term for grammar studied previously by Emil Post and Axel Thue (Post canonical systems). Some authors, however, reserve the term for more restricted grammars in the ...
Linguistic morphology Syntactic relationships Generative syntax Syntax Dependency grammar