DEPENDENCY THEORY: A FORMALISM AND SOME OBSERVATIONS,
Abstract
A relatively new branch of linguistics called dependency theory is surveyed primarily from the viewpoint of the professional linguist. This is the first general treatment of the subject, in which results were collected from numerous sources, and the motivation as well as the structure of the theory are examined in some detail. Dependency grammars characterize the class of contextfree languages, assigning to each sentence of a characterized language a tree structure with minimal syntactic units at the nodes. Both production and recognition procedures are given. Either transformational or stratified linguistic systems can be constructed on the basis of dependency theory; more attention is given to the latter possibility. Semantic and psychological considerations are cited as motivating specific features of the theory, but they are no more necessary as justifications for this theory than for others.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 1964
- Accession Number
- AD0602648
Entities
People
- David G. Hays
Organizations
- RAND Corporation