Dependency Syntax: Theory and Practice (SUNY Series in Linguistics)

Igor A. Mel'cuk

ISBN 10: 0887064507 / ISBN 13: 9780887064500

Published by SUNY Press, 1987

About this Item

Hardcover, xx + 428 pages, NOT ex-library. Clean untanned interior with unmarked text, free of inscriptions and stamps, firmly bound. No foxing of any kind. Minor marks on page edges externally. Boards show rubbing to edges, shelfworn marks on the back. Issued without a dust jacket. -- A seminal work in the field of linguistics, focusing on the framework of dependency grammar as a method for understanding and analyzing sentence structure. The book offers a comprehensive examination of the dependency-based approach to syntax, which emphasizes the relationships between words in a sentence through direct dependency links, rather than the traditional phrase-structure grammar models. Mel'cuk provides an extensive theoretical foundation for dependency grammar, presenting it as a system where sentence elements are hierarchically organized based on the dependencies between a head (such as a verb) and its dependents (such as nouns or adjectives). The book delves into complex linguistic phenomena, such as predicate-argument structures, valency theory, and head-dependent relations, offering readers a clear understanding of how words interact to form coherent syntactic units. One of the key contributions of this work is its exploration of cross-linguistic syntactic patterns, illustrating how dependency grammar can be applied to a wide variety of languages with differing word orders and grammatical structures. Mel'cuk integrates both theoretical analysis and practical examples, making the work not only a scholarly resource but also a valuable tool for linguists engaged in parsing and syntactic analysis. By placing the dependency relations at the center of syntactic theory, Mel'cuk challenges traditional models that prioritize phrase structure, proposing instead that syntactic hierarchies are best understood through direct connections between words. This approach offers a new perspective on how language operates at the syntactic level, revealing underlying universal principles that govern sentence construction across different languages. Dependency Syntax has had a lasting impact on theoretical linguistics, serving as an essential reference for scholars working in syntax, computational linguistics, and language typology. It presents a comprehensive framework that is widely applicable to both natural language processing and the broader study of linguistic structure.

Seller Inventory # 010581

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Dependency Syntax: Theory and Practice (SUNY Series in Linguistics)
• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Publication Date: 1987
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0887064507
• ISBN 13: 9780887064500
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Author

Igor Mel'cuk is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Montreal.