Book contents
- Word Grammar, Cognition and Dependency
- Word Grammar, Cognition and Dependency
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- List of Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Word Grammar in Its Intellectual Contexts
- 2 Raising in Phonology
- 3 Grammar Change in the Network
- 4 Word Formation Change in Word Grammar
- 5 The Metaphorical Bases of Constituency and Dependency
- 6 From Social Psychology to Cognitive Sociolinguistics
- 7 Hudson on Heads
- 8 Ordinary French Houses
- 9 Dependency Grammar and Subordination
- 10 Verb Phrases as Attributive Nominal Modifiers
- 11 Testing the Predictions of Word Grammar, the Minimalist Programme and the Matrix Language Frame Model for German/English Mixed Determiner–Noun Constructions
- 12 Factors Influencing Dependency Distance
- Index
- References
8 - Ordinary French Houses
Revisiting the Dependency vs. Phrase Structure Debate
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 December 2024
Book contents
- Word Grammar, Cognition and Dependency
- Word Grammar, Cognition and Dependency
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- List of Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Word Grammar in Its Intellectual Contexts
- 2 Raising in Phonology
- 3 Grammar Change in the Network
- 4 Word Formation Change in Word Grammar
- 5 The Metaphorical Bases of Constituency and Dependency
- 6 From Social Psychology to Cognitive Sociolinguistics
- 7 Hudson on Heads
- 8 Ordinary French Houses
- 9 Dependency Grammar and Subordination
- 10 Verb Phrases as Attributive Nominal Modifiers
- 11 Testing the Predictions of Word Grammar, the Minimalist Programme and the Matrix Language Frame Model for German/English Mixed Determiner–Noun Constructions
- 12 Factors Influencing Dependency Distance
- Index
- References
Summary
The manuscript revisits the dependency vs. phrase structure debate that occurred in 1980–1 between Richard Hudson on the one hand and Östen Dahl and Pertti Hietaranta on the other. The debate is taken up first in the area of adjective scope. Dahl’s argument in favor of phrase structure based on adjective scope (e.g. ordinary French house) can be convincingly countered in terms of the component unit of dependency syntax. The component and two additional units of dependency syntax – the full component and the full catena – are presented and developed here. The claim is that the motivation for the layered trees of many phrase structure grammars disappears if the much flatter Dependency Grammar analyses acknowledge these units of dependency syntax. The overarching message, then, is that barring the analysis of coordinate structures, the theory of syntax does not need the higher nodes associated with phrase structure, in line with Hudson’s original message back in 1980.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Word Grammar, Cognition and Dependency , pp. 178 - 199Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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