Dependency, Corpora and Cognition
-
Richard Hudson
Abstract
Using Google N-grams as a resource, I review the history of dependency analysis in quantitative linguistics, then address a number of general issues: (1) How corpus studies relate to cognition: I present three connections, and argue that a corpus can’t be used as direct evidence either for the language system or for processing difficulty. (2) The nature of syntactic relations: I contrast n-grams with both phrase structure and dependency structure, arguing that dependency structure is most compatible with what we know about cognition. (3) The simplicity of syntactic structure: I argue that, in terms of cognitive reality, syntactic structure is too complex for simple tree diagrams and is formally a network in which words may depend on several other words. (4) The universality of syntactic structure: I argue that languages vary almost without limit, so if we respect cognitive reality we can’t assume a universal set of categories or dependency patterns. On the other hand, some features are shared by some languages, so some cross-language comparison is in fact possible.
Abstract
Using Google N-grams as a resource, I review the history of dependency analysis in quantitative linguistics, then address a number of general issues: (1) How corpus studies relate to cognition: I present three connections, and argue that a corpus can’t be used as direct evidence either for the language system or for processing difficulty. (2) The nature of syntactic relations: I contrast n-grams with both phrase structure and dependency structure, arguing that dependency structure is most compatible with what we know about cognition. (3) The simplicity of syntactic structure: I argue that, in terms of cognitive reality, syntactic structure is too complex for simple tree diagrams and is formally a network in which words may depend on several other words. (4) The universality of syntactic structure: I argue that languages vary almost without limit, so if we respect cognitive reality we can’t assume a universal set of categories or dependency patterns. On the other hand, some features are shared by some languages, so some cross-language comparison is in fact possible.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents XI
- Dependency, Corpora and Cognition 1
- Interrelations among Dependency Tree Widths, Heights and Sentence Lengths 31
- Quantitative Analysis of Syntactic Dependency in Czech 53
- Dissortativity in a Bipartite Network of Dependency Relations and Communicative Functions 71
- Empirical Analyses of Valency Structures 93
- Regular Dynamic Patterns of Verbal Valency Ellipsis in Modern Spoken Chinese 101
- Negentropy of Dependency Types and Parts of Speech in the Clause 119
- Dynamic Valency and Dependency Distance 145
- Minimization and Probability Distribution of Dependency Distance in the Process of Second Language Acquisition 167
- Influences of Dependency Distance on the Syntactic Development of Deaf and Hard-ofhearing Students 191
- Positional Aspects of Dependency Distance 213
- Dependency Distance and Direction of English Relative Clauses 239
- Differences between English Subject Postmodifiers and Object Post-modifiers: From the Perspective of Dependency Distance 261
- How Do Universal Dependencies Distinguish Language Groups? 277
- A Quantitative Analysis on a Literary Genre Essay’s Syntactic Features 295
- A Multidimensional Model of Syntactic Dependency Trees for Authorship Attribution 315
- Subject Index 349
- Author Index 357
- List of Contributors 365
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents XI
- Dependency, Corpora and Cognition 1
- Interrelations among Dependency Tree Widths, Heights and Sentence Lengths 31
- Quantitative Analysis of Syntactic Dependency in Czech 53
- Dissortativity in a Bipartite Network of Dependency Relations and Communicative Functions 71
- Empirical Analyses of Valency Structures 93
- Regular Dynamic Patterns of Verbal Valency Ellipsis in Modern Spoken Chinese 101
- Negentropy of Dependency Types and Parts of Speech in the Clause 119
- Dynamic Valency and Dependency Distance 145
- Minimization and Probability Distribution of Dependency Distance in the Process of Second Language Acquisition 167
- Influences of Dependency Distance on the Syntactic Development of Deaf and Hard-ofhearing Students 191
- Positional Aspects of Dependency Distance 213
- Dependency Distance and Direction of English Relative Clauses 239
- Differences between English Subject Postmodifiers and Object Post-modifiers: From the Perspective of Dependency Distance 261
- How Do Universal Dependencies Distinguish Language Groups? 277
- A Quantitative Analysis on a Literary Genre Essay’s Syntactic Features 295
- A Multidimensional Model of Syntactic Dependency Trees for Authorship Attribution 315
- Subject Index 349
- Author Index 357
- List of Contributors 365
