Dependency Distance and Direction of English Relative Clauses
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Jinlu Liu
Abstract
Based on dependency syntactic treebanks, the present study focuses on relative clauses (RCs) and explores their relations between dependency distance (DD), dependency direction, the embedding position, and the length of RC. It was found that: (1) the probability distributions of the DD of RCs aren’t influenced by their embedding positions; (2) the DD of RC embedded in the object position is relevant to the length of the RC; (3) the longer the RC is (≥10), the more likely the dependency relations within the RC present a head-initial tendency; (4) the embedding positions of RCs in main clauses don’t influence their dependency directions and dependency directions of RCESs and RCEOs are almost head-initial; (5) the changes of dependency relations of main clauses are related to the embedding position of relative clauses; (6) the embedded RCs increase the MDDs of their main clauses significantly.
Abstract
Based on dependency syntactic treebanks, the present study focuses on relative clauses (RCs) and explores their relations between dependency distance (DD), dependency direction, the embedding position, and the length of RC. It was found that: (1) the probability distributions of the DD of RCs aren’t influenced by their embedding positions; (2) the DD of RC embedded in the object position is relevant to the length of the RC; (3) the longer the RC is (≥10), the more likely the dependency relations within the RC present a head-initial tendency; (4) the embedding positions of RCs in main clauses don’t influence their dependency directions and dependency directions of RCESs and RCEOs are almost head-initial; (5) the changes of dependency relations of main clauses are related to the embedding position of relative clauses; (6) the embedded RCs increase the MDDs of their main clauses significantly.
Chapters in this book
- 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
Chapters in this book
- 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
