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On the unified representation of continuity and discontinuity and its neurocognitive grounding

  • Ratna Nirupama ORCID logo and Prakash Mondal ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: March 20, 2024
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Abstract

Discontinuity in natural language is characterized by the linear disruption of a continuous string of linguistic expressions forming a constituent. While dependency relations in Dependency Grammar (DG) can capture discontinuity well, phrase-structure-based approaches such as Phrase Structure Grammar (PSG) face difficulty in accommodating discontinuity. Categorial Grammar (CG) has correspondences with PSG, although it can handle discontinuity, if equipped with wrapping operations. Given the existing literature on discontinuity in natural language, it appears that constituency relations of PSG, dependency relations of DG and functor-argument relations of CG are distinct and independent. Here, we argue for a unified representation achieved by taking into account fundamental representational principles of PSG, DG and CG. For simplicity, we show this by considering an embedded clause from Wan, spoken in Ivory Coast, as an illustrative case. The paper then attempts to explain, based on available empirical pieces of evidence, the plausible connections between the unified representation and the neurocognitive representation of continuity and discontinuity in natural language.


Corresponding author: Prakash Mondal, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, Kandi, Sangareddy, Telangana 502284, India, E-mail:

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Olga Fischer and Viviana Masia for their editorial guidance and acumen. Also, we express our indebtedness to the two anonymous reviewers for their penetrating and thoughtful comments on the manuscript.

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Received: 2023-05-09
Accepted: 2024-02-28
Published Online: 2024-03-20
Published in Print: 2024-08-27

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