Theoretical foundations of dependency syntax

Since Lucien Tesnière's seminal work, a steadily rising number of linguists have turned to dependency grammar. This book gives a detailed and systematic account of the requirements a dependency syntax has to meet. The author starts from the very basic assumption that hierarchies exist between parts of speech, and develops the terminology in a methodical and gradual process. Particularly important are the hierarchical notions of „government“ and „dependency“. The author shows how also principal constituency syntactical notions like „phrase“, „domination“, „c-command“ etc. can be defined in a dependency approach. The book also develops a systematic procedure for dependency tree production. It suggests ways how binding phenomena, word order, coordination and discontinuities can be captured in a dependency syntactical framework. All terms are explicitly defined and clarified. This book mainly draws on examples from the Japanese language. Basic terms in dependency syntax Some expansions of dependency syntax Stemmatology More expansions of dependency syntax Constituency syntactical terms in dependency syntax Binding in dependency syntax Functional categories and word order Coordinated structures Discontinuities in dependency syntax Some thoughts on language evolution Index of terms Appendix Bibliography