Dependency Syntax. An Introduction

Leonid IomdinInstitute for Information Transmission

Problems,Russian Academy of Sciences

[email protected], [email protected]

Program Overview: p. 11. Basic Principles of The Meaning-Text

theory by Igor Mel’čuk. Language as a Universal Translator of Senses to Texts and Texts to Senses. Text analysis and text generation. The theory of integral linguistic description by Juri Apresjan. The grammar and the dictionary of language.

2. Two syntactic levels of sentence representation: surface syntax and deep syntax.

December 4, 2009. Lecture 5 2

Program Overview: p. 23. The dependency tree structure as a

syntactic representation of the sentence. Dependency tree vs. Constituent tree: advantages and drawbacks of both types of representation. Limits of the dependency tree. The hypothesis of two syntactic starts.

4. The notions of syntactic relation. Major classes of syntactic relations: actant, attributive, coordinative and auxiliary relation classes.

5. The notion of syntactic feature. Syntactic features vs. Semantic features.


Program Overview: p. 36. Actants and valencies. Active, passive and distant

valencies. The government pattern of a dictionary entry. An overview of actant syntactic relations. The predicative relation. The agentive relation. Completive relations.

7. An overview of attributive syntactic relations. Grammatical Agreement. Numerals and Quantitative Constructions. The system of Quantification Syntax of Russian.

8. Grammatical coordination as a type of grammatical subordination. An overview of coordinative syntactic relations.


Program Overview: p. 49. Auxiliary syntactic relations. Analytical

grammatical forms as an object of syntax. 10 Microsyntax of Language. Minor Type

Sentences. Syntactic Idioms.11. Lexical Functions in the Dictionary and

the Grammar. 12. Syntactic description and syntactic rules.

Dependency Syntax in NLP. Dependency Syntax in Machine Translation. Syntactically Tagged Corpus of Texts.


Surface Syntaxis the main linguistic discipline to

which this course is devoted: conversion between deep morphological representation and surface syntactic representation


Classes of Syntactic Relations1) actant relations;2) attributive relations;3) coordinative relations;4) auxiliary relations


Syntactic FeaturesMESURampere, angstrom, atmosphere,

barrel, bushel, centimetre, … Two inches wideTwo inches widerAn inch wideAn inch wider*A table wide*A table wider


Syntactic FeaturesPREDTOabnormal, absurd, acceptable,

aimless, altruistic, difficult, easy, hard…. (700 adjectives)

To stay one more day was absurdIt was absurd to stay one more dayabsolute, relative ≠ PREDTO


Syntactic Features and ValenciesABNORMAL: What valency structure?

Abnormal behavior Abnormal childbehavior, child are passive actants of

abnormal Can these actants be made active?No, they cannot.



However, these actants can be made distant: The behavior is abnormal.

The child is abnormalCan we now elaborate on the

behavior? What can it be?



Behaviors: Running aroundLoiteringStudying dependency syntaxAgreeing to everything



Behaviors: To runTo loiterTo study dependency syntaxTo agree to everything



Behaviors: To runTo loiterTo study dependency syntaxTo agree to everything


Syntactic Features and ValenciesABNORMAL: What valency structure?Can we elaborate on the child? What can

it be?John MaryMy sonYour brotherWhoever likes ice-cream



It cannot, however, beLiking ice-creamStudying dependency syntax etc.



Behaviors: To run is abnormalTo loiter is abnormalTo study dependency syntax is

abnormalTo agree to everything is abnormal



It is abnormal to run It is abnormal to loiter It is abnormal to study dependency

syntaxIt is abnormal to agree to everything



For completeness: is this the only valency of abnormal?

Before answering the question, we will consider the noun abnormality.


Syntactic Features and ValenciesABNORMALITY: What valency structure?

Abnormality of his behaviorBehavior instantiates an active valency

of abnormalityIs this the only valency of abnormality?How can we use this noun phrase

naturally? We can say e.g.December 4, 2009. Lecture 5 20

Syntactic Features and ValenciesABNORMALITY: What valency structure?

The abnormality of his behavior was that he could not concentrate on any subject for more than a few seconds at a time.

The abnormality of his behavior consisted in his inability to concentrate on any subject for more than a few seconds at a time.


Syntactic Features and Valencies

ABNORMALITY: What valency structure?

The abnormality of his behavior was that he could not concentrate on any subject for more than a few seconds at a time.

his behavior instantiates the 1st valency of abnormality (patient, active valency)

that he could not concentrate… instantiates the 2nd valency of abnormality (content, distant valency)


Syntactic Features and ValenciesABNORMALITY: What valency structure?The abnormality of his behavior consisted in

his inability to concentrate on any subject for more than a few seconds at a time.

his behavior instantiates the 1st valency of abnormality (patient, active valency)

his inability to concentrate… instantiates the 2nd valency of abnormality (content, distant valency)


Syntactic Features and Valencies

ABNORMALITY: What valency structure?

NB: this distant valency cannot be made active: * The abnormality that he could not concentrate…

* The abnormality of his inability to concentrate…


Syntactic Features and ValenciesABNORMAL: What valency structure?is patient the only valency of abnormal? No. It also has the 2nd valency of content:

His behavior is abnormal in that he cannot concentrate on any subject for more than a few seconds at a time.

Note that this valency is active, even though its instantiation is rather exotic.


Syntactic FeaturesPREDTHATabnormal, absurd, nice, fine,… (400

adjectives)That he stayed one more day was

absurdIt was absurd that he stayed one more

daydifficult, easy ≠ PREDTHAT


Syntactic FeaturesPREDIFabsurd, natural, contranatural,

accidental, amiable, smart, spiteful, splendid, …(50 adjectives)

It would be absurd if he stayed one more day

difficult, easy ≠ PREDIFnew = ? old =?


Syntactic FeaturesPREDTHAT, ^PREDTO (200 adjectives)wrong, right = PREDTHAT and PREDTOIt was wrong that he stayed one more dayIt was wrong to stay one more dayfalse, true = PREDTHAT, not PREDTOIt was false that he stayed one more day*It was false to stay one more day


Syntactic Featuresremarkable ?PREDTHAT, not PREDTOThat John agreed was remarkable*To make John agree is remarkable


Syntactic FeaturesPREDTO, ^PREDTHAT (500

adjectives)aimless, useless = PREDTO, not

PREDTHATIt was useless to plead with him


Syntactic Features: some training

greenniceAmericanmathematicalcomprehensivecuriouscriminal


Syntactic Features: some training

negativeprolificacceptableheavyhigholdsimilar


Completive relationsThe 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th completive SSRel (1-compl,

2-compl etc.) links an object or a complement to its governor

1-compl: He idolized [X] the girl [Y].1-compl, 2-compl: He gave Mary a piece of advice.Mary was given a piece of advice.A policeman noticed me cross the street. He helped her find the book.


Completive relationsHe wanted to help me. He wanted me to help.He considered it remarkable that

John agreed. *He considered it remarkable to

make John agree.


He considered it remarkable that…


He considered it remarkable to…


Completive relationsIt is very unlike John to be late. Two things are worth mentioning.This is worth its weight in gold.He is wary of giving evidence.John is reluctant to go.Pressure depends on temperature. Animals are different from us in that they

cannot speak


Completive relationsIt is easy to forget.‘To forget is easy’‘This thing is easy to forget’.


Copulative RelationThis is PragueHe was great.We all are in Prague.The story was about love.The story was by O’Henry.The letter was to Harry.The idea was to attract young researchersIt was of huge proportions.He was unlike the others


Agentive RelationThis question was answered [X] by [Y]

most of the students.The question [X] by [Y] the

commission concerned nuclear disarmament.

For [Y] him to agree [X] would require strength.


Prepositional RelationI brought the book from the library to my brother in the afternoon for no reason at all

Give the book to whoever comes first

He spoke with as many as ten people


Prepositional RelationIt depends on how you behave in future

It depends on whether you behave yourself

He put the book on the table*He put the book on whether you behave yourself


Next lectureThe remaining Actant Relations.

Attributive Syntactic Relations. Qualificative and Restrictive Modifiers


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Dependency Syntax. An Introduction

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