Quantitative Syntax Analysis
Description
This is the first book which brings together the fields of theoretical and empirical studies in syntax on the one hand and the methodology of quantitative linguistics on the other hand. The author provides the theoretical background for this enterprise on the basis of the philosophy of science and of linguistic considerations including a discussion of Chomsky's attitude against the application of statistical methods to syntactic phenomena. He gives a short introduction into the aims and methods of the quantitative approach to linguistics in general and to syntax in particular. The following chapters inform the reader about the measurement of syntactic properties, possibilities to acquire empirical data from syntactically annotated text corpora and the most common mathematical models and methods for the analysis of syntactic and syntagmatic material. Then, a number of prominent approaches and hypotheses about interrelations between properties of syntactic constructions are presented and evaluated on material from various languages and text kinds. Finally, the theory of synergetic linguistics and its application to syntax is introduced including the integration of such famous hypotheses as Yngve's depth hypothesis and Hawkins's "Early immediate constituent" principle.
The book concludes with a number of perspectives with respect to follow-up studies and extensions to the presented models with interfaces to neighbouring disciplines.
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Content
2 - Preface [Seite 8]
3 - 1 Introduction [Seite 12]
4 - 2 The quantitative analysis of language and text [Seite 20]
4.1 - 2.1 The objective of quantitative linguistics [Seite 20]
4.2 - 2.2 Quantitative linguistics as a scientific discipline [Seite 23]
4.3 - 2.3 Foundations of quantitative linguistics [Seite 24]
4.3.1 - 2.3.1 Epistemological aspects [Seite 25]
4.3.2 - 2.3.2 Heuristic benefits [Seite 26]
4.3.3 - 2.3.3 Methodological grounds [Seite 27]
4.4 - 2.4 Theory, laws, and explanation [Seite 30]
4.5 - 2.5 Conclusion [Seite 35]
5 - 3 Empirical analysis and mathematical modelling [Seite 38]
5.1 - 3.1 Syntactic units and properties [Seite 38]
5.2 - 3.2 Quantitation of syntactic concepts and measurement [Seite 40]
5.3 - 3.3 The acquisition of data from linguistic corpora [Seite 42]
5.3.1 - 3.3.1 Tagged text [Seite 43]
5.3.2 - 3.3.2 Tree banks [Seite 44]
5.3.3 - 3.3.3 Column structure [Seite 45]
5.3.4 - 3.3.4 Feature-value pairs [Seite 48]
5.3.5 - 3.3.5 Others [Seite 51]
5.4 - 3.4 Syntactic phenomena and mathematical models [Seite 53]
5.4.1 - 3.4.1 Sentence length [Seite 53]
5.4.2 - 3.4.2 Probabilistic grammars and probabilistic parsing [Seite 55]
5.4.3 - 3.4.3 Markov chains [Seite 56]
5.4.4 - 3.4.4 Word classes [Seite 57]
5.4.5 - 3.4.5 Frequency spectrum and rank-frequency distribution [Seite 68]
5.4.6 - 3.4.6 Frumkina's law on the syntactic level [Seite 71]
5.4.7 - 3.4.7 Type Token Ratio [Seite 84]
5.4.8 - 3.4.8 Information content [Seite 95]
5.4.9 - 3.4.9 Dependency grammar and valency [Seite 103]
5.4.10 - 3.4.10 Motifs [Seite 125]
5.4.11 - 3.4.11 Gödel Numbering [Seite 137]
6 - 4 Hypotheses, laws, and theory [Seite 148]
6.1 - 4.1 Towards a theory of syntax [Seite 148]
6.1.1 - 4.1.1 Yngve's depth hypothesis [Seite 149]
6.1.2 - 4.1.2 Constituent order [Seite 152]
6.1.3 - 4.1.3 The Menzerath-Altmann law [Seite 158]
6.1.4 - 4.1.4 Distributions of syntactic properties [Seite 161]
6.2 - 4.2 Structure, function, and processes [Seite 180]
6.2.1 - 4.2.1 The synergetic approach to linguistics [Seite 180]
6.2.2 - 4.2.2 Language Evolution [Seite 184]
6.2.3 - 4.2.3 The logics of explanation [Seite 185]
6.2.4 - 4.2.4 Modelling technique [Seite 188]
6.2.5 - 4.2.5 Notation [Seite 191]
6.2.6 - 4.2.6 Synergetic modelling in linguistics [Seite 194]
6.2.7 - 4.2.7 Synergetic modelling in syntax [Seite 197]
6.3 - 4.3 Perspectives [Seite 213]
7 - References [Seite 216]
8 - Subject index [Seite 228]
9 - Author index [Seite 234]
