Branching (linguistics)
In linguistics, branching refers to the shape of the parse trees that represent the structure of sentences. Parse trees that grow downward as speech and processing proceeds left to right are right-branching, whereas parse trees that grow upwards as speech and processing proceeds left to right are left-branching. Taking a top-down perspective, parse trees that grow down and to the right are right-branching, and parse trees that grow down and to the left are left-branching. The direction of branching is a reflex of the position of heads in phrases, and in this regard, right-branching structures are head-initial, whereas left-branching structures are head-final. English has both right-branching (= head-initial) and left-branching (= head-final) structures, although it is more right-branching than left-branching. Other languages such as Japanese and Turkish are strongly left-branching (= head-final).
Read more about Branching (linguistics): Examples, Tree Structures, Full Trees, X-bar Schema, Binary Vs. N-ary Branching, Tendencies
Famous quotes containing the word branching:
“The moose will, perhaps, one day become extinct; but how naturally then, when it exists only as a fossil relic, and unseen as that, may the poet or sculptor invent a fabulous animal with similar branching and leafy horns ... to be the inhabitant of such a forest as this!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)