Dependency grammar (DG) is a class of modern syntactic theories that are all based on the dependency relation and that can be traced back primarily to the work of Lucien Tesnière. The dependency relation views the (finite) verb as the structural center of all clause structure. All other syntactic units (e.g. words) are either directly or indirectly dependent on the verb. DGs are distinct from phrase structure grammars (= constituency grammars), since DGs lack phrasal nodes. Structure is determined by the relation between a word (a head) and its dependents. Dependency structures are flatter than constituency structures in part because they lack a finite verb phrase constituent, and they are thus well suited for the analysis of languages with free word order, such as Czech and Turkish.
Read more about Dependency Grammar: History, Dependency Vs. Constituency, Dependency Grammars, Representing Dependencies, Types of Dependencies, Linear Order and Discontinuities, Syntactic Functions
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