Quantitative Syntax Analysis

by Kohler, Reinhard

• ISBN13: 9783110272192
• ISBN10: 3110272199
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-01-31
• Publisher: Mouton De Gruyter

Summary

This is the first book to bring together the fields of theoretical and empirical studies in syntax on the one hand and the methodology of quantitative linguistics on the other hand. An introduction into the aims and methods of the quantitative approach to linguistics in general and to syntax in particular prepares the reader for the following chapters, which inform about measurement and data acquisition methods and the most common mathematical models for the analysis of syntactic and syntagmatic material. Various examples illustrate how these models are applied and show the corresponding results.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Introduction	p. 1
The quantitative analysis of language and text	p. 9
The objective of quantitative linguistics	p. 9
Quantitative linguistics as a scientific discipline	p. 12
Foundations of quantitative linguistics	p. 13
Epistemological aspects	p. 14
Heuristic benefits	p. 15
Methodological grounds	p. 16
Theory, laws, and explanation	p. 19
Conclusion	p. 24
Empirical analysis and mathematical modelling	p. 27
Syntactic units and properties	p. 27
Quantitation of syntactic concepts and measurement	p. 29
The acquisition of data from linguistic corpora	p. 31
Tagged text	p. 32
Tree banks	p. 33
Column structure	p. 34
Feature-value pairs	p. 37
Others	p. 40
Syntactic phenomena and mathematical models	p. 42
Sentence length	p. 42
Probabilistic grammars and probabilistic parsing	p. 44
Markov chains	p. 45
Word classes	p. 46
Frequency spectrum and rank-frequency distribution	p. 57
Frumkina's law on the syntactic level	p. 60
Type Token Ratio	p. 73
Information content	p. 84
Dependency grammar and valency	p. 92
Motifs	p. 114
Gödel Numbering	p. 126
Hypotheses, laws, and theory	p. 137
Towards a theory of syntax	p. 137
Yngve's depth hypothesis	p. 138
Constituent order	p. 141
The Menzerath-Altmann law	p. 147
Distributions of syntactic properties	p. 150
Structure, function, and processes	p. 169
The synergetic approach to linguistics	p. 169
Language Evolution	p. 173
The logics of explanation	p. 174
Modelling technique	p. 177
Notation	p. 180
Synergetic modelling in linguistics	p. 183
Synergetic modelling in syntax	p. 186
Perspectives	p. 202
References	p. 205
Subject index	p. 217
Author index	p. 223
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