Talk:Constituent (linguistics)

message: I cleaned up the headings above the first paragraph, but I think it needs more work.  I'll look at it again later.  Dalbury 21:01, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Initial post 

message: Just thought I'd point at this page Talk:Polysynthetic_language#syntactic_constituent_tests - the "who kicked the carrot" examples on that page cleared things up very nicely for me, so I wondered whether they might be a good import for this page (if all the aspects those examples describe are not already covered in this article) EdwardLane (talk) 09:39, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  consitituent tests 

message: Rjanag,
Please dig a little more. For definitions of the "constituent", see the following sources: Napoli 1993:167; Jacobson 1996:55; Haegeman and Guéron 1999:51; Carnie 2008:37.
Carnie, A., 2008. Constituent Structure. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Haegeman, L., Guéron, J., 1999. English Grammar: A Generative Perspective. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Jacobson, P., 1996. Constituent structure. In: A Concise Encyclopedia of Syntactic Theory. Pergamon, Cambridge.
Napoli, D., 1993. Syntax: Theory and Problems. Oxford University Press, New York.
By attempting to argue that phrase structure grammars do not necessarily view individual words as constituents, you are weakening your credibility in this debate and increasing my willingness to resist at all costs. You need to concede the issue. Phrase structure grammars do necessarily view each individual word as a constituent (and in this regard, the results of the constituency tests do not support the phrase structure grammar approach to syntactic structure; the tests deliver results that are much more (but not entirely!) congruent with the dependency grammar understanding of sentence structure). 
Take a simple verb phrase as an example, e.g. 
(1) acknowledge fact
You are attempting to argue that this verb phrase is a constituent (in the greater sentence that contains it), but that it cannot be broken down into the smaller constituents acknowledge and fact. In other words, acknowledge and fact cannot be viewed as the constituent parts of acknowledge fact. I challenge you to find any established phrase structure grammarian who would accept that claim. Let me know who they are (so I can contact them).  
Where you and Taivo below are correct concerns the majority vs. minority approach. Phrase structure grammars are dominant in Anglo-American linguistics. What you have backing your point of view is therefore the argumentum ad populum, i.e. the phrase structure grammar approach must be right because it is the dominant view. The argumentum ad populum is, however, considered a fallacious argument in rhetoric. 
Observe that Taivo below seems to be willing to compromise in allowing a reduced and revised version of the section to appear. Hopefully you too will compromise and allow the revised section to survive. --Tjo3ya (talk) 14:59, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Definitions

message: Donald, 
The relevant sources that discuss the issue directly are listed here (exact pages included):
Osborne, Timothy 2005. Beyond the constituent: A dependency grammar analysis of chains. Folia Linguistica 39/3-4, 251-297. See pages 254ff..
Osborne, Timothy 2006. Shared material and grammar: A dependency grammar theory of non-gapping coordination. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 25, 39-93. See pages 53ff.
Osborne, Timothy 2008. Major constituents: And two dependency grammar constraints on sharing in coordination. Linguistics 46/6, 1109-1165. See pages 1126ff.
Osborne, Timothy, Michael Putnam, and Thomas Groß 2011. Bare phrase structure, label-less trees, and specifier-less syntax: Is Minimalism becoming a dependency grammar? The Linguistic Review 28: 315-364. See pages 322-324.
These journals are peer-reviewed A- and B-level. Linguistics, Zeitschrift fuer Sprachwissenschaft, and The Linguistic Review are A-level (I think), and I think Folia Linguistica is B-level. I would happily email to you (or anyone else) these papers so that you can look at them directly.
I list one of these sources in the section, and I could add the other three. I chose not to do this because I did not want my name to dominate the literature list (a point which I mentioned above).
While I am the primary author of these sources, the issue should not be understood as something particular to one narrow research agenda of a particular linguist. The constituency vs. dependency distinction is far-reaching. Both constituency grammars (= phrase structure grammars) and dependency grammars are going to be interested in the broadest sense and will have something to say about the issue. If you remain skeptical about this point, I can solicit a number of professors in linguistics to come to this page to back me up on the point, e.g. Thomas Gross, Sylvain Kahane, Kim Gerdes, Igor Mel'cuk, Mikel Forcada, Mike Putnam (google these names!). But please note that these linguists may or may not be willing to come here to deliver a statement on the matter. 
Finally, the dependency grammar approach to syntax and grammar is a minority point of view in theoretical syntax in Anglo-American linguistics. It's representation in Europe is much stronger, however. My understanding of the Wikipedia mission is that a plurality of voices should be accommodated. The minority point of view should not be excluded. --Tjo3ya (talk) 17:24, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources

message: Rjanag,
Since you continue to dispute the original message of the section with your "cherrypicking" accusation, I will try to illustrate the issue now more fully here with another example:
::(1) Sam has been trying to understand the distinction.
PSGs assume 15 distinct constituents for this sentence: Sam, has, been, trying, to, understand, the, distinction, the distinction, understand the distinction, to understand the distinction, trying to understand the distinction, been trying to understand the distinction, has been trying to understand the distinction, and Sam has been trying to understand the distinction.
DGs, in contrast, assume just 8 constituents: Sam, the, the distinction, understand the distinction, to understand the distinction, trying to understand the distinction, been trying to understand the distinction, and Sam has been trying to understand the distinction.  
The main difference lies with the individual words, although DGs also reject the existence of a finite VP constituent. Concerning the individual words, the majority of the eight constituency tests enumerated in the article will identify only Sam as a constituent. Coordination is the one major exception; I discuss it below. Since the determiner the is a constituent in both PSGs and DGs, its failure to pass the constituency tests sheds no light on the constituency vs. dependency debate. The reason it fails is in part Ross' (1967) Left Branch Condition, i.e. extraction cannot occur from a left branch under a noun (phrase). Your point about islands is correct in this regard. Since the DG analysis sees the majority of individual words as non-constituents, it is much more accurate.
Consider next the finite VP string has been trying to understand the distinction. Modern PSGs unanimously assume a finite VP constituent, whereas DGs unanimously reject the status of finite VP as a constituent (DGs do, however, readily acknowledge the status of non-finite VPs as constituents). The constituency tests again strongly support the DG stance:
:: *Has been trying to understand the distinction, Sam.  -Topicalization
:: *It is has been trying to understand the distinction, that Sam (has done). -Clefting
:: *What Sam has done is has been trying to understand the distinction. -Pseudoclefting
:: *What has Sam been doing?  ??Has been trying to understand the distinction.  -Answer fragment 
:: *Sam did so.  (did so = has been trying to understand the distinction)  -Pro-form substitution
:: ??? -Passivization (Inapplicable)
:: *Sam. -Omission
Based on these results, we have no reason to view has been trying to understand the distinction as a constituent. 
While I picked an example that would illustrate well the issue under debate, I have considered all the constituents in the example sentence. The DG view of sentence structure is again much more congruent with the results of the constituency tests. I examine coordination and the "cherrypicking" accusation in some detail in the next section.
:Like I said several times, I'm not interested in having an extended discussion about the merits of the different theories; the editorial issues can be settled without getting into all this. You are welcome to write as much as you want here but I won't be responding to these details; I would prefer if you spent your effort responding to 19:42, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Rjanag in this regard.  This article is not a journal article to put forward your favorite theory and argue for it.  It is simply a descriptive encyclopedia, so the only things that we concern ourselves with are descriptions not persuasion.  I do agree with Rjanag's specific comment that this needs to be presented as two competing theories.  He doesn't think that's been emphasized enough, that the prevailing theory is PSG and that DG is only a minority view.  The first sentence still sounds too much like a textbook.  --Taivo (talk) 22:25, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I've taken a shot at rewriting the paragraph to 1) clarify that these are competing theories and 2) spell out what the difference between the theories is as far as constituency goes.  --Taivo (talk) 22:39, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Taivo, I fully support your draft; it's better than what I produced. How about it, Rjanag? --Tjo3ya (talk) 23:00, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I made revisions . I didn't like "There are two competing theories on what constitutes a constituent"—both because there are more approaches to syntax than just phrase structure (whether it be GBT, Minimalist, or what have you) and dependency grammars, and because I would venture to guess these are not 'competing theories about what constituency is' but rather competing frameworks with more fundamental differences, and the different accounts of constituency fall out of those more fundamental differences. So most of my changes involved reframing that. The other change was removing the sentence "constituency tests will have different results". As I explained a few comments above, the sentence as it was worded was already incorrect, and anyway I don't feel that it's necessary to mention. If you guys feel it's necessary to say something about constituency tests (other than just flat-out saying "constituency tests are more consistent with the DG notion of constituency than the PSG notion"), we will have to discuss it more. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:38, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Good changes.  --Taivo (talk) 00:29, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm good with this. Whew! Can I post it now? --Tjo3ya (talk) 00:37, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: A full illustration

message: I am preparing an extensive revision and expansion of this article based on research that is being published very soon (tomorrow). I am working in my sandbox at my user page (User:Tjo3ya). I will periodically transfer my work to the main article. Comments are of course very welcome.--Tjo3ya (talk) 10:53, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Extensive revision and expansion

message: From the article:  Proform substitution, or replacement, involves replacing the test string with the appropriate proform (e.g. pronoun, pro-verb, pro-adjective, etc.).... If such a change yields a grammatical sentence where the general structure has not been altered, then the test string is likely a constituent
This seems incomplete. Doesn't this test also require that the change preserve the basic meaning/essence of the original sentence?  If such a change yields a grammatical sentence where the general structure and the general sense [or: the basic meaning/essence] has not been altered, then the test string is likely a constituent 
Omc (talk) 23:19, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Constituent test: proform substitution (replacement) 

message: Is "constituent" the same as "clause element"? In any case, the article should reveal how "constituent" relates to "clause element". I disagree with the "B" ratig. The article is long but lacks a comprehensible introduction. It is only about "testing" and predominantly about EN. IMHO it needs substantial work. Article "Clause element" redirects to "English clause element". This is not great either. Taylor 49 (talk) 13:57, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. The article is good for what it is, but it is not a general introduction to constituents; it's an article about how to test for them in English. I'll downgrade it to C class on the grounds that it fails 2. of the B requirements.--Megaman en m (talk) 17:12, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks ... better info about "constituent" vs "clause element" is needed. Taylor 49 (talk) 06:22, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Clause element" and does not deserve "B" 

message: Hello fellow editors: User:Dalbury, User:Jirka6, User:Rjanag, User:Thomas Tvileren, User:EdwardLane, User:Rikaido88, User:Tjo3ya, User:Taivo, User:Toddy1, User:Dnmaxwell! I am one of three editors (along with User:Syntactitian2 and User:Syntactician1) that will be working on this page for a final project for the next month. Our plans for editing will be posted soon. Syntactician3 (talk) 21:12, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: To the three Syntactiicians, is this part of a class project? If so, please ask your instructor to look at :Wikipedia:Education program/Educators for instructions on how to coordinate class projects with Wikipedia. If this is some other project, could you please explain further what kind of project it is. - Donald Albury 23:05, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hi User:Dalbury. Yes, this is a final class project in our upper level Syntax course. Syntactician1 (talk) 04:29, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be helpful for all involved if your instructor would set a course page, as described in :Wikipedia:Education program/Educators. - Donald Albury 13:39, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks for the feedback, our instructor is following up on this now. Syntactician3 (talk) 23:26, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Class project? 

message: I am opposed to most of the planned edits for this article. From what I can see, the proposed additions are going to be associated narrowly with one particular approach to syntax. And the article will become too long and opaque. I have spent many hours polishing the organization and content of the article. I strongly suggest that the students working on this page abandon their project and return the content to what it was before they started. They should choose a topic that is better suited to their backgrounds. I will likely be stepping in soon myself to undo the initiated edits.--Tjo3ya (talk) 14:50, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: There are again signs of a desire to expand this article. I am opposed to a new large section presenting the tests again according to a different organization, since that would be redundant. A single brief section that simply lists and groups the tests according to the criteria mentioned (e.g. permutation, proform substitution, focusing) might be a helpful addition. I also think expanding the article to consider tests for constituents in other languages can be good. In any case, I would appreciate some discussion here first about the intended changes before they are made. If my request is ignored, I will remove the additions.--Tjo3ya (talk) 02:44, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  Our current plans are to develop the new section of the page that lists the tests by how they test for constituency. We plan on providing a brief description of each test, as well as a novel example to show how they apply. We are not aiming to be redundant with this list, but rather we would like to demonstrate how the tests can be classified into groups. We would appreciate your patience during this editing process. Syntactician3 (talk) 19:44, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I will remove any redundancy concerning the discussion and illustration of the tests. I think the students should not continue with their planned additions. They are not in a position to contribute in an insightful and helpful way. They are parroting what they read in their textbook and hear from their instructor. --Tjo3ya (talk) 01:52, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Planned edits

message: Could we not argue that the phrase could also potentially mean
"Drunks [rather than, say, 'bums']..." ? Stjohn1970 (talk) 15:31, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  another aspect