Word Grammar is a linguistic theory that structures sentences by identifying one word as a parent or dependent of another word. It views language as a complex network of knowledge and each relationship is referred to as a word-word dependency. Language study is like searching for information in an encyclopedia, and every concept is connected to every other concept by just a few jumps.
Word Grammar is a linguistic theory developed by British linguist Richard Hudson in the early 1980s. It is a type of dependency grammar, which structures sentences by identifying one word as a parent or dependent of another word. Word grammar views language as a network of knowledge, where one concept cannot be understood without understanding many other ideas.
In 1984, Hudson published the first paper on his theory, simply titled “Word Grammar.” She developed her theory of her primarily from studies of systemic functional grammar and daughter dependency grammar. It is generally classified as a type of cognitive linguistics and a dependency grammar.
A dependency structure begins with the verb as the sentence stem. The noun depends on the verb; thus, the verb is a parent and the noun is the dependent of that verb. Similarly, an adjective describes a noun. In that situation, the noun is the parent and the adjective is the dependent of that noun. Therefore, most of the words in a sentence are parents of one word and dependent on another.
Each relationship is referred to as a word-word dependency. To represent a sentence using Word Grammar, each word-word dependency is shown by an arrow pointing from parent to dependent. When each relationship is identified in a sentence, the verb should be the only word without an arrow pointing to it.
Another feature of Word Grammar is its view of language as a complex network of knowledge. Instead of a logical progression, language is made up of many concepts linked together in a great web; understanding one concept requires knowledge of many others. Consequently, language study can be viewed as searching for information in an encyclopedia, not like reading a textbook.
In particular, language is a small worldwide network without scale. Scale-free refers to the fact that information tends to clump together. For example, several concepts might fit under the syntax or phonology header, but there is no explicit boundary. Thus, a linguist might focus on a specific area or cluster; however, that cluster needs to be studied in context, recognizing its relationship to other concepts.
Like a small worldwide network, every concept is connected to every other concept by just a few jumps. Because of clusters, connections can easily be made between seemingly separate ideas. Therefore, Word Grammar deals with all areas of language, including syntax, semantics, phonology and pragmatics.
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