Open AccessDependencies are more psychologically plausible, not more parsimonious
Author(s) -
Richard Hudson
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
language under discussion
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2329-583X
DOI - 10.31885/lud.5.1.224
Subject(s) - dependency (uml) , phrase , dependency grammar , computer science , dependency theory (database theory) , natural language processing , phrase structure rules , grammar , artificial intelligence , functional dependency , theoretical computer science , cognitive psychology , linguistics , psychology , data mining , generative grammar , philosophy , relational database
I argue that the crucial criterion for evaluating analyses is psychological plausibility, and not parsimony, so the number of nodes isn’t important—and indeed, one version of dependency analysis recognises as many nodes as some phrase-structure analyses do. But in terms of plausibility, dependency grammar is preferable to phrase structure because the latter denies that the human mind is capable of recognising direct links (dependencies) between words.