daughter-dependency grammar (DDG)

An approach to GRAMMATICAL analysis based on a system of SYNTACTIC FEATURES and DEPENDENCY relations, in which there is a single LEVEL of syntactic REPRESENTATION, TRANSFORMATIONS not being required. The ‘vertical’ CONSTITUENCY relations between NODES are referred to in terms of ‘daughter-dependency’; the ‘horizontal’ dependencies (of SUBJECT-VERB, etc.) are referred to in terms of ‘sister-dependency’. All nodes in this approach are complexes of BINARY features (as opposed to the unitary CATEGORIES of earlier models of transformational grammar). Classification RULES define the permissible combinations of features to construct categories; dependency rules specify the structures in which these categories appear. All constituents are defined in terms of a notion of relative peripherality: given any two constituents, one will be more PERIPHERAL than the other. A notion of syntactic FUNCTION (e.g. subject, TOPIC) is assigned to nodes, whose main function is to determine SURFACE-STRUCTURE WORD-ORDER.