depth hypothesis

A hypothesis proposed by the American LINGUIST Victor Yngve (b. 1920) in the early 1960s as an explanation of the psychological differences between the two categories of linguistic CONSTRUCTION: LEFT-BRANCHING (e.g. the man’s hat) and RIGHT-BRANCHING (e.g. the hat of the man). He argued that left-branching structures add more to the psychological COMPLEXITY (or structural ‘depth’) of a SENTENCE, because the processing of such structures takes up more space in short-term memory than does the processing of right-branching structures. The hypothesis has been criticized on various grounds, particular reference being made to other important types of construction which complicate the issue, such as SELF-EMBEDDING. The term should be distinguished from the general sense of ‘depth’ in PSYCHOLINGUISTICS, where it is used in relation to the effect of different levels of PROCESSING on the retention of linguistic information.