18.3 Dependency Structures

Dependency Structures allow to represent the constituent structure of sentences in what ever order its words are organized. For instance:


Figure 18.1: A Dependency Structure (to be fixed)


A dependency structure is a finite feature tree whose features are called roles (subject,pp,infinitive). Each node of a dependency structure is labeled with a word of the sentence. An edge from a head to ont of its complementd always points to this complement's head.

The word order is left unspecified in a dependency structure. It can be expressed by specifying an ordering on its nodes. In the example, we name nodes by natural numbers and order the nodes by the ordering on natural numbers.

The yield of a node is the set of nodes accessible from it. For instance the yield of node 2 (müssen) in the above example is the set {5,1,2} (in der Hölle schmoren müssen). Note that this constituent is non-projective.


Denys Duchier, Claire Gardent and Joachim Niehren
Version 1.3.99 (20050412)