Syntactic polygraphs a formalism extending both constituency and dependency

Abstract

Syntactic analyses describe grouping operations that explain how words are combined to form utterances. The nature of these operations depends on the approach. In a constituency-based approach, grouping operations are ordered, or stratified, part-whole relations. In a dependency-based approach, grouping operations identify a governor (or head), i.e. they are directed hierarchical relations between words. It is possible to convert a constituency tree into a dependency tree by dereifying the nodes, by identifying the governor and by removing the stratification of the part-whole relations. Polygraphs combine the two types of information into a single structure and are therefore a more powerful formalism. By relaxing constraints, polygraphs also allow to underspecify both kinds of information.