In linguistics, branching refers to the shape of the parse trees that represent the structure of sentences. Assuming that the language is being written or transcribed from left to right, parse trees that grow down and to the right are right-branching, and parse trees that grow down and to the left are left-branching.The direction of branching reflects the position of heads in phrases, …

In linguistics, ellipsis (from Greek: ἔλλειψις, élleipsis 'omission') or an elliptical construction is the omission from a clause of one or more words that are nevertheless understood in the context of the remaining elements. There are numerous distinct types of ellipsis acknowledged in theoretical syntax.Theoretical accounts of ellipsis seek to explain its syntactic and semantic ...

In syntactic analysis, a constituent is a word or a group of words that function as a single unit within a hierarchical structure. The constituent structure of sentences is identified using tests for constituents. These tests apply to a portion of a sentence, and the results provide evidence about the constituent structure of the sentence.

The term phrase structure grammar was originally introduced by Noam Chomsky as the term for grammar studied previously by Emil Post and Axel Thue (Post canonical systems).Some authors, however, reserve the term for more restricted grammars in the Chomsky hierarchy: context-sensitive grammars or context-free grammars.In a broader sense, phrase structure grammars …

In lexicography, a lexical item (or lexical unit / LU, lexical entry) is a single word, a part of a word, or a chain of words that forms the basic elements of a language's lexicon (≈ vocabulary). Examples are cat, traffic light, take care of, by the way, and it's raining cats and dogs.Lexical items can be generally understood to convey a single meaning, much as a lexeme, but are not limited ...

Syntactic movement is the means by which some theories of syntax address discontinuities.Movement was first postulated by structuralist linguists who expressed it in terms of discontinuous constituents or displacement. Some constituents appear to have been displaced from the position in which they receive important features of interpretation. The concept of …

In statistics, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods comprise a class of algorithms for sampling from a probability distribution.By constructing a Markov chain that has the desired distribution as its equilibrium distribution, one can obtain a sample of the desired distribution by recording states from the chain.The more steps that are included, the more closely the …

French is a Romance language (meaning that it is descended primarily from Vulgar Latin) that specifically is classified under the Gallo-Romance languages.. The discussion of the history of a language is typically divided into "external history", describing the ethnic, political, social, technological, and other changes that affected the languages, and "internal history", describing …

Portuguese (português or, in full, língua portuguesa) is a western Romance language of the Indo-European language family, originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe.It is the sole official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe, while having co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, and Macau.

L'Oceania (anche Continente Nuovissimo) è il continente della Terra che ha come parte continentale l'Australia e che comprende la maggior parte delle isole dell'oceano Pacifico: Melanesia (inclusa la Nuova Guinea), Micronesia e Polinesia (inclusa la Nuova Zelanda). Il continente deve il suo nome al termine "oceano", per il ruolo fondamentale che il Pacifico ha …