DEFINITION OF IMMEDIATE CONSTITUENT AND TREE DIAGRAM

DEFINITION OF IMMEDIATE CONSTITUENT AND TREE DIAGRAM

A.    DEFINITION OF IMMEDIATE CONTITUENT

In Linguistic, Immediate Constituent Analysis, known as IC analysis, is a method of sentence analysis first explicitly introduced by an American linguist, Leonard Bloomfield,  in his book Language published in1933. It is a major fature of Bloomfeldian structural linguistics.

In IC analysis, a sentence is divided up into major divisions or immediate constituents, and these constituents are in turn divided into further immediate constituents, and these process continues until irreducible constituents are reached i.e. until each constituents consists of only a word or meaningful part of a word. The end result of IC analysis is often presented in a visual diagrammatic forms that reveals the hierarchical immediate constituents structure of a sentence. For sentences whose structure is unusual, this diagramming may become excessively complex; in such cases verbal description is used.

Immediate Constituent Analysis  is a technique in analysing units or constituents which form a language unit, i.e. word cluster, phrase unit, clause unit or sentence unit. Each language unit assumed as units consist of two or more constituents directly form the units.

For example : the boy is smart. This sentence can be divided into immediate constituents “ the boy” and “is smart”. These in turn can be analyzed into immediate constituents (the+girl) and (is+smart). Bloomfield does not give any special technique to detect immediate constituents, rather appeals to native speaker’s intuition.

IC Analysis is an important metodological tool for  syntactically analysis based on Structural Linguistics theory. By applying this analysis technique, a sentence must be analyzed into two immediate constituents. If one or two immediate constituents consist of construction, then those immediate constituents must be further analyzed into its immediate constituents until ultimate constituents is reached i.e single word.

La Palombara (1976: 173) gave a definition of constituent as a syntactically unit combined with other syntactically unit to form a construction.  Moreover, La Palombara mentioned that each constituent can be classified based on two criteria in  relation with its arrangement of internal constituent itself. in relation with the grammatical function, as a unit in a bigger syntactically environment i.e. syntactically related with other constituent.

Other definition is given by Crystal ( 1980 : 83). He stated that constituent is a linguistically unit that is a component of a bigger construction. Kridalaksana (1982 : 91)  also mentioned about constituent that is a language unit which is part of bigger units or part of construction. So, constituent is a part or component of  a construction.

Purpose and advantage of Immediate Constituent

The purpose of analysing immediate constituent is to avoid multiple  interpretation on a phrase, clause or sentence. Eventhough, IC analysis has some weakness, but this kind of analysis give enough advantage in understanding language units, benefits in avoiding ambiguity because of language units bound with its discourse context which can be understandable with those analysis.

There are some traditional tests which are used to indicate constituency : the ability to stand alone, the substitution test, and the movement test by using a tree diagram, bracketing, or underlining.

B.     DEFINITION OF TREE DIAGRAM

A tree diagram is a two dimensional diagram used in T.G; Grammar as a mean of displaying the paternal hierarchical structure of sentences. The root of the diagram is the top most point, consisting of the initial symbol S. From this point of mode, branches descend corresponding to the categories which are specified by the roles.

Graphic tool which systematically breaks down, and then maps out in increasing detail, all components or elements of a condition, phenomenon, process, or situation, at successive levels or stages. In case of a 'divergent tree,' it begins with a single entry that has one or more paths (branches) leading out from it, some or all of which subdivide into more branches. This process is repeated until all possibilities are exhausted. In case of a 'convergent tree,' this process works in reverse. Family (genealogical) and organization charts are the common examples of a tree diagram. Also called chain of causes or dendrite diagram.

A diagram used in strategic decision making, valuation or probability calculations. The diagram starts at a single node, with branches emanating to additional nodes, which represent mutually exclusive decisions or events. In the diagram below, the analysis will begin at the first blank node. A decision or event will then lead to node A or B. From these secondary nodes, additional decisions or events will occur leading to the third level of nodes, until a final conclusion is reached.

Using the diagram is simple once you assign the appropriate values to each node. Chance nodes, representing a possible outcome, must be assigned a probability. Decision nodes ask a question and must be followed by answer nodes, such as "yes" or "no". Often, a value will be associated with a node, such as a cost or a payout. Tree diagrams combine the probabilities, decisions, costs and payouts of a decision and provide a strategic answer.

The tree diagram is a visual description of each unit that consist of constituents hierarchically. A tree diagram is more informative if it labels the constituents as instances of particular units or classes of units.

Three sizes of unit have been distinguished: clause, phrase, and word. A further level would distinguished morphemes (turn, -ed, recent, -ly) as constituents of words. The terms for different phrase (noun phrase, adjective phrase, etc) obviously reflect the character of the words which are the main constituents of these units.

2.2         THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IC ANALYSIS AND TREE DIAGRAM

Phrase structure rules of the generative grammar are an amalgamation of the subject-predicate and parsing systems of the traditional grammars and the IC analysis of the structural grammar.  They are framed to derive a `kernel' sentence (in the Syntactic Structures, Chomsky 1957), or `underlying (deep) strings (in the Aspects, Chomsky 1965).  These rules define basic grammatical relations that function in the deep structure.  They also make explicit the domination of constituent over the other.  In short, they make explicit the universal conditions that define `human language'.

The phrase structure of a sentence is generally represented by a tree diagram.  This representation of the phrase structure of a sentence is known as its `phrase marker' or `P marker' for short.  The points that are joined by the lines or branches are called `Nodes'.  Each of the nodes, except those on the bottom line (which are the terminal nodes) is given a label that represents a grammatically definable constituent - N, V, NP, VP, etc. where one mode is higher than another and joined to it by branches, it is said to `Dominate' it, if it is placed immediately above it and joined by a single line, it `Immediately' dominates it.  `Dominance' then shows how a larger constituent may consist of one or more constituents of a smaller kind.  It is also important to note that the tree structure preserves the linear order of the constituents, just as plain IC analysis does.  The first noun phrase precedes the verb phrase, the verb precedes the second noun phrase.  The determiner precedes the noun.  `Precedence' thus like `Dominance' is clearly shown in the tree diagram.

2.3         THE DIFFERENT AND SIMILAR BETWEEN IC ANALYSIS AND TREE DIAGRAM

The differences are labeled bracketing and phrase structure trees provide much more information than IC analysis.

IC analysis symbol like head(H), modifier(M), subject(S), predicate(P), Verb(V), Complement(C), but the Tree Diagram symbol like noun phrase (NP), verb phrase (VP), noun determinant (Det), Adjective Phrase (AP), pronoun (Pro), prepositional phrase (PP), etc.

The IC analysis structure form likes box, but tree diagram structure like tree branches.

The similar is to analyze the sentences.

B.     TREE DIAGRAM ANALYSIS

The sentence "the dog bites the cat" will be represented by a tree diagram as 

  This can be done with the use of `phrase structure rules' (PS rules).  The tree structure of the sentence given in the example can be generated by six rules.

1.  S-----NP------VP

2. VP----V--------NP

3. NP----DET-----N

4.  V---------bites

5.  DET-------the

6.  N----------cat, dog

 These rules will not generate only the one sentence handled in the tree diagram - `The dog bites the cat'.  Since both `the'' are shown as determiners and both `dog' and `cat' as nouns, the rules permit us to permute the determiners in each determiner position and the two nouns in each noun position and in fact, to generate no less than sixteen different sentences including.