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In:Chapters of Dependency Grammar: A historical survey from Antiquity to Tesnière
Edited by András Imrényi and Nicolas Mazziotta
[Studies in Language Companion Series 212] 2020
► pp. 163–188

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Chapter 5
Sámuel Brassai in the history of dependency grammar

 | Eszterházy Károly University, Eger
 | Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
Published online: 6 February 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.212.06imr
The paper presents the syntactic work of Sámuel Brassai with special regard to his dependency-based theory of the sentence. Brassai is already relatively well-known as a pioneer in the study of information structure, where his discoveries predate Gabelentz by several years. The present work aims to show that Brassai also developed a consistently dependency-based theory of syntax long before Tesnière. The paper first discusses the motivations and influences underpinning Brassai’s work. Secondly, it presents Brassai’s verb-centred theory, expressed both metaphorically and by sentence diagrams. The latter appeared as early as 1873, thus Brassai may well have been the first to produce verb-centred dependency diagrams of clause structure. Finally, we show that Brassai’s discovery of a bipartite (information structural) division of the sentence does not amount to an early adoption of constituency; rather, it is seamlessly integrated into his dependency-oriented approach.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Motivations and influences behind Brassai’s work
    • 2.1Motivations, general agenda
    • 2.2Influences behind Brassai’s verb-centred theory of the sentence
    • 2.3From techne to episteme
  • 3.Brassai’s verb-centred theory of the sentence
    • 3.1Metaphors
    • 3.2Sentence diagrams
    • 3.3Dependency notions in Brassai’s description of Hungarian
      • 3.3.1Határzó ‘dependent’
      • 3.3.2Jelző ‘attribute’ and egészítvény ‘post-dependent’
  • 4.Inchoative and bulk. Does duality require constituency?
    • 4.1Brassai’s interpretation by É. Kiss in constituency terms
    • 4.2A consistently dependency-based explication of Brassai’s ideas
  • 5.Summary and conclusions
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
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Imrényi, András
2022. ‘My enemy’s enemy is my friend.’. In Analogy and Contrast in Language [Human Cognitive Processing, 73], ► pp. 83 ff. DOI logo
Cigana, Lorenzo
2020. Some aspects of dependency in Otto Jespersen’s structural syntax. In Chapters of Dependency Grammar [Studies in Language Companion Series, 212], ► pp. 215 ff. DOI logo
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