Constituent Structure - Part 24 | 70 PHRASE STRUCTURE GRAMMARS AND X-BAR called immediate constituent analysis IC . IC was not so much a formalized algorithm for segmenting sentences but was based on the native speaker and linguist s intuitions about semantic relatedness between elements. IC splits sentences into constituents based on how closely the modification relations among the words were. For example take the diagram in 1 adapted from Wells 1947 84 where a sentence has been analyzed into immediate constituents. The greater the number of pipes the weaker the boundary between the constituents . the more pipes more closely related the words .2 The constituents in this diagram are listed below it. 1 The King of England open ed parliament. Constituents a The King of England b The c King of England d King e of England f of g England h opened i open j ed k opened parliament l parliament Pike 1943 criticized Bloomfield s IC system for its vagueness although see Longacre 1960 for a defense of the vaguer notions . Pike developed a set of discovery procedures methodologies that a linguist can use to come up with a grammatical analysis which are very similar to the constituency tests listed in Chapter 2. Harris 1946 drawing on Aristotelian notions borrowed from logic refined these tests somewhat by formalizing the procedure of identification of immediate constituents by making reference to substitution. That is 2 The number of pipes should not be taken relativistically. That is the fact that there are three pipes between open and ed and four pipes between of and England does not mean that of and England are more closely related than open and ed. The fact that there are four pipes in the Wrst half has to do with the fact that there are four major morphemes in the NP and only three in the VP. The number of pipes is determined by the number of ultimate constituents . morphemes not by degree of relationship. PHRASE STRUCTURE GRAMMARS 71 if one can substitute a single morpheme of a given type for a .
