Formaldepending

Formaldepending is a term used in linguistics to describe a type of dependency in which the form of a dependent element is determined by the formal properties of its governing element. The concept draws on dependency grammar and morphology, and contrasts with dependencies governed primarily by meaning or discourse function.

Definition and scope: In a formaldepending relation, features such as case, number, gender, or agreement on a dependent element are specified by the head. The dependency is thus formal rather than solely semantic. It is most readily observed in languages with rich morphosyntactic concord, where adjectives, articles, or numerals on nouns must agree with the head.

Examples: In Spanish, the adjective agrees in gender and number with the noun: libro rojo vs libros rojos. In German, the form of adjectives and articles changes with the noun’s case and number, illustrating a formaldependent pattern. Similar patterns occur in many Indo-European languages as well as in other language families that mark agreement or case on dependents.

Applications: In natural language processing and computational linguistics, formaldepending informs morphological parsers and dependency analyzers by encoding head-driven constraints on dependent forms. This helps improve accuracy in parsing and in generating grammatically concordant phrases.

Limitations and research: Not all dependencies are purely formal; semantics, discourse context, and historical change also shape form. Some languages show mixed patterns or free variation, which challenges uniform formaldepending analyses. Ongoing work explores the boundaries between formal dependence and other sources of grammatical variation.

See also: dependency grammar; morphological agreement; concord.