Lucien Tesnière
Encyclopedia
Lucien Tesnière was one of the most prominent and influential French
linguist
s.
Tesnière was born in Mont-Saint-Aignan
on May 13, 1893. Professor in Strasbourg
(1924), and later in Montpellier
(1937), he published many papers and books on Slavic languages
, but his importance in the history of linguistics is based on his development of a syntactic theory known as dependency grammar
, exposed in his book Éléments de syntaxe structurale (Elements of Structural Syntax), published posthumously in 1959, in which he proposes a sophisticated formalization of sentence
syntactic structures, supported by many examples from a diversity of languages. He came up with the French sentence "Le silence vertébral indispose la voile licite" ("The vertebral silence indisposes the licit sail"). Despite its profound influence on European linguistics, it remains untranslated into English. Tesnière died in Montpellier
on December 6, 1954.
Tesnière's model is based on the stemma, a graphical representation of the grammatical dependencies between the words in a syntactic construction. In the sentence, the verb
is seen as the highest level word, governing a set of complements
, which govern their own complements themselves. Opposed to the logical notion of the division of the sentence into a subject and predicate, the grammatical subject in Tesnière's work is also considered subordinate to the verb (being, nevertheless, its prime actant), a notion which finds its echo in the VP-internal subject hypothesis in transformational syntax. Moreover, in the first chapter of Éléments de syntaxe structurale, Tesnière adheres to Humboldt's notion of an 'innere Sprachform' which is not materially visible, making him a potential precursor to the opposition of "deep structure" and "surface structure" in generative grammar. While the notion of IP
as the fundamental node of an utterance is foreign to Tesnière, his stemmata do remind one of the graphical representation in transformational syntax.
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
linguist
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
s.
Tesnière was born in Mont-Saint-Aignan
Mont-Saint-Aignan
-People:*Birthplace of Jacques Anquetil , the first cyclist to win the Tour de France five times.*Viviane Asseyi footballer*Jackson Mendy footballer*Matthieu Louis-Jean footballer*Mohamed Sissoko, Juventus F.C footballer, was born here....
on May 13, 1893. Professor in Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
(1924), and later in Montpellier
Montpellier
-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....
(1937), he published many papers and books on Slavic languages
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
, but his importance in the history of linguistics is based on his development of a syntactic theory known as dependency grammar
Dependency grammar
Dependency grammar is a class of modern syntactic theories that are all based on the dependency relation and that can be traced back primarily to the work of Lucien Tesnière. Dependency grammars are distinct from phrase structure grammars , since they lack phrasal nodes. Structure is determined by...
, exposed in his book Éléments de syntaxe structurale (Elements of Structural Syntax), published posthumously in 1959, in which he proposes a sophisticated formalization of sentence
Sentence (linguistics)
In the field of linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language, and often defined to indicate a grammatical unit consisting of one or more words that generally bear minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it...
syntactic structures, supported by many examples from a diversity of languages. He came up with the French sentence "Le silence vertébral indispose la voile licite" ("The vertebral silence indisposes the licit sail"). Despite its profound influence on European linguistics, it remains untranslated into English. Tesnière died in Montpellier
Montpellier
-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....
on December 6, 1954.
Tesnière's model is based on the stemma, a graphical representation of the grammatical dependencies between the words in a syntactic construction. In the sentence, the verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
is seen as the highest level word, governing a set of complements
Complement (linguistics)
In grammar the term complement is used with different meanings. The primary meaning is a word, phrase or clause that is necessary in a sentence to complete its meaning. We find complements that function as an argument and complements that exist within arguments.Both complements and modifiers add...
, which govern their own complements themselves. Opposed to the logical notion of the division of the sentence into a subject and predicate, the grammatical subject in Tesnière's work is also considered subordinate to the verb (being, nevertheless, its prime actant), a notion which finds its echo in the VP-internal subject hypothesis in transformational syntax. Moreover, in the first chapter of Éléments de syntaxe structurale, Tesnière adheres to Humboldt's notion of an 'innere Sprachform' which is not materially visible, making him a potential precursor to the opposition of "deep structure" and "surface structure" in generative grammar. While the notion of IP
Inflectional phrase
An inflectional phrase or agreement phrase is essentially the same as a sentence in which the verb has finite form.It is a functional phrase which has inflection ....
as the fundamental node of an utterance is foreign to Tesnière, his stemmata do remind one of the graphical representation in transformational syntax.
Main works
- Petite grammaire russe, Henri Didier, Paris 1934.
- Cours élémentaire de syntaxe structurale, 1938.
- Cours de syntaxe structurale, 1943.
- Esquisse d'une syntaxe structurale, Klincksieck, Paris 1953.
- Éléments de syntaxe structurale, Klincksieck, Paris 1959. ISBN 2252018615
- Éléments de syntaxe structurale, Klincksieck, Paris 1988. Preface by Jean Fourquet, professor at Sorbonne. Revised and corrected second edition. ISBN 2-252-02620-0