In most of the literature I have encountered thus far, the terms "constituency grammar" and "phrase structure grammar" seem to be used interchangeably.
Is either one of the two more acceptable or preferable than the other?
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Sign up to join this communityIn most of the literature I have encountered thus far, the terms "constituency grammar" and "phrase structure grammar" seem to be used interchangeably.
Is either one of the two more acceptable or preferable than the other?
For most dependency grammarians, the terms phrase structure grammar and constituency grammar are synonymous.
For those constituency grammarians who do not pay attention to dependency grammar, the two terms phrase structure grammar and constituency grammar are not synonymous, however. The term phrase structure grammar denotes a non-transformational approach to syntax along the lines of GPSG or HPSG. These frameworks do not acknowledge movement in the sense of traditional Chomskyan syntax. They intentionally use the term phrase structure grammar to mean 'non-transformational grammar'. For an example, see Borsley (1991: 8).
Borsley, Robert. 1991: Syntactic Theory: A Unified Approach. London: Edward Arnold.
The GPSG/HPSG crowd is likely to use the term constituency grammar as an umbrella term to denote all constituency-based approaches to syntax, be these approaches transformational or non-transformational. In this regard, constituency grammar and dependency grammar are opposites in the relevant sense, whereas the term phrase structure grammar denotes a subtype of constituency grammar, a non-transformational one.