Dependency Grammar

An Educational Resource for the Teaching/Learning of Italian L2

Abstract

The elaboration of dependency grammar, which considers the verb as the central and generating element of a sentence, predisposed to be combined with a certain number of elements in order to realize a minimal meaningful expression, also finds application in the context of the teaching/learning of Italian as a foreign language.

The article highlights the glottodidactic advantages of the model which are firstly represented by the importance attributed to the unavoidable connection between semantics and syntax and to the correlation between sentence and text. In relation to this, the learner learns to (i) reflect on the obligatory and optional elements of the sentence and to consider the parameters by which the verb defines and modifies its argumentative structure according to its meaning, and (ii) transform individual phrasal elements from nominal into dependent sentences. The exercise on the ability to transform a nominal element to a phrasal one in the same syntactic function constitutes an important teaching resource as it accustoms the learner to express the same concept with different linguistic structures. The article highlights the didactic usefulness of the description of the sentence according to the dependency grammar model also for the approach to the analysis of the text in view of the classification of the textual typology based on the degree of rigidity/elasticity: the learner learns to measure the gap between the way the language is used at system level (represented by the structure of the standard sentence) and the way it appears in the utterances of real texts, illustrating the close link between these two dimensions of language. 

The dependency grammar model also offers valuable learning support in the form of graphic representations of the sentence by means of radial circles, which facilitate both the learning of theoretical postulates and the students' productive activities. The flexibility of the method makes it compatible with different levels of knowledge of Italian, different age and cultural backgrounds.