right-branching

American  

[rahyt-bran-ching, -brahn-] / ˈraɪtˌbræn tʃɪŋ, -ˌbrɑn- /

adjective

Linguistics.

1. (of a grammatical construction) characterized by greater structural complexity in the position following the head, as the phrase the house of the friend of my brother; having most of the constituents on the right in a tree diagram (opposed to left-branching).

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Etymology

Origin of right-branching

First recorded in 1960–65

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

right-branching

The following twenty-five-word phrase is splayed along a diagonal axis, indicating that it is almost entirely right-branching: flattish trees, each composed of simpler phrases joined side by side.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

Even when the sentence structure gets more complicated, a reader can handle the tree, because its geometry is mostly right-branching.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

In a right-branching tree, the most complicated phrase inside a bigger phrase comes at the end of it, that is, hanging from the rightmost branch.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

These front-loaded modifiers can be useful in qualifying a sentence, in tying it to information mentioned earlier, or simply in avoiding the monotony of having one right-branching sentence after another.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker