Lucien Tesnière (; May 13, 1893 – December 6, 1954) was a prominent and influential
French linguist. He was born in
Mont-Saint-Aignan on May 13, 1893. As a professor in
Strasbourg (1924), and later in
Montpellier (1937), he published many papers and books on
Slavic languages. However, his importance in the history of linguistics is based mainly on his development of an approach to the syntax of natural languages that would become known as
dependency grammar. He presented his theory in his book
Éléments de syntaxe structurale (Elements of Structural Syntax), published posthumously in 1959. In the book he proposes a sophisticated formalization of syntactic structures, supported by many examples from a diversity of languages. Tesnière died in
Montpellier on December 6, 1954.