Download or read book Conjunction headed Abbreviated Clauses in English written by Ingegerd Bäcklund and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Free Adjuncts and Absolutes in English written by Bernd Kortmann and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-27 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Free adjuncts and absolutes typically function as adverbial clauses which are not overtly specified for any particular adverbial relation. The book is a non-formal, corpus based study of their current use in English. Its particular focus is on a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of their semantic indeterminacy and the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic factors that help resolve it.
Download or read book Grammar of Spoken and Written English written by Douglas Biber and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 1258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The completely redesigned Grammar of Spoken and Written English is a comprehensive corpus-based reference grammar. GSWE describes the structural characteristics of grammatical constructions in English, as do other reference grammars. But GSWE is unique in that it gives equal attention to describing the patterns of language use for each grammatical feature, based on empirical analyses of grammatical patterns in a 40-million-word corpus of spoken and written registers. Grammar-in-use is characterized by three inter-related kinds of information: frequency of grammatical features in spoken and written registers, frequencies of the most common lexico-grammatical patterns, and analysis of the discourse factors influencing choices among related grammatical features. GSWE includes over 350 tables and figures highlighting the results of corpus-based investigations. Throughout the book, authentic examples illustrate all research findings. The empirical descriptions document the lexico-grammatical features that are especially common in face-to-face-conversation compared to those that are especially common in academic writing. Analyses of fiction and newspaper articles are included as further benchmarks of language use. GSWE contains over 6,000 authentic examples from these four registers, illustrating the range of lexico-grammatical features in real-world speech and writing. In addition, comparisons between British and American English reveal specific regional differences. Now completely redesigned and available in an electronic edition, the Grammar of Spoken and Written English remains a unique and indispensable reference work for researchers, language teachers, and students alike.
Download or read book Explorations in English Historical Syntax written by Hubert Cuyckens and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2018-08-15 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The papers in this volume cover a wide range of interrelated syntactic phenomena, from the history of core arguments, to complements and non-finite clauses, elements in the clause periphery, as well as elements with potential scope over complete sentences and even larger discourse chunks. In one way or another, however, they all testify to an increasing awareness that even some of the most central phenomena of syntax – and the way they develop over time – are best understood by taking into account their communicative functions and the way they are processed and represented by speakers’ cognitive apparatus. In doing so, they show that historical syntax, and historical linguistics in general, is witnessing a convergence between formerly distinct linguistic frameworks and traditions. With this fusion of traditions, the trend is undeniably towards a richer and more broadly informed understanding of syntactic change and the history of English. This volume will be of great interest to scholars of (English) historical syntax and historical linguistics within the cognitive-linguistic as well as the generative tradition.
Download or read book A Bibliography on Writing and Written Language written by Konrad Ehlich and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 2896 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bibliography offers information on research about writing and written language over the past 50 years. No comprehensive bibliography on this subject has been published since Sattler's (1935) handbook. With a selection of some 27,500 titles it covers the most important literature in all scientific fields relating to writing. Emphasis has been placed on the interdisciplinary organization of the bibliography, creating many points of common interest for literacy experts, educationalists, psychologists, sociologists, linguists, cultural anthropologists, and historians. The bibliography is organized in such a way as to provide the specialist as well as the researcher in neighboring disciplines with access to the relevant literature on writing in a given field. While necessarily selective, it also offers information on more specialized bibliographies. In addition, an overview of norms and standards concerning 'script and writing' will prove very useful for non-professional readers. It is, therefore, also of interest to the generally interested public as a reference work for the humanities.
Download or read book Outside the Clause written by Gunther Kaltenböck and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2016-10-03 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together a number of articles on the form and function of extra-clausal constituents, a group of linguistic elements which have puzzled linguists by defying analysis in terms of ordinary sentence grammar. Given their high frequency and communicative importance, these elements can, however, no longer be dismissed as a marginal linguistic phenomenon. In recent years this awareness has resulted not only in more systematic treatments of extra-clausal constituents, but has also highlighted the need to account for them in grammatical theory. Based on (mainly English) corpus data, the volume investigates the discourse-pragmatic, semantic, syntactic and phonological features of a range of extra-clausal constituents, including discourse markers, free adjuncts, left dislocands, insubordinate clauses and various kinds of adverbials. The individual chapters adopt a number of different perspectives, investigating the diachronic development of extra-clausal constituents, their multi-functionality and their use in bilingual settings, also addressing the question of how they can be incorporated into existing models of grammar.
Download or read book Variation Across Speech and Writing written by Douglas Biber and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1991-12-19 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Similarities and differences between speech and writing have been the subject of innumerable studies, but until now there has been no attempt to provide a unified linguistic analysis of the whole range of spoken and written registers in English. In this widely acclaimed empirical study, Douglas Biber uses computational techniques to analyse the linguistic characteristics of twenty three spoken and written genres, enabling identification of the basic, underlying dimensions of variation in English. In Variation Across Speech and Writing, six dimensions of variation are identified through a factor analysis, on the basis of linguistic co-occurence patterns. The resulting model of variation provides for the description of the distinctive linguistic characteristics of any spoken or written text andd emonstrates the ways in which the polarization of speech and writing has been misleading, and thus enables reconciliation of the contradictory conclusions reached in previous research.
Download or read book Constructional Change in English written by Martin Hilpert and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-28 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Martin Hilpert combines construction grammar and advanced corpus-based methodology into a new way of studying language change. Constructions are generalizations over remembered exemplars of language use. These exemplars are stored with all their formal and functional properties, yielding constructional generalizations that contain many parameters of variation. Over time, as patterns of language use are changing, the generalizations are changing with them. This book illustrates the workings of constructional change with three corpus-based studies that reveal patterns of change at several levels of linguistic structure, ranging from allomorphy to word formation and to syntax. Taken together, the results strongly motivate the use of construction grammar in research on diachronic language change. This new perspective has wide-ranging consequences for the way historical linguists think about language change. It will be of particular interest to linguists working on morpho-syntax, sociolinguistics and corpus linguistics.
Download or read book Adverbial Subordination in English written by María Jesús Pérez Quintero and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-08-29 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a detailed corpus-based study of adverbial subordinate clauses in English within the framework of the theory of Functional Grammar. On the basis of an in-depth data analysis, this study shows that there is a systematic correlation between the semantic types of adverbial clauses, on the one hand, and the verb forms by means of which these constructions are expressed in English, on the other. In contrast to most traditional classifications, the criterion used for the semantic classification of adverbial clauses is not simply the basic meaning of the conjunction introducing the subordinate clause. Instead, the present classification is based on the systematic and consistent application of four semantic parameters: Entity Type, Time Dependency, Factuality and Presupposition. The relevance of the application of these parameters is not only that they allow to establish a complete and exhaustive typology of adverbial clauses, but also that they form the basis for four implicational hierarchies that determine the distribution of expression formats along the different semantic types of adverbial clauses. This book also constitutes a contribution to the application of Functional Grammar to the corpus-based analysis of a specific language and, more specifically, to the validation of the hierarchical model of the structure of the clause postulated within this theoretical framework.
Download or read book English Computer Corpora written by Stig Johansson and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011-08-25 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.
Download or read book Converbs in Cross Linguistic Perspective written by Martin Haspelmath and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-08-10 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research on language universals and research on linguistic typology are not antagonistic, but rather complementary approaches to the same fundamental problem: the relationship between the amazing diversity of languages and the profound unity of language. Only if the true extent of typological divergence is recognized can universal laws be formulated. In recent years it has become more and more evident that a broad range of languages of radically different types must be carefully analyzed before general theories are possible. Typological comparison of this kind is now at the centre of linguistic research. The series empirical approaches to language typology presents a platform for contributions of all kinds to this rapidly developing field. The distinctive feature of the series is its markedly empirical orientation. All conclusions to be reached are the result of a deepened study of empirical data. General problems are focused on from the perspective of individual languages, language families, language groups, or language samples. Special emphasis is given to the analysis of phenomena from little known languages, which shed new light on long-standing problems in general linguistics. The series is open to contributions from different theoretical persuasions. It thus reflects the methodological pluralism that characterizes the present situation. Care is taken that all volumes be accessible to every linguist and, moreover, to every reader specializing in some domain related to human language. A deeper understanding of human language in general, based on a detailed analysis of typological diversity among individual languages, is fundamental for many sciences, not only for linguists. Therefore, this series has proven to be indispensable in every research library, be it public or private, which has a specialization in language and the language sciences. To discuss your book idea or submit a proposal, please contact Birgit Sievert.
Download or read book Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Register written by Douglas Biber and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1994 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection brings together several perspectives on language varieties defined according to their contexts of use--what are variously called registers, sublanguages, or genres. The volume highlights the importance of these central linguistic phenomena; it includes empirical analyses and linguistic descriptions, as well as explanations for existing patterns of variation and proposals for theoretical frameworks. The book treats languages in obsolescence and in their youth; it examines registers from languages from around the globe; and it offers several of the most complete studies of registers and register variation published to date, adopting both synchronic and diachronic perspectives.
Download or read book Adverbial Clauses in Scots written by Martina H Cker and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 1999 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies, which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics. For further publications in English linguistics see also our Dialects of English book series. To discuss your book idea or submit a proposal, please contact Natalie Fecher.
Download or read book Synchronic Corpus Linguistics written by Carol E. Percy and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 1996 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Synchronic corpus linguistics contains select papers from the sixteenth International Conference on English Language Research on Computerized Corpora (ICAME 16). The papers reflect the state of the art in the design, analysis, and annotation of corpora. Corpora new and old facilitate the description of single registers of English (e.g., London teenage English, business English) and of specific grammatical topics across registers (e.g., the grammatical flexibility of idioms), including variation studies (e.g., popular vs. technical registers of English). Other corpora permit the comparison of English to other languages (Norwegian, German, Swedish); of L1 English to L2 English; and of English as an original language to English in translation. A number of these papers emphasize pragmatics: indeed, among the papers on spoken English is an assessment of corpora annotated for discourse analysis. Other papers describe different aspects of the automatic analysis of text. Two papers describe semantic analysis of large text corpora composed of news/business text. Automatic grammatical analysis is the subject of other papers: two evaluate existing automatic parsers and wordclass taggers, while two describe how annotated corpora are being used to develop two new and innovative automatic parsers.
Download or read book Nineteenth Century English written by Merja Kytö and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-10-19 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume of Studies in English Language focuses on the nineteenth century, an important period of both stability and change for the English language. Through ten detailed case studies, it highlights the relationships between English, its users, and nineteenth-century society, looking particularly at gender differences and variation across genres. It also discusses major structural aspects of nineteenth-century English, such as nouns, verbs and adjectives, and Germanic vs. Romance vocabulary. Although the nineteenth century is often viewed as a relatively stable period in the development of the language, this volume shows the 1800s to be a time of significant change, some of which continued into the twentieth century. By making comparisons possible with both earlier and later periods, it makes an important contribution to our overall understanding of the history of the English language.
Download or read book The Limits of Grammaticalization written by Anna Giacalone Ramat and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1998-07-15 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The earliest use of the term “grammaticalization” was to refer to the process whereby lexical words of a language (such as English keep in “he keeps bees”) become grammatical forms (such as the auxiliary in “he keeps looking at me”). Changes of this kind, which involve semantic fading and a downshift from a major to a minor category, have generally been agreed to come under the heading of grammaticalization. But other changes that equally contribute to new grammatical forms do not involve this kind of fading. In recent years, a debate has arisen over how to constrain the term theoretically. Is grammaticalization to be distinguished from “lexicalization”, the creation and fixing of new words out of older patterns of compounding? If so, how is the line to be drawn between a form that is grammatical and one that is lexical? Should the term “grammaticalization” be extended to the study of the origins of grammatical constructions in general? If so, it will have to include broader issues such as word order change and the reanalysis of phrases. What principles govern these processes? Is grammaticalization a unidirectional event, or can change occur in the reverse direction? The authors of the papers in this volume approach these important questions from a variety of data types, including historical texts, creoles, and a typologically broad sample of modern and ancient languages.
Download or read book Language Change in English Newspaper Editorials written by Ingrid Westin and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-08-09 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work is a corpus-based study of the language of English up-market (“quality”) newspaper editorials, covering the period 1900–1993. CENE, the Corpus of English Newspaper Editorials, was compiled for the purposes of this study and comprises editorials from the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, and The Times chosen to represent periods at ten-year intervals. The language of the editorials was investigated with regard to features that previous research had proved to be markers of such types of discourse as might be of interest to an investigation of the development of the language of newspaper editorials. To begin with, sets of features associated with the empirically defined dimensions of linguistic variation presented in Biber (1988) were compared across decades and newspapers; these dimensions included personal involvement and information density, narrative discourse, argumentative discourse, abstract discourse, and explicit reference. However, since the study showed that the features within each set often developed in diverging directions, the old sets were broken up and new ones formed on the basis of change and continuity as well as of shared linguistic/stylistic functions, specific for newspaper editorials, among the features involved. It then became apparent that, during the 20th century, the language of the editorials developed towards greater information density and lexical specificity and diversity but at the same time towards greater informality, in so far as the use of conversational features increased. The narrative quality of the editorials at the beginning of the century gradually decreased whereas their reporting and argumentative functions remained the same over the years. When the features were compared across the newspapers analyzed, a clear distinction was noticed between The Times and the Guardian. The language of the Guardian was the most informal and the most narrative while that of The Times was the least so. The information density was the highest inThe Times and the lowest in the Guardian. In these respects, the Daily Telegraph took an intermediate position. The editorials of the Guardian were more argumentative than those of both the Daily Telegraph and The Times. As regards lexical specificity and diversity as well as sentence complexity, the Daily Telegraph scored the highest and The Times the lowest while the results obtained for the Guardian were in between the two.
