Download or read book Downward Entailing and Chinese Polarity Items written by Li Chen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-11 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Polarity phenomena are pervasively observed in natural languages. Previous studies on Chinese polarity items are mainly in line with the non-veridicality approach. This book, however, employs the downward-entailing hypothesis as its analytical foundation, and argues that downward entailment is the only licensor for different kinds of Chinese polarity items, and non-veridicality is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition and thus offers inferior explanatory power compared with the former. To begin with, it lays the groundwork for this research by presenting a brief introduction to polarity phenomena and reviewing the existing relevant theories. Then it addresses the status of the commonly used element dou in Chinese. Specifically, it applies the tripartite structural frame to the studies of dou, and examines the role of dou in licensing the polarity items. Moreover, it investigates the properties and behavior of dou with respect to modality. Based on the analysis above, it observes that non-interrogative wh-indeterminates in Chinese can be licensed in the restriction domain of a necessity operator. Also, the non-uniformity of three Chinese polarity items, i.e., shenme, na-CL, and renhe, is scrutinized within the downward-entailing framework. This book will appeal to scholars, teachers and students in the field of linguistics, especially in the areas of formal semantics and generative grammar. Researchers and engineers in cloud computing and big data who are seeking help from linguistic contributions to meaning and logic will also benefit from it.
Download or read book Focus and Background Marking in Mandarin Chinese written by Daniel Hole and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2004-08-02 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an investigation into the grammaticalized system of focus-background agreement in Mandarin Chinese. The particles cái, jiù, dou and ye are, in a specific use type, shown to form the core of a highly systematic paradigm. This book is not just a valuable companion for anyone interested in core aspects of Mandarin Chinese grammar. It caters for the interests of theoretical linguists as well as for linguists from other fields with an interest in information-structure, focus and contrastive topics, and quantification. The outstanding characteristic of this book, viz. its effortless integration of findings from formal semantics without heavy formal load, makes it rewarding reading both for linguists with a less formal background, and for researchers with some knowledge of formal semantics.
Download or read book Explorations of Chinese Theoretical and Applied Linguistics written by Dongyan Chen and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-23 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the implications of Chinese for linguistic theory building and for the field of second language acquisition. Bringing together selected papers from the first International Symposium on Chinese Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, it sheds light upon under-documented topics in a variety of areas within theoretical and applied research. The topics covered here include competing approaches within optimality theory to phonological opacity, formal solutions to puzzles in Shanghainese morphosyntax, and different approaches to polarity items and presentational sentences in Chinese. With regard to applied linguistics, the contributions in this volume address challenges in the acquisition of Chinese phonology by L1 Danish speakers as well as the acquisition of the Mandarin ba construction by Cantonese learners, and the expression of social judgements in the L1 and L2. Taken together, the papers in this volume contribute to the empirical documentation of aspects of the Chinese language and its acquisition, as well as helping to unpack the significance of Chinese for mainstream linguistic theory.
Download or read book English Transitivity Alternation in Second Language Acquisition an Attentional Approach written by Yuxia Wang and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-27 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The correct use of English verb argument structure is crucial for foreign learners of the English language. Based on an experimental study recruiting 162 Chinese English learners at different proficiency levels, this book suggests that the acquisition of English transitivity alternation follows as a consequence of the cognitive processing of language input, which is induced by the nature of task requirements in different learning conditions and influenced by individual differences in language learning aptitude and proficiency level. Readers of this book will have a deeper understanding of all these variables involved and will learn that pedagogical issues should be considered in a more thorough, comprehensive manner to explore better solutions for English learning and teaching.
Download or read book The Emergence of Meaning written by Stephen Crain and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-30 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past forty years, scientists have developed models of human reasoning based on the principle that human languages and classical logic involve fundamentally different concepts and different methods of interpretation. In The Emergence of Meaning Stephen Crain challenges this view, arguing that a common logical nativism underpins human language and logical reasoning. The approach which Crain takes is twofold. Firstly, he uncovers the underlying meanings of logical expressions and logical principles that appear in typologically different languages - English and Mandarin Chinese - and he demonstrates that these meanings and principles directly correspond to the expressions and structures of classical logic. Secondly he reports the findings of new experimental studies which investigate how children acquire the logical concepts of these languages. A step-by-step introduction to logic and a comprehensive review of the literature on child language acquisition make this work accessible to those unfamiliar with either field.
Download or read book The Handbook of Chinese Linguistics written by C. T. James Huang and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-04-14 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Handbook of Chinese Linguistics is the first comprehensive introduction to Chinese linguistics from the perspective of modern theoretical and formal linguistics. Containing twenty-five chapters, the book offers a balanced, accessible and thoughtfully organized introduction to some of the most important results of research into Chinese linguistics carried out by theoretical linguists during the last thirty years. Presenting critical overviews of a wide range of major topics, it is the first to meet the great demand for an overview volume on core areas of Chinese linguistics. Authoritative contributions describe and assess the major achievements and controversies of research undertaken in each area, and provide bibliographies for further reading. The contributors refer both to their own work in relevant fields, and objectively present a range of competitor theories and analyses, resulting in a volume that is fully comprehensive in its coverage of theoretical research into Chinese linguistics in recent years. This unique Handbook is suitable both as a primary reader for structured, taught courses on Chinese linguistics at university level, and for individual study by graduates and other professional linguists.
Download or read book Clause Structure in South Asian Languages written by V. Dayal and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-09-28 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The researchers in the field of theoretical and theoretically inclined descriptive linguistics have for a long time felt a need for detailed and clearly presented linguistic treatments of various syntactic phenomena in South Asian languages. Clause Structure in South Asian Languages: provides a comprehensive overview and covers major aspects of clause structure in a variety of South Asian languages; provides detailed analyses of several aspects of phrase structure of many prominent South Asian languages; gives theoretically up-to-date treatment of several important issues in South Asian syntax and semantics; contains papers by some of the most prominent linguists working on South Asian languages.
Download or read book Plurals and Events written by Barry Schein and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Barry Schein proposes combining a second-order treatment of plurals with Donald Davidson's suggestion that there are positions for reference to events in ordinary predicates in order to account for several of the more puzzling features of plurals without invoking plural objects, with its attendant metaphysics, and also provide an absolute truth-theoretic characterization of the semantics of sentences with plurals in them. How do we make sense of sentences with plural noun phrases in them? In Plurals and Events, Barry Schein proposes combining a second-order treatment of plurals with Donald Davidson's suggestion that there are positions for reference to events in ordinary predicates in order to account for several of the more puzzling features of plurals without invoking plural objects, with its attendant metaphysics, and also provide an absolute truth-theoretic characterization of the semantics of sentences with plurals in them. Schein's highly original argument should have significant impact on how natural-language semantics is done, with repercussions for philosophy and logic. The book opens with foundational arguments that the logical language should have four major features: reduction to singular predication via a Davidsonian logical form, amereology of events, a logical syntax that allows the constituents of a Davidsonian analysis to be predicated of distinct events and separated from one another by other logical elements, and descriptive anaphors that cross-refer to the events described by antecedent clauses. A semantics for plurality and quantification is developed in the remaining chapters, which address some of the empirical and formal questions raised by the variety of interpretations in which plurals and quantifiers participate.
Download or read book The Emergence of Meaning written by Stephen Crain and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-30 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation into the underlying logic of human languages which looks at how children acquire English and Mandarin.
Download or read book Studies in Chinese and Japanese Language Acquisition written by Mineharu Nakayama and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on important methodological and theoretical issues in Chinese and Japanese L1 and L2 acquisition. All contributions discuss experiments using the Truth Value Judgment Task (TVJT), on three syntactic and semantic domains, binding, scope interaction, and wh- and logical expressions. The issues in these grammatical domains are particularly well suited for TVJT studies as the task allows for the testing of particular interpretations among alternative representations and reveals children’s and adults’ understandings of these constructions. The book is a tribute to Stephen Crain’s contribution to the field of Chinese and Japanese language acquisition within the framework of Generative Grammar. It is a state-of-the-art collection that offers a picture of cutting-edge research on children’s and adult’s Chinese and Japanese acquisition. Readers will find the book a rich source of ideas and the starting point of new projects.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Negation written by Viviane Déprez and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 889 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume, international experts in negation provide a comprehensive overview of cross-linguistic and philosophical research in the field, as well as accounts of more recent results from experimental linguistics, psycholinguistics, and neuroscience. The volume adopts an interdisciplinary approach to a range of fundamental questions ranging from why negation displays so many distinct linguistic forms to how prosody and gesture participate in the interpretation of negative utterances. Following an introduction from the editors, the chapters are arranged in eight parts that explore, respectively, the fundamentals of negation; issues in syntax; the syntax-semantics interface; semantics and pragmatics; negative dependencies; synchronic and diachronic variation; the emergence and acquisition of negation; and experimental investigations of negation. The volume will be an essential reference for students and researchers across a wide range of disciplines, and will facilitate further interdisciplinary work in the field.
Download or read book Polarity Licensing and Wh phrase Quantification in Chinese written by Jo-wang Lin and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Quotation and Truth Conditional Pragmatics written by Xiaofei Wang and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-12-22 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the past decades, quotation theories have developed roughly along three lines—quotation types, meaning effects, and theoretical orientations toward the semantics/pragmatics distinction. Currently, whether the quoted expression is truth-conditionally relevant to the quotational sentence, and if there is a truth-conditional impact, whether it is generated via semantic or pragmatic processes, have become the central concerns of quotation studies. In this book, quotation is clearly defined for the first time as a constituent embedded within yet distinctive from the quotational sentence. Also, as the first monograph to address the semantics/pragmatics boundary dispute over quotation, it argues that the semantic content of quotation amounts to its contribution to the intuitive truth-conditional content of the quotational utterance via two modes of presentation, which are incarnated in the functioning of quotation marks and manifested as use and mention. The use/mention-based analysis in this book can shed light on the semantic theorizing of other metalinguistic phenomena, while the semantics/pragmatics perspective will provide methodological implications for other relevant studies. The new conception of quotation and thought-provoking analysis on use/mention, truth-conditional pragmatics, and the semantics/pragmatics boundary in this book will appeal to scholars and students in philosophy of language and linguistics. It will also serve as a clear guide to the current state of quotation studies and how to formulate a semantic theory of quotation.
Download or read book Negation and Polarity written by Laurence R. Horn and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Negation is a central feature of language and cognition, interacting with all areas of grammar as well as with the philosophy of language. Whereas there is a cross-linguistic uniformity in logical and semantic aspects of negation, there is a diversity of syntactic and morphological forms andrules. This asymmetry in function and form poses problems for syntactic and universal grammar theory and for the study of the interface between syntax and discourse. It is particularly evident in negative polarity-words and phrases which can appear only in negative sentences. The exploration ofnegation and negative polarity phenomena and their implications for linguistic theory are the main themes of this book.
Download or read book From Grammar to Meaning written by Ivano Caponigro and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-12 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, the study of formal semantics and formal pragmatics has grown tremendously, showing that core aspects of language meaning can be explained by a few principles. These principles are grounded in the logic that is behind - and tightly intertwined with - the grammar of human language. In this book, some of the most prominent figures in linguistics, including Noam Chomsky and Barbara H. Partee, offer new insights into the nature of linguistic meaning and pave the way for the further development of formal semantics and formal pragmatics. Each chapter investigates various dimensions in which the logical nature of human language manifests itself within a language and/or across languages. Phenomena like bare plurals, free choice items, scalar implicatures, intervention effects, and logical operators are investigated in depth and at times cross-linguistically and/or experimentally. This volume will be of interest to scholars working within the fields of semantics, pragmatics, language acquisition and psycholinguistics.
Download or read book Semantics Typology Diachrony and Processing written by Klaus Heusinger and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now available in paperback for the first time since its original publication, the material in this book provides a broad, accessible guide to semantic typology, crosslinguistic semantics and diachronic semantics. Coming from a world-leading team of authors, the book also deals with the concept of meaning in psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics, and the understanding of semantics in computer science. It is packed with highly cited, expert guidance on the key topics in the field, making it a bookshelf essential for linguists, cognitive scientists, philosophers, and computer scientists working on natural language.
Download or read book Mental States written by Andrea C. Schalley and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2007-12-13 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collecting the work of linguists, psychologists, neuroscientists, archaeologists, artificial intelligence researchers and philosophers this volume presents a richly varied picture of the nature and function of mental states. Starting from questions about the cognitive capacities of the early hominin homo floresiensis, the essays proceed to the role mental representations play in guiding the behaviour of simple organisms and robots, thence to the question of which features of its environment the human brain represents and the extent to which complex cognitive skills such as language acquisition and comprehension are impaired when the brain lacks certain important neural structures. Other papers explore topics ranging from nativism to the presumed constancy of categorization across signed and spoken languages, from the formal representation of metaphor, actions and vague language to philosophical questions about conceptual schemes and colours. Anyone interested in mental states will find much to reward them in this fine volume.
