Download or read book Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar written by Martin J. Endley and published by IAP. This book was released on 2010-12-01 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The proposed book is best described as a linguistically oriented textbook taking the grammar of English as its subject matter. It is directed to professional teachers of English (ESL and EFL) and their students, as well as those currently training to become teachers of English. The book is also likely to be of interest to interpreters, translators and other English language professionals. It will explore selected aspects and problem areas of English from a broadly “functional” linguistic perspective. My experience as a teacher and teacher trainer has shown me that this perspective has the potential to inspire teachers and students with a genuine enthusiasm for the grammatical features of English and that it often enables them to “make sense” of the grammar in a way that all too often other approaches signally fail to do. An important focus of the book is on understanding grammar as a series of conventionalized patterns rather than a set of rules (which is how grammar has traditionally been presented). Moreover, unlike many other grammar books, this book emphasizes how the grammatical constructions under consideration are employed in various types of communicative situation, attention being given to the importance of discourse context in interpreting the target forms. In line with contemporary linguists generally, the approach adopted is descriptive rather than prescriptive. While the main focus is on English, I offer occasional comments on how the issue under discussion is expressed in languages other than English. Apart from the inherent interest which I hope such comparisons may have for the reader, I take the view that these can be helpful in casting further light on the grammar of English.

Download or read book Linguistic Perspectives on a Variable English Morpheme written by Laura Rupp and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-06-11 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates –s marking in English verbs, specifically its manifestations in main verbs, in the past tense of BE, and in existential constructions. It embraces the many ways in which –s marking varies across the English speaking world, and considers both how it arose in these places historically and the ways in which it has since developed. The authors propose a story which holistically accounts for these different manifestations of –s, drawing upon evidence from a wide range of subdisciplines in linguistics, including sociolinguistics, generative syntax, historical linguistics, dialectology, and discourse-pragmatics. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in these and related fields.

Download or read book Cognitive Science Perspectives on Verb Representation and Processing written by Roberto G. de Almeida and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-09-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Verbs play an important role in how events, states and other “happenings” are mentally represented and how they are expressed in natural language. Besides their central role in linguistics, verbs have long been prominent topics of research in analytic philosophy—mostly on the nature of events and predicate-argument structure—and a topic of empirical investigation in psycholinguistics, mostly on argument structure and its role in sentence comprehension. More recently, the representation of verb meaning has been gaining momentum as a topic of research in other cognitive science branches, notably neuroscience and the psychology of concepts. The present volume is an expression of this recent surge in the investigation of verb structure and meaning from the interdisciplinary perspective of cognitive science, with up-to-date contributions by theoretical linguists, philosophers, psycholinguists and neuroscientists. The volume presents new theoretical and empirical studies on how verb structure and verb meaning are represented, how they are processed during language comprehension, how they are acquired, and how they are neurologically implemented. Cognitive Science Perspectives on Verb Representation and Processing is a reflection of the recent collaboration between the disciplines that constitute cognitive science, bringing new empirical data and theoretical insights on a key element of natural language and conceptualization.

Download or read book Point of View and Grammar written by Joanne Scheibman and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book proposes that subjective expression shapes grammatical and lexical patterning in American English conversation. Analyses of structural and functional properties of English conversational utterances indicate that the most frequent combinations of subject, tense, and verb type are those that are used by speakers to personalize their contributions, not to present unmediated descriptions of the world. These findings are informed by current research and practices in linguistics which argue that the emergence, or conventionalization, of linguistic structure is related to the frequency with which speakers use expressions in discourse. The use of conversational data in grammatical analysis illustrates the local and contingent nature of grammar in use and also raises theoretical questions concerning the coherence of linguistic categories, the viability of maintaining a distinction between semantic and pragmatic meaning in analytical practice, and the structural and social interplay of speaker point of view and participant interaction in discourse.

Download or read book Cross Linguistic Perspectives on Verb Constructions written by Signe Oksefjell Ebeling and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2015-09-10 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume sheds new light on verb constructions by exposing them to cross-linguistic analysis based on multilingual corpora. It is composed of nine studies which provide insights into various aspects of cross-linguistic diversity, including showing that seemingly equivalent verb constructions may differ in their semantics, and that similar meanings may be expressed by different types of constructions. In other words, this book shows that different languages have different ways of lexicalising verb-based meanings, most notably by means of other, divergent verb constructions. A range of lexicogrammatical aspects of verb constructions are explored throughout the book, including time reference; modality; voice; light verb constructions; non-finite complementation of lexical verbs; posture-verb constructions; semiperiphrastic constructions; and the construction and semantic composition of verbs of putting. All of the contributions consider English in comparison with at least one of the following languages: Czech, German, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish. As such, this volume offers a truly multilingual perspective on verb constructions. The diversity of comparisons also highlights the multi-faceted nature of the verb phrase, which seems to have virtually limitless potential for exploration in the fields of tense, aspect, modality, lexical semantics, syntax, and phraseology.

Download or read book English Verb Classes and Alternations written by Beth Levin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1993-09 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this rich reference work, Beth Levin classifies over 3,000 English verbs according to shared meaning and behavior. Levin starts with the hypothesis that a verb's meaning influences its syntactic behavior and develops it into a powerful tool for studying the English verb lexicon. She shows how identifying verbs with similar syntactic behavior provides an effective means of distinguishing semantically coherent verb classes, and isolates these classes by examining verb behavior with respect to a wide range of syntactic alternations that reflect verb meaning. The first part of the book sets out alternate ways in which verbs can express their arguments. The second presents classes of verbs that share a kernel of meaning and explores in detail the behavior of each class, drawing on the alternations in the first part. Levin's discussion of each class and alternation includes lists of relevant verbs, illustrative examples, comments on noteworthy properties, and bibliographic references. The result is an original, systematic picture of the organization of the verb inventory. Easy to use, English Verb Classes and Alternations sets the stage for further explorations of the interface between lexical semantics and syntax. It will prove indispensable for theoretical and computational linguists, psycholinguists, cognitive scientists, lexicographers, and teachers of English as a second language.

Download or read book New Perspectives on English Historical Linguistics written by Christian J. Kay and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2004-06-24 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first of two volumes of papers selected from those given at the 12th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics. The second is New Perspectives on English Historical Linguistics (2): Lexis and Transmission. Together the volumes provide an overview of many of the issues that are currently engaging practitioners in the field. In this volume, the primary concern is with the historical grammar of English. Some papers take a broad overview of the subject, positioning it within current advances in linguistic theory, while others deal with specific points of syntax and morphology in a historical context. There is a recurrent emphasis on data collection and analysis, with a chronological range from Old to Present Day English, and a geographical spread from Scotland to Newfoundland. Contributions from scholars around the world remind us that not only English itself but the history of English is now an international possession.

Download or read book Cognitive Science Perspectives on Verb Representation and Processing written by Roberto G. de Almeida and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-12-08 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Verbs play an important role in how events, states and other “happenings” are mentally represented and how they are expressed in natural language. Besides their central role in linguistics, verbs have long been prominent topics of research in analytic philosophy—mostly on the nature of events and predicate-argument structure—and a topic of empirical investigation in psycholinguistics, mostly on argument structure and its role in sentence comprehension. More recently, the representation of verb meaning has been gaining momentum as a topic of research in other cognitive science branches, notably neuroscience and the psychology of concepts. The present volume is an expression of this recent surge in the investigation of verb structure and meaning from the interdisciplinary perspective of cognitive science, with up-to-date contributions by theoretical linguists, philosophers, psycholinguists and neuroscientists. The volume presents new theoretical and empirical studies on how verb structure and verb meaning are represented, how they are processed during language comprehension, how they are acquired, and how they are neurologically implemented. Cognitive Science Perspectives on Verb Representation and Processing is a reflection of the recent collaboration between the disciplines that constitute cognitive science, bringing new empirical data and theoretical insights on a key element of natural language and conceptualization.

Download or read book Perspectives on Grammar Writing written by Thomas E. Payne and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2007-10-04 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With over half the languages of the world currently in danger of extinction within a century, the need for high quality grammatical descriptions is more urgent than ever. Potential grammar writers, however, often find themselves paralyzed by the daunting task of describing a language. The papers in the present volume (originally published in Studies in Language 30:2 (2006)) provide suggestions and encouragement – from experienced grammar writers and users – regarding concrete methods for approaching the task of writing a descriptive grammar of a language. Salient "themes" emerging from the papers in this volume include: The necessity of community involvement in grammatical descriptions; The link between a grammar and the other products of a program of language documentation (a dictionary and collection of texts); The complementary functions of elicited vs. naturally occurring data; and grammatical description as 'art' as well as 'science'.

Download or read book New Perspectives on Argument Structure in Functional Grammar written by Ricardo Mairal Usón and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2015-04-28 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present monograph deals with lexical representation and linking within the framework of Functional Grammar. The notion of predicate frame as originally proposed in 1978 and subsequent refinements of the theory are challenged in that a new format of representing argument taking properties is formulated. This new format opens new lines of research towards the design of a new linking algorithm in Functional Grammar.

Download or read book New Perspectives on English Historical Linguistics Syntax and morphology written by Christian Kay and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first of two volumes of papers selected from those given at the 12th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics. The second is New Perspectives on English Historical Linguistics (2): Lexis and Transmission. Together the volumes provide an overview of many of the issues that are currently engaging practitioners in the field. In this volume, the primary concern is with the historical grammar of English. Some papers take a broad overview of the subject, positioning it within current advances in linguistic theory, while others deal with specific points of syntax and morphology in a historical context. There is a recurrent emphasis on data collection and analysis, with a chronological range from Old to Present Day English, and a geographical spread from Scotland to Newfoundland. Contributions from scholars around the world remind us that not only English itself but the history of English is now an international possession.

Download or read book A Grammatical and Exegetical Study of New Testament Verbs of Transference written by Paul L. Danove and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2009-06-18 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study continues the adaptation of the method of Case Frame analysis for the investigation of the Greek text of the New Testament. Case Frame analysis distinguishes the words of a language into two categories, predicators [words that require completion by other words for their correct grammatical use] and non-predicators [words that do not require such completion], and provides rigorous procedures for describing the syntactic, semantic, and lexical requirements that predicators impose on the words that complete their meaning. The inclusion of semantic function and feature descriptions in Case Frame analysis permits the development of a new genre of lexicon that specifies not only syntactic and lexical information (as do traditional dictionaries) but detailed semantic information. The resulting Case Frame lexicon entries are both more compact and more nuanced than traditional lexicon entries. Danove conducts an exhaustive Case Frame analysis of the ditransitive verbs of transference in the New Testament. He uses this analysis to develop a set of descriptive guidelines for interpreting and translating the various usages of ditransitive verbs of transference and applies these rules in exegetical studies of the text of the New Testament to generate a Case Frame lexicon of the verbs of transference in the New Testament. This study will distinguish the requirements of the 127 New Testament verbs of transference according to four syntactic functions, twelve semantic functions, and 22 lexical realizations. This will permit a rigorous investigation of all occurrences of verbal complements with the same syntactic, semantic, and lexical attributes. The study also will consider the influence of one semantic feature [an inherent quality of words that has implications for their lexical realization] and of the 'intrusion' of four grammatical constructions [inherent structuring templates of grammar that govern syntactic, semantic, and lexical attributes and modify meaning] on each category of complements with the same syntactic, semantic and lexical description. This will produce a rigorous description of meaning that becomes the basis for Danove's contributions to the linguistic study of biblical Greek and to the exegesis of biblical texts.

Download or read book Perspectives on Language and Language Development written by Dorit Diskin Ravid and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-08-25 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perspectives on Language and Language Development brings together new perspectives on language, discourse and language development in 31 chapters by leading scholars from several countries with diverging backgrounds and disciplines. It is a comprehensive overview of language as a rich, multifaceted system, inspired by the lifework of Ruth A. Berman. Edited by Dorit Ravid and Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot, both from Tel Aviv University, Israel, the book offers state-of-the-art portrayals of linguistic and psycholinguistic phenomena with new insights on the interrelations of language structure, discourse theory, and the development of language and literacy. The volume presents innovative investigations on the interface of language and narrative in a broad range of languages, with a section devoted to linguistic studies of Modern Hebrew. It traces the development of language and literacy from early childhood through adolescence to maturity in spoken and written contexts, and in monolingual as well as multilingual perspectives. Linguists, psycholinguists, discourse scholars, cognitive psychologists, language teachers, education experts, and clinicians working in the field of language and discourse will find this book extremely useful both as a textbook and as a source of information.

Download or read book Diachronic and Typological Perspectives on Verbs written by Folke Josephson and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2013-07-10 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume applies a diachronic perspective to the verb and mainly deals with typological change affecting tense, aspect, mood and modality in a variety of Indo-European languages (Latin, Romance, Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Indo-Iranian, Hittite, and Semitic) and the non-Indo-European Turkic, Amerindian and some Australian languages. The analyses of the structural changes and the interchange between the different grammatical categories that cause them which are presented in the chapters of this volume yield astonishing results. The diachronic perspective combined with a comparative approach provides profound knowledge of the typology of the verb and other typological issues and will serve researchers, as well as advanced and beginning of linguistics students in a way that has rarely been encountered before.

Download or read book English for Central Europe Interdisciplinary Saxon Czech Perspectives written by Josef J. Schmied and published by Cuvillier Verlag. This book was released on 2005 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book From Syntax to Text The Janus Face of Functional Sentence Perspective written by Libuše Dušková and published by Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The volume presents the author’s articles written in the last fifteen years, dealing with the interaction between syntax, functional sentence perspective (information structure) and text in present-day English. It is divided into five parts, I Syntactic Constancy, II Syntax FSP Interface, III FSP and Semantics, IV Syntax, FSP, Text and V Style, which reveal the two facets of functional sentence perspective: syntactic structures as realization forms of the carriers of FSP functions, and the connection of FSP with the level of text. The first and the last two parts frame the content of the volume in treating the role of functional sentence perspective at the syntactic and the textual levels. At the former, FSP is investigated as a potential factor of syntactic divergence between English and Czech, at the latter the role of FSP is examined with respect to theme development, text build-up and style. The points discussed in the other parts concern, among others, the hierarchical relationship between syntax and FSP, the question of potentiality in FSP structure, different realization forms of FSP structure and FSP functions, general and specific questions of word order, with major attention paid to the role of semantics.

Download or read book Romance Perspectives on Construction Grammar written by Hans C. Boas and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The chapters in this book show how the different flavors of Construction Grammar provide illuminating insights into the syntax, semantics, pragmatics and discourse-functional properties of specific phenomena in Romance languages such as (Castilian) Spanish, French, Romanian, and Latin from a synchronic as well as a diachronic viewpoint. The phenomena surveyed include the role of constructional meanings in novel verb-noun compounds in Spanish, the relevance of lexicalization for a constructionist analysis of complex prepositions in French, the complementariness of fragments, patterns and constructions as theoretical and explanatory constructs in verb complementation in French, Latin, and Spanish, non-constituent coordination phenomena (e.g. Right Node Raising, Argument Cluster Coordination and Gapping) in Romanian, and variable type framing in Spanish constructions of directed motion in the light of Leonard Talmy’s (2000) typological differences of lexicalization between satellite-framed and verb-framed languages.