Download or read book The Bantu Romance Connection written by Cécile de Cat and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2008-09-26 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This landmark volume is the first work specifically designed to explore the extent to which striking surface morpho-syntactic similarities between Bantu and Romance languages actually represent similar syntactic structures. In particular, it explores the timely and much debated issues of verbal morphology and agreement, the structure of DPs, and word order/information structure, with the goal of providing a better understanding of the structure of the different languages investigated, and the implications this holds for syntactic theory more generally. All of the papers draw on data from both Bantu and Romance languages, providing a framework for much-needed further comparative research on the nature of linguistic structure, its diversity and constraints, and the implications this has for learnability/acquisition. The volume also provides an important precedent for incorporating insights from Bantu linguistic structure into mainstream of syntax research.

Download or read book The Interfaces of Chinese Syntax with Semantics and Pragmatics written by Yicheng Wu and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-02-17 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 4.1 Predicative construction -- 4.2 Emphatic construction -- 5 Summary -- 7 The cleft construction -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Previous analyses -- 3 A dynamic analysis -- 4 Summary -- 8 Semantic underspecification: Cases of personal pronouns -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Previous analysis of expletive ta -- 3 A dynamic analysis -- 3.1 A dynamic analysis of the typical and non-typical referential construal of ta -- 3.2 A dynamic analysis of the expletive construal of ta -- 3.3 Scope interpretation and expletive ta -- 3.4 Some implications -- 4 Summary -- 9 Conclusion -- 1 Contributions to Chinese linguistics -- 2 Reflections on linguistic theorizing -- Bibliography -- Index

Download or read book The Dynamics of Language written by Lutz Marten and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-01-27 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the whole of the last half-century, most theoretical syntacticians have assumed that knowledge of language is different from the tasks of speaking and understanding. There have been some dissenters, but, by and large, this view still holds sway. This book takes a different view: it continues the task set in hand by Kempson et al (2001) of arguing that the common-sense intuition is correct that knowledge of language consists in being able to use it in speaking and understanding. The Dynamics of Language argues that interpretation is built up across as sequence of words relative to some context and that this is all that is needed to explain the structural properties of language. The dynamics of how interpretation is built up is the syntax of a language system. The authors' first task is to convey to a general linguistic audience with a minimum of formal apparatus, the substance of that formal system. Secondly, as linguists, they set themselves the task of applying the formal system to as broad an array of linguistic puzzles as possible, the languages analysed ranging from English to Japanese and Swahili. It argues that knowledge in language consists of being able to use it in speaking and understanding. It analyses a variety of languages, from English to Japanese and Swahili. It appeals to a wide audience in the disciplines of language, linguistics, anthropology, education, psychology, cognitive science, law, media studies, and medicine.

Download or read book Existence Semantics and Syntax written by Ileana Comorovski and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-08-20 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays grew out of the workshop ‘Existence: Semantics and Syntax’, which was held at the University of Nancy 2 in September 2002. The workshop, organized by Ileana Comorovski and Claire Gardent, was supported by a grant from the Reseau ́ de Sciences Cognitives du Grand Est (‘Cognitive Science Network of the Greater East’), which is gratefully acknowledged. The ?rst e- tor wishes to thank Claire Gardent, Fred Landman, and Georges Rebuschi for encouraging her to pursue the publication of a volume based on papers presented at the workshop. Among those who participated in the workshop was Klaus von Heusinger, who joined Ileana Comorovski in editing this volume. Besides papers that developed out of presentations at the workshop, the volume contains invited contributions. We are grateful to Wayles Browne, Fred Landman, Paul Portner, and Georges Rebuschi for their help with reviewing some of the papers. Our thanks go also to a Springer reviewer for the careful reading of the book manuscript. We wish to thank all the participants in the workshop, not only those whose contributions appear in this volume, for making the workshop an int- active and constructive event. Ileana Comorovski Klaus von Heusinger vii ILEANA COMOROVSKI AND KLAUS VON HEUSINGER INTRODUCTION The notion of ‘existence’, which we take to have solid intuitive grounding, plays a central role in the interpretation of at least three types of linguistic constructions: copular clauses, existential sentences, and (in)de?nite noun phrases.

Download or read book Dislocated Elements in Discourse written by Benjamin Shaer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-01-13 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is about 'dislocation' – the removal of phrases from their canonical positions in a sentence to its left or right edge. Dislocation encompasses a wide range of linguistic phenomena, related to nominal and adverbial expressions and to the information structuring notions of topic and focus; and takes intriguingly different forms across languages. This book reveals some of the empirical richness of dislocation and some key puzzles related to its syntactic, semantic, and discourse analysis.

Download or read book Rightward Movement in a Comparative Perspective written by Gert Webelhuth and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2013-07-16 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book represents the state of the art on rightward movement in one thematically coherent volume. It documents the growing importance of the combination of empirical and theoretical work in linguistic analysis. Several contributions argue that rightward movement is a means of reducing phonological or structural complexity. The inclusion of corpus data and psycholinguistic results confirms the Right Roof Constraint as a characteristic property of extraposition and argues for a reduced role of subsentential bounding nodes. The contributions also show that the phenomenon cannot be looked at from one module of grammar alone, but calls for an interaction of syntax, semantics, phonology, and discourse. The discussion of different languages such as English, German, Dutch, Italian, Italian Sign Language, Modern Greek, Uyghur, and Khalkha enhances our understanding of the complexity of the phenomenon. Finally, the analytic options of different frameworks are explored. The volume is of interest to students and researchers of syntax, semantics, psycholinguistics, and corpus linguistics.

Download or read book Brazilian Portuguese Syntax and Semantics written by Roberta Pires De Oliveira and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2020-05-08 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book opens with Angelika Kratzer and Luigi Rizzi talking about contemporary issues, such as non-recursiveness of focus and the semantics of topics. The chapters climb down the spine from the left periphery to DP: the value of subjunctive across the history of German, expressive expressions in Brazilian Portuguese, left and right dislocation and the speaker’s perspective in Italian, Brazilian double subjects and left dislocated topic, long versus short wh-movement in Brazilian Portuguese and Quebec French, low adverbs and the raising of the verb in Brazilian Portuguese, ellipsis and null objects in Brazilian and European Portuguese, and bare singulars in Brazilian Portuguese. The chapters propose original accounts for language variation and historical changes, most of them focusing on Brazilian Portuguese, a challenge to syntax and semantics. Thus, the volume contributes to Brazilian and Portuguese Linguistics, as well as to general and contemporary research on syntax and semantics of natural languages.

Download or read book Computational and Cognitive Approaches to Narratology written by Ogata, Takashi and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2016-07-15 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Studying narratives is often the best way to gain a good understanding of how various aspects of human information are organized and integrated—the narrator employs specific informational methods to build the whole structure of a narrative through combining temporally constructed events in light of an array of relationships to the narratee and these methods reveal the interaction of the rational and the sensitive aspects of human information. Computational and Cognitive Approaches to Narratology discusses issues of narrative-related information and communication technologies, cognitive mechanism and analyses, and theoretical perspectives on narratives and the story generation process. Focusing on emerging research as well as applications in a variety of fields including marketing, philosophy, psychology, art, and literature, this timely publication is an essential reference source for researchers, professionals, and graduate students in various information technology, cognitive studies, design, and creative fields.

Download or read book Where Semantics meets Pragmatics written by Klaus von Heusinger and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-10-25 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Current Research in the Semantic / Pragmatics Interface series has carved out a new and vibrant area of research. This volume offers the reader a state-of-the-art record of new and established research in this area. Von Heusinger and Turner's careful selection of topics and contributors ensures that each chapter integrates semantic and pragmatic facts into a single theory, that each finds an adequate division of theoretical labour and that each attempts to design and corroborate an elegant account of meaning and use that would be compatible with other aspects of human behaviour. Importantly, each paper in the volume focuses on linguistic detail, not merely abstract discussions of a theoretical nature. Thus each paper makes extensive reference to the semantic and pragmatic facts of English and also other languages. This reference gives each of the proposed analyses a more adequate empirical edge and a sharper theoretical focus. This book is a must for all scholars and students interested in the new and vibrant discipline of semantics-pragmatics and to anyone who is fascinated by the prospect of working beyond the traditional disciplinary boundaries of linguistics and the philosophy of language. The chapters in this volume originate from a workshop at the Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute, held at Michigan State University.

Download or read book Corpus Linguistics in Chinese Contexts written by Simon Smith and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-07-27 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rapid advances in computing have enabled the integration of corpora into language teaching and learning, yet in China corpus methods have not yet been widely adopted. Corpus Linguistics in Chinese Contexts aims to advance the state of the art in the use of corpora in applied linguistics and contribute to the expertise in corpus use in China.

Download or read book Dynamic Syntax written by Ruth Kempson and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 2000-12-22 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ground-breaking volume sets out an original model of the dynamics of language processing, which can be used to explain the structural properties of language in a simple and elegant way. The model is introduced both informally and formally, and is applied to a range of languages.

Download or read book Corpus Based Contrastive Studies of English and Chinese written by Tony McEnery and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-07-02 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume represents the first book-length corpus-based contrastive studies of major grammatical categories in English and Chinese, two most important yet distinctly different world languages in the 21st century, on the basis of large matching corpora of authentic spoken and written data in the two languages.

Download or read book Units of Talk Units of Action written by Beatrice Szczepek Reed and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2013-10-22 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume leading academics in Interactional Linguistics and Conversation Analysis consider the notion of units for the study of language and interaction. Amongst the issues being explored are the role and relevance of traditionally accepted linguistic units for the analysis of naturally occurring talk, and the identification of new units of conduct in interaction. While some chapters make suggestions on how existing linguistic units can be adapted to suit the study of conversation, others present radically new perspectives on how language in interaction should be described, conceptualised and researched. The chapters present empirical investigations into different languages (Danish, English, Japanese, Mandarin, Swedish) in a variety of settings (private and institutional), considering both linguistic and embodied resources for talk. In addressing the fundamental question of units, the volume pushes at the boundaries of current debates and contributes original new insight into the nature of language in interaction.

Download or read book Crosslinguistic Research in Syntax and Semantics written by Raffaella Zanuttini and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2006-05-19 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting cutting-edge research in syntax and semantics, this important volume furthers theoretical claims in generative linguistics and represents a significant addition to present scholarship in the field. Leading scholars present crosslinguistic studies dealing with clausal architecture, negation, and tense and aspect, and the issue of whether a statistical model can by itself capture the richness of human linguistic abilities. Taken together, these contributions elegantly show how theoretical tools can propel our understanding of language beyond pretheoretical descriptions, especially when combined with the insight and skills of linguists who can analyze difficult and complex data. Crosslinguistic Research in Syntax and Semantics covers a range of topics currently at the center of lively debate in the linguistic literature, such as the structure of the left periphery of the clause, the proper treatment of negative polarity items, and the role of statistical learning in building a model of linguistic competence. The ten original contributions offer an excellent balance of novel empirical description and theoretical analysis, applied to a wide range of languages, including Dutch, German, Irish English, Italian, Malagasy, Malay, and a number of medieval Romance languages. Scholars and students of semantics, syntax, and linguistic theory will find it to be a valuable resource for ongoing scholarship and advanced study.

Download or read book The Semantics and Pragmatics of Quotation written by Paul Saka and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-12-07 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The chapters in this volume address a variety of issues surrounding quotation, such as whether it is a pragmatic or semantic phenomenon, what varieties of quotation exist, and what speech acts are involved in quoting. Quotation poses problems for many prevailing theories of language. One fundamental principle is that for a language to be learnable, speakers must be able to derive the truth-conditions of sentences from the meanings of their parts. Another popular view is that indexical expressions like "I" display a certain fixity -- that they always refer to the speaker using them. Both of these tenets appear to be violated by quotation. This volume is suitable for scholars in philosophy of language, semantics, and pragmatics, and for graduate students in philosophy and linguistics. The book will also be useful for researchers in other fields that study quotation, including psychology and computer science.

Download or read book Journal of Linguistics written by and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 952 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Arabic Dislocation written by Ali A. Alzayid and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the early years of generative grammar (Chomsky 1977, inter alia), the phenomenology of dislocation has proved to be a fertile area of research. This, however, has not been the case for Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), and hence this thorough monograph intends to fill this lacuna. Three aspects of this linguistic phenomenon stand out: the taxonomy of possible dislocated configurations, syntax and interpretation. Though the structure in itself has been extensively studied in various languages, including varieties of spoken Arabic, this monograph shows that MSA presents properties that set it apart from known varieties and cannot be captured by an extension or modification of existing analyses. Moreover, existing analyses are not fully satisfactory as there are open analytical questions regarding the interpretation and syntactic analysis of dislocation structures crosslinguistically. Particularly, the optimal path to follow concerning dislocation structures in MSA is to argue for the claim that contrast, as an information-structural notion, underlies the interpretation of dislocated elements, and these elements are best syntactically analyzed as being involved in a bisentential configuration, contra monoclausal approaches to dislocation. This monograph should be relevant to anyone with an interest in the Arabic language, and also to syntacticians and typologists with an interest in sentence structure.