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 Development of the Syntax Discourse Interface written by S. Avrutin and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, I address several issues of child linguistic development from the perspective of the syntax -discourse interface. Traditionally, language acquisition research has focused on the development of one of the linguistic modules, e.g. acquisition of syntax, morphology or phonology. While this approach can be viewed as fruitful in some cases, there is a number of linguistic phenomena whose explanation depends on the interaction of different modules and, therefore, different domains of linguistic knowledge. A typical example is pronominal anaphora: It can be shown that to correctly use pronominal elements, normal adult speakers must possess both syntactic and pragmatic knowledge, and that these kinds of knowledge must interact with each other. With regard to the language acquisition process, such phenomena suggest a somewhat different approach to the language acquisition research. Indeed, if some experimental studies show that children make errors in the construction under investigation, it will be necessary to consider these results from the point of view of the interaction of the different domains of linguistic knowledge involved in their interpretation. In other words, if this particular construction requires the integration of, for example, syntactic and discourse-based knowledge, children's errors may, in principle, be due to their lack of the former, the latter, or both kinds of knowledge, and cannot be taken as direct evidence for the "underdeveloped" status of just one of them.

Download or read book Perspectives on Historical Syntax written by Carlotta Viti and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2015-04-15 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume discusses topics of historical syntax from different theoretical perspectives, ranging from Indo-European studies to generative grammar, functionalism, and typology. It examines mechanisms of syntactic change such as reanalysis, analogy, grammaticalization, independent drift, and language contact, as well as procedures of syntactic reconstruction. More than one factor is considered to explain a syntactic phenomenon, since it is maintained that an accurate account of multiple causations, of both structural and social nature, is to be preferred to considerations of economy. Special attention is given to the relationship between principles of syntactic theory and a search for data reliability through the methods of corpus linguistics. Data are drawn from a variety of languages, including Hittite, Vedic, Ancient Greek, Latin, Romance, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, Austroasiatic, Gulf of Guinea creoles. The book may be therefore of interest for specialists of these languages in addition to scholars and advanced students of syntax and historical linguistics.

Download or read book Perspectives on Semantics Pragmatics and Discourse written by Ferenc Kiefer and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Professor Ferenc Kiefer of the Linguistics Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences was instrumental in bringing early transformational grammar to Europe. His extensive work contributes substantially to making a connection between the grammatical theory and other areas of linguistics. The 17 essays in this book celebrate his career by continuing to explore inter-area research in linguistics: pragmatics in grammar (de Groot, van Riemsdijk, Dressler & Barbaresi, Comrie), semantic compositionality and pragmatics (Wunderlich, Partee, Borschev, Szabo, Bach), logical structures and universals in semantics and pragmatics (van der Auwera, Bultinck, Burton-Roberts, Harnish, Wierzbicka) dialogue and thematic structure (Jonasson, Doherty, Hajicova, Panevova, Sgall, Allwood, Fraser).

Download or read book Discourse oriented Syntax written by Josef Bayer and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2015-12-15 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Until recently, little attention has been paid within syntax to components of discourse meaning that go beyond information structure and fall into the domain of non-at-issue meaning operating at the level of illocutionary force. To approach this domain, many of the contributions of this volume deal with the syntax of discourse particles. However, the issue of how to account for discourse particles within a more explicit map of the illocutionary domain is a good starting point for considering further phenomena related to the syntax of speech acts. By focusing on speech-act related particles and/or meaning domains, this volume makes a new contribution to the field, as existing collections either do not offer a comparatively narrow focus on particles or are not limited to syntax-oriented approaches. The primary audience of this volume are researchers and graduate students interested in state-of-the-art approaches to the syntax-discourse interface within the cartographic approach to syntax.

Download or read book Challenges at the Syntax Semantics Pragmatics Interface written by Robert D. Van Valin Jr. and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2021-05-18 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together recent scholarship addressing a number of significant issues in linguistic theory and description, including verb classification, case marking, comparative constructions, noun phrase structure, clause linkage and reference-tracking in discourse. These topics are discussed with respect to a wide range of languages, including Bamunka (Bantu), Biblical Hebrew, Japanese, Persian, Pitjantjatjara (Australia), Russian and Taiwan Sign Language. The theoretical perspective employed in these analyses is that of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG), a theory which strives to describe language structure and grammatical phenomena in terms of the interaction of syntax, semantics and discourse-pragmatics. RRG differs from other parallel-architecture, constructionally-oriented theories in important ways, particularly with respect to the ability to formulate cross-linguistic generalizations. The ability of RRG to facilitate the formulation of cross-linguistic generalizations is exemplified well in the contributions to this volume. As such, this text makes important theoretical and descriptive contributions to contemporary linguistic discussions.

Download or read book The Syntax Discourse Interface written by Petra B. Schumacher and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2005-09-22 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book combines theoretical and experimental aspects of the establishment of dependency. It provides an account of dependency relations by focusing on the representation and interpretation of referentially dependent elements, particularly regular reflexives, logophors, and pronouns. First, the establishment of dependency is discussed within a model of syntax—discourse correspondences that predicts an economy-based dependency hierarchy contingent on the level of representation at which the dependency is formed as well as the internal structure of the dependent element and its antecedent. Secondly, the model’s predictions are substantiated by a series of experimental studies (conducted in English and Dutch) providing evidence from three sources of online sentence comprehension: reaction time studies, Broca’s aphasia patient studies, and event-related brain potential studies. The findings show that dependencies are established at distinct levels of linguistic encoding (i.e. syntax or discourse) determined by the presence or absence of coargumenthood and the representation of the dependency-forming elements.

Download or read book Aspects of the Theory of Syntax written by Noam Chomsky and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1969-03-15 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chomsky proposes a reformulation of the theory of transformational generative grammar that takes recent developments in the descriptive analysis of particular languages into account. Beginning in the mid-fifties and emanating largely form MIT, an approach was developed to linguistic theory and to the study of the structure of particular languages that diverges in many respects from modern linguistics. Although this approach is connected to the traditional study of languages, it differs enough in its specific conclusions about the structure and in its specific conclusions about the structure of language to warrant a name, "generative grammar." Various deficiencies have been discovered in the first attempts to formulate a theory of transformational generative grammar and in the descriptive analysis of particular languages that motivated these formulations. At the same time, it has become apparent that these formulations can be extended and deepened.The major purpose of this book is to review these developments and to propose a reformulation of the theory of transformational generative grammar that takes them into account. The emphasis in this study is syntax; semantic and phonological aspects of the language structure are discussed only insofar as they bear on syntactic theory.

Download or read book Historical Syntax in Cross Linguistic Perspective written by Alice C. Harris and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1995-09-21 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this major new work Alice Harris and Lyle Campbell set out to establish a general framework for the investigation of linguistic change. Systematic cross-linguistic comparison of syntactic change across a wide variety of languages is used to construct hypotheses about the universals and limits of language change more generally. In particular, the authors seek to move closer towards describing the range of causes of syntactic change to develop an understanding of the mechanisms of syntactic change, and to provide an understanding of why some languages undergo certain changes and not others. The authors draw on languages as diverse as Pipil and French, Georgian and Estonian, and the data presented is one of the book's great strengths. Rigor and precision are combined here with a great breadth of scholarship to produce a unique resource for the study of linguistic change, which will be of use to scholars and students alike.

Download or read book Connectivity in Grammar and Discourse written by Jochen Rehbein and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2007-06-05 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this collection of carefully selected papers connectivity is looked at from the vantage points of language contact, language change, language acquisition, multilingual communication and related domains based on various European and Non-European languages. From typological and multilingual perspectives the focus of investigation is on the grammatical architecture of a number of linguistic devices that interconnect units of text and discourse. The volume is organized along central concepts: A general section deals with connectivity in language change and language acquisition, subdivisions are devoted to pronouns, topics and subjects, the role of finiteness in text and discourse, coordination and subordination and particles, adverbials and constructions. The editors’ preface introduces connectivity as an object of linguistic research.

Download or read book Perspectives on Information Structure in Austronesian Languages written by Atsuko Utsumi and published by . This book was released on 2020-10-09 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Information structure is a relatively new field to linguistics and has only recently been studied for smaller and less described languages. This book is the first of its kind that brings together contributions on information structure in Austronesian languages. Current approaches from formal semantics, discourse studies, and intonational phonology are brought together with language specific and cross-linguistic expertise of Austronesian languages. The 13 chapters in this volume cover all subgroups of the large Austronesian family, including Formosan, Central Malayo-Polynesian, South Halmahera-West New Guinea, and Oceanic. The major focus, though, lies on Western Malayo-Polynesian languages. Some chapters investigate two of the largest languages in the region (Tagalog and different varieties of Malay), others study information-structural phenomena in small, underdescribed languages. The three overarching topics that are covered in this book are NP marking and reference tracking devices, syntactic structures and information-structural categories, and the interaction of information structure and prosody. Various data types build the basis for the different studies compiled in this book. Some chapters investigate written texts, such as modern novels (cf. Djenar's chapter on modern, standard Indonesian), or compare different text genres, such as, for example, oral narratives and translations of biblical narratives (cf. De Busser's chapter on Bunun). Most contributions, however, study natural spoken speech and make use of spoken corpora which have been compiled by the authors themselves. The volume comprises a number of different methods and theoretical frameworks. Two chapters make use of the Question Under Discussion approach, developed in formal semantics (cf. the chapters by Latrouite & Riester; Shiohara & Riester). Riesberg et al. apply the recently developed method of Rapid Prosody Transcription (RPT) to investigate native speakers' perception of prosodic prominences and boundaries in Papuan Malay. Other papers discuss theoretical consequences of their findings. Thus, for example, Himmelmann takes apart the most widespread framework for intonational phonology (ToBI) and argues that the analysis of Indonesian languages requires much simpler assumptions than the ones underlying the standard model. Arka & Sedeng ask the question how fine-grained information structure space should be conceptualized and modelled, e.g. in LFG. Schnell argues that elements that could be analysed as "topic" and "focus" categories, should better be described in terms of 'packaging' and do not necessarily reflect any pragmatic roles in the first place. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

Download or read book Perspectives on Discourse Analysis written by Laura Alba Juez and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2009-05-27 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perspectives on Discourse Analysis: Theory and Practice provides the student/reader with the basic theoretical knowledge and the empirical tools of some of the most relevant approaches to the analysis of discourse. It has been mainly conceived of as a general (university) course on Discourse Analysis, but it can also be useful for any person or group whose main concern is to acquire the basic necessary knowledge and skills for analyzing any type of discourse. The subject matter of the book could not only be of use for linguists or prospective linguists: given its interdisciplinary character, its findings can be (and in fact are) used and applied by practitioners and scholars from different fields, such as sociology, psychology, medical science, computer science, and so on. Thus the book can be used by any person who, having certain linguistic knowledge, is interested in exploring the fascinating world of discourse. All the chapters contain both a theoretical and an empirical section, the latter containing examples of analysis, as well as exercises (Practice) and self-evaluation questions, whose answers can be found at the end of the book (in the Practice key and Key to self-evaluation questions sections). The book is divided into 12 chapters. The first two introduce basic information about discourse analysis and text linguistics, as well as the necessary techniques for gathering data, including a very brief introduction to corpus linguistics. Chapters 3-11 present and discuss some of the most prominent and well-known approaches to discourse analysis, namely Pragmatics, Interactional Sociolinguistics, Conversation Analysis, The Ethnography of Communication, Variation Analysis and Narrative Analysis, Functional Sentence Perspective, Post-Structuralist Theory and Social Theory, Critical Discourse Analysis and Positive Discourse Analysis, and Mediated Discourse Analysis. Finally, Chapter 12 deals with crucial and further issues, such as the type of discourse chosen for the analysis, the strategies and functions of discourse, or the problem of choosing an appropriate unit of analysis which will suit the aims of research. Perspectives on Discourse Analysis: Theory and Practice may prove of value to all those who are professionally involved in the area of discourse and pragmatic studies, or simply to those who wish to acquire the necessary basic knowledge and techniques for analyzing any type of discourse, from medical, journalistic or political discourse to computer-mediated, humoristic, or hegemonic discourse (where the use and abuse of power is an important issue), just to name a few of the innumerable possibilities. A desirable and intended effect of this book is also the development of an open and tolerant mind, which will eventually lead to a better understanding of the different and varied manifestations of language, culture and communication in human society.

Download or read book Reconnecting Language written by A. M. Simon-Vandenbergen and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the contributors to this book do not belong to one particular 'school' of linguistic theory, they all share an interest in the external functions of language in society and in the relationship between these functions and internal linguistic phenomena. In this sense they all take a functional approach to grammatical issues. Apart from this common starting-point, the contributions share the aim of demonstrating the non-autonomous nature of morphology and syntax, and the inadequacy of linguistic models which deal with syntax, morphology and lexicon in separate, independent components. The recurrent theme throughout the book is the inseparability of lexis and morphosyntax, of structure and function, of grammar and society. The third and more specific common thread is case, which in some contributions is adduced to illustrate the more general point of the link between word form on the one hand and clausal and textual relations on the other hand, while in other papers it is at the centre of the discussion. The interest of the proposed volume consists in the fact that it brings together the views of leading scholars in functional linguistics of various 'denominations' on the place of morphosyntax in linguistic theory. The book provides convincing argumentation against a modular theory with autonomous levels (the dominant framework in mainstream 20th century linguistics) and is a plea for further research into the connections between the lexicogrammar and the linguistic and extralinguistic context.

Download or read book Studies at the Grammar Discourse Interface written by Alexander Haselow and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates phenomena at the grammar–discourse interface with a strong focus on discourse markers, whose development and concrete uses in a given language tend to be based on a close interplay of grammatical and discourse-related forces. The topics range from the transition of linguistic signs “out of” sentence grammar and “into” the domain of discourse to differences between more grammatical vs. more discourse-pragmatic expressions in terms of structural behavior and cognitive processing, and the different, intricate ways in which the usage conditions and meanings of grammatical constituents or structural units are affected by the discourse context in which they are used. The twelve studies in this book are based on fresh empirical data from languages such as English, Basque, Korean, Japanese and French and involve the study of linguistic expressions and structures such as pragmatic markers and particles, comment clauses, expletives, adverbial connectors, and expressives.

Download or read book Exploring Linguistic Science written by Allison Burkette and published by . This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduces students to the scientific study of language, using the basic principles of complexity theory.

Download or read book Functional Perspectives on Grammar and Discourse written by Christopher S. Butler and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2007-07-13 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, a tribute to Angela Downing, consists of twenty papers taking a broadly functional perspective on language, with topics ranging from the general (grammar as an evolutionary product, text comprehension, integrative linguistics) to particular aspects of the grammars of languages (Bulgarian, English, Icelandic, Spanish, Swedish). The more specific papers are sequenced according to Halliday’s division into ideational, textual and interpersonal aspects of the grammar, and cover a wide range of areas, including aspect, argument structure, noun phrase/nominal group structure and nominalisations, pronominal clitics, theme in relation to writing skills, discourse structures and markers, the role of attention in conversation, the functions of topic, phatic communion, subjectification, formulaic language and modality. A recurrent theme in the volume is the use of corpus materials in order to base functional descriptions on authentic productions. Overall, the volume constitutes a panoramic but nevertheless detailed view of some important current trends in functional linguistics.

Download or read book Grammar Meaning and Concepts written by Susan Strauss and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-11 with total page 575 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grammar, Meaning, and Concepts: A Discourse-Based Approach to English Grammar is a book for language teachers and learners that focuses on the meanings of grammatical constructions within discourse, rather than on language as structure governed by rigid rules. This text emphasizes the ways in which users of language construct meaning, express viewpoints, and depict imageries using the conceptual, meaning-filled categories that underlie all of grammar. Written by a team of authors with years of experience teaching grammar to future teachers of English, this book puts grammar in the context of real language and illustrates grammar in use through an abundance of authentic data examples. Each chapter also provides a variety of activities that focus on grammar, genre, discourse, and meaning, which can be used as they are or can be adapted for classroom practice. The activities are also designed to raise awareness about discourse, grammar, and meaning in all facets of everyday life, and can be used as springboards for upper high school, undergraduate, and graduate level research projects and inquiry-based grammatical analysis. Grammar, Meaning, and Concepts is an ideal textbook for those in the areas of teacher education, discourse analysis, applied linguistics, second language teaching, ESL, EFL, and communications who are looking to teach and learn grammar from a dynamic perspective.