Language Change At The Syntax Semantics Interface

Author : Chiara Gianollo,Agnes Jäger,Doris Penka
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 366 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2014-12-12
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783110394924

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Language Change at the Syntax-Semantics Interface by Chiara Gianollo,Agnes Jäger,Doris Penka Pdf

Bringing together diachronic research from a variety of perspectives, notably typology, formal syntax and semantics, this volume focuses on the interplay of syntactic and semantic factors in language change - an issue so far largely neglected both in (mostly lexical) historical semantics as well as historical syntax, but recently brought into focus by grammaticalization theory as well as Minimalist diachronic syntax. The contributions draw on data from numerous Indo-European languages including Vedic Sanskrit, Middle Indic, Greek as well as English and German, and discuss a range of phenomena such as change in negation markers, indefinite articles, quantifiers, modal verbs, argument structure among others. The papers analyze diachronic evidence in the light of contemporary syntactic and semantic theory, addressing the crucial question of how syntactic and semantic change are linked, and whether both are governed by similar constraints, principles and systematic mechanisms. The volume will appeal to scholars in historical linguistics and formal theories of syntax and semantics.

Author : Jens Fleischhauer,Anja Latrouite,Rainer Osswald
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 372 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2016-09-15
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783110720297

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Explorations of the Syntax-Semantics Interface by Jens Fleischhauer,Anja Latrouite,Rainer Osswald Pdf

The articles in this volume present original research on the encoding of meaning in a variety of constructions and languages. Many of the contributions take the framework of Role and Reference Grammar as a point of reference, either by applying it to the analysis of linguistic data or by discussing, extending, and challenging some of its assumptions. The topics of the articles range from general questions concerning the relation of meaning and its syntactic realization to the study of specific grammatical phenomena in a number of typologically diverse languages, including Yucatec Maya, Kabardian, Tagalog, Murik-Kopar, Avatime, Whitesands, Tundra Yukaghir, and various Indo-European languages. The articles will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working on the interface between syntax, semantics and pragmatics. This series 'Studies in Language and Cognition' explores issues of mental representation, linguistic structure and representation, and their interplay. The research presented in this series is grounded in the idea explored in the Collaborative Research Center `The structure of representations in language, cognition and science' (SFB 991) that there is a universal format for the representation of linguistic and cognitive concepts.

Author : Robert D. Van Valin
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 344 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2005-07-07
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 0521811791

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Exploring the Syntax-Semantics Interface by Robert D. Van Valin Pdf

This book looks at how syntax, semantics and pragmatics interact in different ways across human languages.

Author : Carol Tenny
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2012-12-06
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789401111508

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Aspectual Roles and the Syntax-Semantics Interface by Carol Tenny Pdf

All work is work in progress. The ideas developed in this work could be (and probably will be) developed further, revised, and expanded. But it was time to write them down and send them out. Some of these ideas about linking had their origins in my 1987 dissertation. However, this work has grown beyond the dissertation in a number of important ways. The most important of these advances lie in, first, articulating aspectual roles as linguistic objects over which lexical semantic phenomena can be stated, and over which linking generalizations are stated; second, recognizing that syntactic phenomena may be classified as to whether or not they are sensitive to the core event of event structure; and third, recognizing the modularity of aspectual and thematic/conceptual structure, and associating that modularity with a difference between language-specific and universal language generalizations. The three chapters of the book are organized around these ideas. I have tried to state these ideas as strong theses. Where they make strong predictions I have meant them to do so, as a probe for future research. I hope that other researchers will take up the challenge to investigate, test and develop these ideas across a wider realm of languages than I --as one person --can do.

Author : Uli Sauerland,Hans-Martin Gärtner
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 298 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2008-09-25
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783110207552

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Interfaces + Recursion = Language? by Uli Sauerland,Hans-Martin Gärtner Pdf

Human language is a phenomenon of immense richness: It provides finely nuanced means of expression that underlie the formation of culture and society; it is subject to subtle, unexpected constraints like syntactic islands and cross-over phenomena; different mutually-unintelligeable individual languages are numerous; and the descriptions of individual languages occupy thousands of pages. Recent work in linguistics, however, has tried to argue that despite all appearances to the contrary, the human biological capacity for language may be reducible to a small inventory of core cognitive competencies. The most radical version of this view has emerged from the Minimalist Program: The claim that language consists of only the ability to generate recursive structures by a computational mechanism. On this view, all other properties of language must result from the interaction at the interfaces of that mechanism and other mental systems not exclusively devoted to language. Since language could then be described as the simplest recursive system satisfying the requirements of the interfaces, one can speak of the Minimalist Equation: Interfaces + Recursion = Language. The question whether all the richness of language can be reduced to that minimalist equation has already inspired several fruitful lines of research that led to important new results. While a full assessment of the minimalist equation will require evidence from many different areas of inquiry, this volume focuses especially on the perspective of syntax and semantics. Within the minimalist architecture, this places our concern with the core computational mechanism and the (LF-)interface where recursive structures are fed to interpretation. Specific questions that the papers address are: What kind of recursive structures can the core generator form? How can we determine what the simplest recursive system is? How can properties of language that used to be ascribed to the recursive generator be reduced to interface properties? What effects do syntactic operations have on semantic interpretation? To what extent do models of semantic interpretation support the LF-interface conditions postulated by minimalist syntax?

Author : Beth Levin,Malka Rappaport Hovav
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 1994-12-07
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 0262620944

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Unaccusativity by Beth Levin,Malka Rappaport Hovav Pdf

Besides providing extensive support for David Perlmutter's hypothesis that unaccusativity is syntactically represented but semantically determined, this monograph contributes significantly to the development of a theory of lexical semantic representation and to the elucidation of the mapping from lexical semantics to syntax. Unaccusativity is an extended investigation into a set of linguistic phenomena that have received much attention over the last fifteen years. Besides providing extensive support for David Perlmutter's hypothesis that unaccusativity is syntactically represented but semantically determined, this monograph contributes significantly to the development of a theory of lexical semantic representation and to the elucidation of the mapping from lexical semantics to syntax. Perlmutter's Unaccusative Hypothesis proposes that there are two classes of intransitive verbs - unergatives and unaccusatives - each associated with a distinct syntactic configuration. Unaccusativity begins by isolating the semantic factors that determine whether a verb will be unaccusative or unergative through a careful examination of the behavior of intransitive verbs from a range of semantic classes in diverse syntactic constructions. Notable are the extensive discussions of verbs of motion, verbs of emission, and various types of verbs of change of state. The authors then introduce rules that determine the syntactic expression of the arguments of the verbs investigated and examine the interactions among them. The proper treatment of verbs that systematically show multiple meanings - and hence variable classification as unaccusative or unergative - is also considered. In the final chapter, the authors argue that the distribution of locative inversion, a purported unaccusative diagnostic, is determined instead by discourse considerations. Linguistic Inquiry Monograph No. 26

Author : Łukasz Jędrzejowski,Ulrike Demske-Neumann
Publisher : ISSN
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2017
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 3110518473

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Infinitives at the Syntax-semantics Interface by Łukasz Jędrzejowski,Ulrike Demske-Neumann Pdf

The major aim of this volume is to investigate infinitival structures from a diachronic point of view and, simultaneously, to embed the diachronic findings into the ongoing theoretical discussion on non-finite clauses in general. All contributions s

Author : I. Comorovski
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 203 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2013-04-17
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789401586887

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Interrogative Phrases and the Syntax-Semantics Interface by I. Comorovski Pdf

Interrogative Phrases and the Syntax-Semantics Interface starts by analyzing the interpretation of interrogative phrases in single and multiple constituent questions, including their interpretation under adverbs of quantification. The results are then put to work in a novel approach to some of the constraints on dependencies between fronted interrogative phrases and the associated gaps: superiority, weak crossover, as well as the so-called `weak islands' (the WH-island, the negative island and the Factive Island). It is argued that the possibility of fronting an interrogative phrase out of these configurations is determined by a semantic/pragmatic condition on questions, which requires them to be answerable. The analysis is worked out principally on Romanian, a language which allows multiple wh-fronting. The results are then extended to English. Audience: Researchers and students in syntax, semantics and their interface, as well as linguists studying the relation between the acceptability of sentences and the larger discourse context.

Author : Naděžda Kudrnáčová
Publisher : Hledání flow
Page : 135 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : English language
ISBN : 9788021045224

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Directed Motion at the Syntax-semantics Interface by Naděžda Kudrnáčová Pdf

Author : Pauline I. Jacobson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 448 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2014
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780199677153

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Compositional Semantics by Pauline I. Jacobson Pdf

This book provides an introduction to compositional semantics and to the syntax/semantics interface. It is rooted within the tradition of model theoretic semantics, and develops an explicit fragment of both the syntax and semantics of a rich portion of English. Professor Jacobson adopts a Direct Compositionality approach, whereby the syntax builds the expressions while the semantics simultaneously assigns each a model-theoretic interpretation. Alongside this approach, the author also presents a competing view that makes use of an intermediate level, Logical Form. She develops parallel treatments of a variety of phenomena from both points of view with detailed comparisons. The book begins with simple and fundamental concepts and gradually builds a more complex fragment, including analyses of more advanced topics such as focus, negative polarity, and a variety of topics centering on pronouns and binding more generally. Exercises are provided throughout, alongside open-ended questions for students to consider. The exercises are interspersed with the text to promote self-discovery of the fundamentals and their applications. The book provides a rigorous foundation in formal analysis and model theoretic semantics and is suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in linguistics, philosophy of language, and related fields.

Author : Hajičová, Eva
Publisher : Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press
Page : 294 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2018-03-01
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9788024637143

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Syntax–Semantics Interface by Hajičová, Eva Pdf

The volume SYNTAX-SEMANTICS INTERFACE is a collection of selected studies written by Eva Hajičová and published between the years 1973 and 2014. The contributions are based on the theoretical framework of the Functional Generative Description as proposed by Petr Sgall in early sixties and developed further by him and his followers since then. Thematically, the volume reflects the author’s research contributions to four main domains: (i) the specification of the underlying (deep) sentence structure (analyzed in terms of dependency relations), (ii) the information structure of the sentence (topic-focus articulation) and its relation to the specification of presupposition and negation and to other related phenomena, (iii) building of a scheme of annotated corpus of Czech to serve among other things for verification of linguistic theoretical claims, and (iv) some fundamental aspects of discourse structure, namely the notion of the hiearachy of elements in the stock of knowledge shared by the speaker and the hearer. All the papers except for one have been originally published in English and in they pay due respect to a comparison of the author’s original findings with the currrent state-of-the-art of linguistic theory at home and abroad.

Author : Lukasz Jedrzejowski,Ulrike Demske
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 372 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2017-06-26
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783110520583

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Infinitives at the Syntax-Semantics Interface by Lukasz Jedrzejowski,Ulrike Demske Pdf

The major aim of this volume is to investigate infinitival structures from a diachronic point of view and, simultaneously, to embed the diachronic findings into the ongoing theoretical discussion on non-finite clauses in general. All contributions subscribe to a dynamic approach to infinitival clauses by investigating their origin, development and loss in miscellaneous patterns and across different languages.

Author : Chiara Gianollo
Publisher : Oxford Studies in Diachronic a
Page : 342 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2019-01-29
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780198812661

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Indefinites Between Latin and Romance by Chiara Gianollo Pdf

This book investigates the syntactic and semantic development of a selection of indefinite pronouns and determiners (such as aliquis 'some', nullus 'no', and nemo 'no one') between Latin and the Romance languages. Although these elements have undergone significant diachronic change since the Classical Latin period, the modern Romance languages show a remarkable degree of similarity in the way their systems of indefinites have evolved and are structured today. In this volume, Chiara Gianollo draws on data from Classical and Late Latin texts, and from electronic corpora of the early stages of various Romance languages, to propose a new account of these similarities. The focus is primarily on Late Latin: at this stage, the grammar of indefinites already shows a number of changes, which are homogeneously transmitted to the daughter languages, leading to parallelism in the various emerging Romance systems. The volume demonstrates the value of using methods and models from synchronic theoretical linguistics for investigating diachronic phenomena, as well as the importance of diachronic research in understanding the nature of crosslinguistic variation and language change.

Author : Moreno Mitrović
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 299 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2020-12-08
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9789402420500

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Superparticles by Moreno Mitrović Pdf

This book is all about the captivating ability that the human language has to express intricately logical (mathematical) meanings using tiny (microsemantic) morphemes as utilities. Languages mark meanings with identical inferences using identical particles and these particles thus creep up in a wide array of expressions. Because of their multi-tasking capacity to express seemingly disparate meanings, they are dubbed Superparticles. These particles are perfect windows into the interlock of several grammatical modules and the nature of the interaction of these modules through time. With a firm footing in the module where grammatical bones are built and assembled (narrow morpho-syntax), superparticles acquire varied interpretation (in the conceptual-intentional module – semantics) depending on the structure they fea- ture in. What is more, some of the interpretations these particles trigger are inferential and belong, under the standard account, to the realm of pragmatics. How can such tiny particles, rarely exceeding a syllable of sound, have such powerful and over-arching effects across the inter-modular grammatical space? This is the Platonic background against which this book is set.

Author : C.T. James Huang
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 486 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2010-04-15
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781135217570

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Between Syntax and Semantics by C.T. James Huang Pdf

This indispensable volume contains articles that represent the best of Huang's work on the syntax-semantics interface over the last two decades. It includes three general topics: (a) questions, indefinites and quantification, (b) anaphora, (c) lexical structure and the syntax of events.