The Semantics Of Generics In Dutch And Related Languages

Author : Albert M. Oosterhof
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 310 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2008-04-25
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027290731

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The Semantics of Generics in Dutch and Related Languages by Albert M. Oosterhof Pdf

This monograph is a comprehensive study of the various ways in which genericity can be expressed in Dutch, dialects of Dutch, and languages related to Dutch. On the basis of empirical (corpus- and questionnaire-based) data, a wide range of topics are discussed which have been addressed in the literature on the semantics and pragmatics of generics. The empirical data presented in this book shed new light on issues crucial to the study of genericity. A number of widely accepted ideas are shown to be problematic. For example, arguments are presented against the well-known claim that progressive forms typically exclude characterizing interpretations. Furthermore, the author shows that speakers do not agree in their judgements of the acceptability of bare plurals (as well as other noun phrase types) in generic contexts. Such data are a problem for the influential thesis that bare plurals refer to kinds unambiguously.

Author : Albert Oosterhof
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 316 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9027255059

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The Semantics of Generics in Dutch and Related Languages by Albert Oosterhof Pdf

This monograph is a comprehensive study of the various ways in which genericity can be expressed in Dutch, dialects of Dutch, and languages related to Dutch. On the basis of empirical (corpus- and questionnaire-based) data, a wide range of topics are discussed which have been addressed in the literature on the semantics and pragmatics of generics. The empirical data presented in this book shed new light on issues crucial to the study of genericity. A number of widely accepted ideas are shown to be problematic. For example, arguments are presented against the well-known claim that progressive forms typically exclude characterizing interpretations. Furthermore, the author shows that speakers do not agree in their judgements of the acceptability of bare plurals (as well as other noun phrase types) in generic contexts. Such data are a problem for the influential thesis that bare plurals refer to kinds unambiguously.

Author : Gunther Vogelaer,Dietha Koster,Torsten Leuschner
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 402 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2020-03-09
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 9783110669466

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German and Dutch in Contrast by Gunther Vogelaer,Dietha Koster,Torsten Leuschner Pdf

Designed as a contribution to contrastive linguistics, the present volume brings up-to-date the comparison of German with its closest neighbour, Dutch, and other Germanic relatives like English, Afrikaans, and the Scandinavian languages. It takes its inspiration from the idea of a "Germanic Sandwich", i.e. the hypothesis that sets of genetically related languages diverge in systematic ways in diverse domains of the linguistic system. Its contributions set out to test this approach against new phenomena or data from synchronic, diachronic and, for the first time in a Sandwich-related volume, psycholinguistic perspectives. With topics ranging from nickname formation to the IPP (aka 'Ersatzinfinitiv'), from the grammaticalisation of the definite article to /s/-retraction, and from the role of verb-second order in the acquisition of L2 English to the psycholinguistics of gender, the volume appeals to students and specialists in modern and historical linguistics, psycholinguistics, translation studies, language pedagogy and cognitive science, providing a wealth of fresh insights into the relationships of German with its closest relatives while highlighting the potential inherent in the integration of different methodological traditions.

Author : Stéphanie J. Bakker
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 337 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9789004177222

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The Noun Phrase in Ancient Greek by Stéphanie J. Bakker Pdf

The structure of the noun phrase in Ancient Greek is extremely flexible: the various constituents may occur in almost every possible order and each constituent may or may not be preceded by an article. However, the use and function of the various options have received very little attention. This book tries to fill that gap. A functional analysis of the structure of the NP in Herodotus illucidateswhich arguments lead a native speaker in his choice to select one of the various possible NP patterns. The results do not only increase our knowledge of the NP, but also lead to a better interpretation of Ancient Greek texts.

Author : Anna Kurek-Przybilski
Publisher : Wydawnictwo UJ
Page : 242 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2021-12-01
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 9788323372813

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A Cognitive Approach to Genericity in Norwegian by Anna Kurek-Przybilski Pdf

How does one speak about kinds in Norwegian? Which noun form should one use to say that dogs bark and cows are mammals? And is it always necessary to use a plural noun form to express genericity? The study presented in this book shows a cognitive approach to genericity in Norwegian. The study material includes three data sets—two surveys and a specialised corpus of generic texts. Both the surveys and the corpus were analysed in two ways—with the use of chosen cognitive models and with a number of statistical tests. Applying both qualitative and quantitive methods has allowed to conduct a comprehensive study on genericity in Norwegian. „The study of Anna Kurek-Przybilski is a comprehensive analysis of genericity in Norwegian. The cognitive approach of the project is combined with other analysis models and the results of statistical tests. The cognitive perspective on generics proposed (and conducted) in the project allows for an interesting analysis of language data, which is additionally supported by the statistical analyses. The study conducted in the project is based on a comprehensive data set. An advantage of the study is that the chosen data focuses on the actual language use and language intuitions, collected through surveys and provided by carefully chosen respondents—native speakers of Norwegian. Moreover, the analyses were based on a set of generic texts chosen particularly for this purpose. The specialised corpus created by the Author was very deliberate, both in terms of text genres (encyclopaedic texts) and the classification of the texts. As a result, the Author was able to use the models proposed by Radden and Radden and Driven, and develop them further to suit the Norwegian language, taking into account its specificity.” From the review by Prof. Agnieszka Gicala

Author : Laure Gardelle
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 488 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2024-07-02
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9783031445613

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Nouns and the Morphosyntax / Semantics Interface by Laure Gardelle Pdf

Author : Norbert Hornstein,Maria Polinsky
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 341 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2010
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027255372

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Movement Theory of Control by Norbert Hornstein,Maria Polinsky Pdf

Natural languages offer many examples of displacement, i.e. constructions in which a non-local expression is critical for some grammatical end. Two central examples include phenomena such as raising and passive on the one hand, and control on the other. Though each phenomenon is an example of displacement, they have been theoretically distinguished. Movement rules have generated the former and formally very different construal rules, the latter. The "Movement Theory of Control" challenges this differentiation and argues that the operations that generate the two constructions are the same, the differences arising from the positions through which the displaced elements are moved. In the context of the Minimalist Program, reducing the class of basic operations is methodologically prized. This volume is a collection of original papers that argue for this approach to control on theoretical and empirical grounds as well. The papers also develop and constrain the movement theory to account for novel phenomena from a variety of languages."

Author : Lobke Aelbrecht
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 249 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2010
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027255327

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The Syntactic Licensing of Ellipsis by Lobke Aelbrecht Pdf

This monograph presents a theory of ellipsis licensing in terms of Agree and applies it to several elliptical phenomena in both English and Dutch. The author makes two main claims: The head selecting the ellipsis site is checked against the head licensing ellipsis in order for ellipsis to occur, and ellipsis i.e., sending part of the structure to PF for non-pronunciation occurs as soon as this checking relation is established. At that point, the ellipsis site becomes inaccessible for further syntactic operations. Consequently, this theory explains the limited extraction data displayed by Dutch modals complement ellipsis as well as British English "do" These ellipses allow subject extraction out of the ellipsis site, but not object extraction. The analysis also extends to phenomena that do not display such a restricted extraction, such as sluicing, VP ellipsis, and pseudogapping. Hence, this work is a step towards a unified analysis of ellipsis."

Author : Þórhallur Eyþórsson
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 456 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9027233772

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Grammatical Change and Linguistic Theory by Þórhallur Eyþórsson Pdf

This book contains 15 revised papers originally presented at a symposium at Rosendal, Norway, under the aegis of The Centre for Advanced Study (CAS) at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. The overall theme of the volume is 'internal factors in grammatical change.' The papers focus on fundamental questions in theoretically-based historical linguistics from a broad perspective. Several of the papers relate to grammaticalization in different ways, but are generally critical of 'Grammaticalization Theory'. Further papers focus on the causes of syntactic change, pinpointing both extra-syntactic (exogenous) causes and – more controversially – internally driven (endogenous) causes. The volume is rounded up by contributions on morphological change 'by itself.' A wide range of languages is covered, including Tsova-Tush (Nakh-Dagestan), Zoque, and Athapaskan languages, in addition to Indo-European languages, both the more familiar ones and some less well-studied varieties.

Author : Azita Hojatollah Taleghani
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 198 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027255112

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Modality, Aspect and Negation in Persian by Azita Hojatollah Taleghani Pdf

This monograph presents a morpho-syntactic investigation on modality, aspect, and negation by concentrating on Persian, and is designed to contribute to theoretical linguistics and the study of Iranian languages. The analysis is based on the Minimalist program. This research challenges the idea that the syntactic structure maps on the semantic interpretation or vice versa. The discussion presented in this monograph shows that the syntactic structure of Persian modals is uniform no matter if the modals are interpreted as having root or epistemic readings. Although it is claimed that modals are raising constructions in different languages, modals in Persian, which does not have subject-raising constructions, show a different syntactic behavior. Furthermore, the structural analysis of the interaction of Persian modals and negation shows that because of the scope interaction of negation and modals, the syntactic structure of modals with respect to negation mostly corresponds to the semantic interpretation of modals.

Author : Tabea Ihsane
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 274 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027255075

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The Layered DP by Tabea Ihsane Pdf

This book examines argumental un-NPs and du/des-NPs in French: nominals with the indefinite article and with the so-called 'partitive article' respectively. The main aim is to account for the different interpretations of these indefinites and to determine how interpretation and structure are related. This study thus concerns the syntax-semantics interface, with an emphasis on the composition of the left periphery and the inflectional domain of the indefinites mentioned. It is realized in the framework of generative grammar and in a cartographic approach. A crucial proposal put forward in this book is that indefinites of different semantic types are associated with different left peripheries. The analysis further suggests that the inflectional domain of these indefinites may comprise three discrete functional projections encoding the features [count], [quantity] and [number]. Interestingly, these results seem to extend to a selection of bare nouns in Romance and Germanic languages.

Author : Stefan Sudhoff
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 353 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2010
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027255341

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Focus Particles in German by Stefan Sudhoff Pdf

This study explores the grammar of focus particles in German. It gives a thorough description and analysis of focus particle constructions and links their syntactic, semantic, and information structural properties to their prosodic characteristics. The study also shows that focus particles present a particularly well-suited subject for the investigation of the modularity of grammar in general. The first part of the book deals with the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of focus particle constructions and results in a modular account of the relation between their word order, information structure, and meaning. The second part presents a corpus study and several speech production and perception experiments investigating the prosodic realization of the constructions. The integration of these two lines of research results in a comprehensive theory of focus particles and of the interaction of grammar and information structure in German.

Author : Florian Schäfer
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 340 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027255099

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The Syntax of (anti-)causatives by Florian Schäfer Pdf

This book develops an approach to the causative alternation that assumes syntactic event decomposition and a configurational theta theory. It is couched within the framework of the Minimalist Program and, especially, within Distributed Morphology. Central to the work is the syntax and semantics of canonical external arguments of causative verbs as well as of oblique causers and causative PPs in the context of anticausative verbs in different languages such as Germanic, Romance, Balkan, and Caucasian languages. The book also develops a new account of the origin and nature of the morphological marking which is often found on anticausatives across languages. The main claim is that this morphology is a reflex of a syntactic way to prohibit the assignment of the external theta role. Moreover, the book develops an account about the origin of the implicit agent in generic middles which often bear the same morphology as marked anticausatives.

Author : Ángel J. Gallego
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 385 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2010
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027255358

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Phase Theory by Ángel J. Gallego Pdf

This book provides a detailed and up to date review of the framework of phases (Chomsky 2000 and subsequent work). It explores the interaction between the narrow syntactic computation and the external systems from a minimalist perspective. As has sometimes been noted, "Phase Theory" is the current way to study the cyclic nature of the system, and 'phases' are therefore the natural locality hallmark, being directly relevant for phenomena such as binding, agreement, movement, islands, reconstruction, or stress assignment. This work discusses the different approaches to phases that have been proposed in the recent literature, arguing in favor of the thesis that the points of cyclic transfer are to be related to uninterpretable morphology (the ?-features on the heads C and v*). This take on phases is adopted in order to investigate raising structures, binding, subjunctive dependents, and object shift (word order) in Romance languages, as well as the nature of islands.

Author : Anne-Marie Di Sciullo,Virginia Hill
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 279 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2010
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027255396

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Edges, Heads, and Projections by Anne-Marie Di Sciullo,Virginia Hill Pdf

This collection deals with central issues in the syntax of clauses and their interfaces with the conceptual-intentional system. The book targets the syntactic properties that have an impact on the interpretation of discourse and temporal dependencies, functional fields including CP, pragmatic markers at the syntax-pragmatic interface, and on the possible parameterization of these properties. The papers in this volume bring to the fore the role of the edges (specifier and adjuncts), heads and projections in the grammar and at the interfaces. They address the question to what extent the relevant configurations at the level of edges, head, and projections determine the syntax/semantic, semantic/pragmatic connections. The contributions clarify the notion of edge and bring evidence that this notion is core to the analysis of various phenomena at the left periphery of clauses and phrases. This volume also discusses functional heads and their projections, particularly insofar as the properties of these heads determine the composition of the CP field, and cases where a CP may or may not be projected.