Thematic Theory In Syntax And Interpretation

Author : Robin Clark
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 219 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2016-11-10
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781315519876

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Thematic Theory in Syntax and Interpretation by Robin Clark Pdf

In recent years, lexical argument structure, in the guise of thematic roles, has come to play an increasingly important part in syntactic theory. The first part of this book, first published in 1990, explores the interplay between thematic role assignment and movement processes, with particular reference to the explanatory problem of nominalisation. The second part explores the relationship between thematic roles and control. Particularly close attention is paid to implicit arguments, arbitrary control and adverbs of quantification. A theory of control is presented which unifies obligatory and non-obligatory control. The theory of control, furthermore, generalises to account for the binding gaps in purposive clauses, tough movement constructions, infinitival clauses and other constructions which have typically been analysed as involving long-distance dependencies. This title will be of interest to students of linguistics.

Author : Dorothea Kallfass
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
Page : 29 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2007-11
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9783638768139

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The Grammatical Relevance of Thematic Roles by Dorothea Kallfass Pdf

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,7, Humboldt-University of Berlin, course: Ergativity: A Comparative Perspective, 16 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Thematic roles are a linguistic phenomenon describing the more specific relations between a predicate and its respective arguments. This is especially important in the field of language acquisition, or, more generally stated, for the process of understanding. A discussion of thematic roles is closely linked to one of the most complex questions ever: what is meaning? Thematic roles are a linguistic approach to this question which is characterized by its comparative simplicity. Still, it is a complex theory. It ist acknowledged that if you know the grammar of a language you really know this language. Since grammar takes a closer look at units of speech such as sentences, and smaller chunks of sentences, one has to come up with some strategies for interpreting these chunks and the sort of relation they have with each other in order to know grammar. Theta theory is one of these strategies, focusing on "who does what to whom in a clause". In short: a predicate is able to assign certain thematic roles to its respective arguments - we say that predicates have a thematic structure. The part of grammar whicht regulates the assignment of these roles is called theta theory. As an issue of linguistic interest, thematic roles have gained importance during the last two decades. Theta theory as part of the Government and Binding Theory will be discussed in the following chapters. First, the theory has to be localized in the field of grammar. Then, there follows a brief introduction to Noam Chomsky's current theory of principles and parameters. After these introductory sections the main issues will be addressed, for example the grammatical relevance of thematic roles, and also the question as to which extent theta marking is gram

Author : Wendy Wilkins
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2020-01-13
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789004373211

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Thematic Relations by Wendy Wilkins Pdf

Thematic Relations provides information pertinent to thematic relations, which focus both on what sematic roles are expressible in the grammar and how these roles come to be associated with noun phrases. This book presents the interaction of components of the language faculty and other aspects of cognition. Organized into 13 chapters, this volume begins with an overview of the semantic relations involved in verb-argument structure. This text then examines the predicate-argument representations, which have come to figure prominently in all current generative theories of syntax. Other chapters consider the generalizations about thematic relations that are most insightfully captured at the level of syntax of at the level of semantics. This book discusses as well the importance of thematic roles to the grammar. The final chapter deals with the central role of thematic roles in language comprehension. This book is a valuable resource for linguists, syntacticians, and semanticists with an active involvement in research on natural language.

Author : Edwin Williams
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 284 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 1994
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 0262731061

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Thematic Structure in Syntax by Edwin Williams Pdf

This important monograph summarizes, rethinks, and extends a decade of the author's work on therole assignments - the ways in which the roles implied by verbs of a given type play out in terms of position and other syntactic functions. The study of theta roles and the locality of theta-role assignment leads into many interesting areas of linguistic theory, such as scope, the ECP, X-bar theory, binding theory, and the weak crossover condition; Williams's reconstruction thus offers a systematic integration of a remarkably wide range of syntactic phenomena.Williams starts by outlining a theory of the clause,specifically, of the distribution of Nominative Case and Tense. He then develops a formalism for the notion of"external argument" that is used throughout the rest of the book. Subsequent chapters review the issues surrounding the syntactic expression of the subject-predicate relationship, extend the notion of external argument to include NP movement, and reanalyze the verb movement constructions as deriving from the calculus of theta roles rather than movement.The last chapter distinguishes referential dependence and coreference, showing that a general Leftness condition governs the former, while the binding theory restated in terms of theta relations governs the latter.Edwin Williams is Professor of Linguistics at Princeton University.

Author : Nomi Erteschik-Shir,Tova Rapoport
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2005-05-26
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780191535697

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The Syntax of Aspect by Nomi Erteschik-Shir,Tova Rapoport Pdf

This book investigates the way grammar deals with the representation of aspectual (aktionsart) concepts, focussing on issues of the lexicon-syntax interface. The authors' innovative analyses of this interface significantly advance our understanding of the role that syntax plays in determining verbal meaning, aspectual interpretation, and thematic information. Various theories are developed in this collection, including those that take as their starting point the lexical-syntactic framework of Hale and Keyser, prominent among which is the chapter by Hale and Keyser themselves. By examining different phenomena in a cross-linguistic perspective, this book develops insights into the general theoretical question of universal grammar and acquisition as well as into the specific nature of the lexicon-syntax interface. It is a major contribution to modern syntactic theory.

Author : A. Neeleman,F. Weerman
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 261 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2012-12-06
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789401142892

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Flexible Syntax by A. Neeleman,F. Weerman Pdf

Most linguistic theories assume that each grammatical relation is established in a unique structural configuration. Neeleman and Weerman take issue with this view, arguing for a more flexible approach on the basis of conceptual considerations and data taken mostly, but not exclusively, from the Germanic languages. In-depth analyses of word order phenomena as well as diachronic and typological generalizations motivate a re-evaluation of the role of case in the projection of arguments. Case is shown to provide a syntactic foothold for thematic interpretation, something which is necessary in a grammar that does not allow fixed theta-positions. Thus, this study does not only offer a genuine alternative to many standard assumptions, it also explains why there should be such a thing as case in natural language.

Author : Idan Landau
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 129 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2015-05
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780262028851

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A Two-Tiered Theory of Control by Idan Landau Pdf

A theory of control, equally grounded in syntax and semantics, that argues that obligatory control is achieved either through predication or through logophoric anchoring. This book revives and reinterprets a persistent intuition running through much of the classical work: that the unitary appearance of Obligatory Control into complements conceals an underlying duality of structure and mechanism. Idan Landau argues that control complements divide into two types: In attitude contexts, control is established by logophoric anchoring, while non-attitude contexts it boils down to predication. The distinction is also syntactically represented: Logophoric complements are constructed as a second tier above predicative complements. The theory derives the obligatory de se reading of PRO as a special kind of de re attitude without ascribing any inherent feature to PRO. At the same time, it provides a principled explanation, based on feature transmission, for the agreement properties of PRO, which are stipulated on competing semantic accounts. Finally, it derives a striking universal asymmetry: the fact that agreement on the embedded verb blocks control in attitude contexts but not in non-attitude contexts. This book is unique in being firmly grounded in both the formal semantic and the syntactic studies of control, offering an integrated view that will appeal to scholars in both areas. By bringing to bear current sophisticated grammatical analyses, it offers new insights into the classical problems of control theory.

Author : Iggy M. Roca
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 345 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2012-01-19
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783110872613

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Thematic Structure by Iggy M. Roca Pdf

Author : C. Jones
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 263 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2012-12-06
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789401134781

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Purpose Clauses by C. Jones Pdf

The purpose clause is a common fonn of adverbial modification in English. The bracketed phrases below are purpose clauses, and they look and sound unremarkable. We hear and see these things all the time. John came [to play with the children] [to play with] I brought John along Insofar as purpose clauses appear to be adverbial, they frequently occupy a relatively low place on the scale of important things for syntactic theory to address itself to. In this book I assume the theoretical framework that has come to be known as 'Government-Binding' theory (GB), initiated in Chomsky (1981). The general fonn of the analyis of purpose clauses in GB dates roughly from Chomsky (1977). where several kinds of constructions akin to purpose clauses are identified. Within GB. this analysis is so widely accepted that it deserves to be considered the standard theory. This book, then. is about a few syntactically peripheral ell~ments that have enjoyed a relatively long-lived. virtually universally accepted. theoretical treatment What is perhaps an obvious question arises in this context. Why write a GB book about purpose clauses? This book. I hope, will supply an interesting answer. Simply put. purpose clause:;, and related constructions, have various properties that are not accounted for in the standard theory. In this book I propose an alternative analysis of purpose clauses, an analysis from which. I think. more of their properties follow more naturally.

Author : Idan Landau
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 265 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2021-10-19
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780262366113

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A Selectional Theory of Adjunct Control by Idan Landau Pdf

A novel, systematic theory of adjunct control, explaining how and why adjuncts shift between obligatory and nonobligatory control. Control in adjuncts involves a complex interaction of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, which so far has resisted systematic analysis. In this book, Idan Landau offers the first comprehensive account of adjunct control. Extending the framework developed in his earlier book, A Two-Tiered Theory of Control, Landau analyzes ten different types of adjuncts and shows that they fall into two categories: those displaying strict obligatory control (OC) and those alternating between OC and nonobligatory control (NOC). He explains how and why adjuncts shift between OC and NOC, unifying their syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties. Landau shows that the split between the two types of adjuncts reflects a fundamental distinction in the semantic type of the adjunct: property (OC) or proposition (NOC), a distinction independently detectable by the adjunct's tolerance to a lexical subject. After presenting a fully compositional account of controlled adjuncts, Landau tests and confirms the specific configurational predictions for each type of adjunct. He describes the interplay between OC and NOC in terms of general principles of competition--both within the grammar and outside of it, in the pragmatics and in the processing module--shedding new light on classical puzzles in the acquisition of adjunct control by children. Along the way, he addresses a range of empirical phenomena, including implicit arguments, event control, logophoricity, and topicality.

Author : Hadumod Bussmann
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 1336 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 1996
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 9780415022255

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Lexikon Der Sprachwissenschaft by Hadumod Bussmann Pdf

In over 2,500 entries, this Dictionary provides an exhaustive survey of the key terminology and languages of more than thirty sub-disciplines of linguistics.

Author : P. Saint-Dizier
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 818 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 1999
Category : Computers
ISBN : 0792354990

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Predicative Forms in Natural Language and in Lexical Knowledge Bases by P. Saint-Dizier Pdf

This book presents, by means of a number of articles, a survey and a set of projects in computational lexical semantics. The most crucial aspects of ongoing research on predicates are presented: verb semantic classifications, relations between syntax and semantics, Wordnet for Verbs, multilinguism, lexical knowledge bases and lexical acquisition, the generative lexicon. Predicative Forms in Natural Language and in Lexical Knowledge Bases is designed for professors, researchers and graduate students in the area of language processing and semantics.

Author : Denis Bouchard
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 544 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 1995-12
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 0226067335

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The Semantics of Syntax by Denis Bouchard Pdf

During the last thirty years, most linguists and philosophers have assumed that meaning can be represented symbolically and that the mental processing of language involves the manipulation of symbols. Scholars have assembled strong evidence that there must be linguistic representations at several abstract levels—phonological, syntactic, and semantic—and that those representations are related by a describable system of rules. Because meaning is so complex, linguists often posit an equally complex relationship between semantic and other levels of grammar. The Semantics of Syntax is an elegant and powerful analysis of the relationship between syntax and semantics. Noting that meaning is underdetermined by form even in simple cases, Denis Bouchard argues that it is impossible to build knowledge of the world into grammar and still have a describable grammar. He thus proposes simple semantic representations and simple rules to relate linguistic levels. Focusing on a class of French verbs, Bouchard shows how multiple senses can be accounted for by the assumption of a single abstract core meaning along with background information about how objects behave in the world. He demonstrates that this move simplifies the syntax at no cost to the descriptive power of the semantics. In two important final chapters, he examines the consequences of his approach for standard syntactic theories.

Author : Dominique Sportiche,Hilda Koopman,Edward Stabler
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 472 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2013-09-30
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781118470473

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An Introduction to Syntactic Analysis and Theory by Dominique Sportiche,Hilda Koopman,Edward Stabler Pdf

An Introduction to Syntactic Analysis and Theory offersbeginning students a comprehensive overview of and introduction toour current understanding of the rules and principles that governthe syntax of natural languages. Includes numerous pedagogical features such as‘practice’ boxes and sidebars, designed to facilitateunderstanding of both the ‘hows’ and the‘whys’ of sentence structure Guides readers through syntactic and morphological structuresin a progressive manner Takes the mystery out of one of the most crucial aspects of theworkings of language – the principles and processes behindthe structure of sentences Ideal for students with minimal knowledge of current syntacticresearch, it progresses in theoretical difficulty from basic ideasand theories to more complex and advanced, up to date concepts insyntactic theory

Author : Idan Landau
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 303 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2012-12-06
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789401139434

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Elements of Control by Idan Landau Pdf

This book offers a new outlook on the derivation and interpretation of control constructions. It clears up some common misconceptions about the nature of control, as well as sharpening the empirical challenges that face any comprehensive theory in this domain. Regardless of theoretical framework, scholars of syntax and semantics interested in these topics, will find this book a major contribution to the field.