- By : Louise McNally
A Semantics for the English Existential Construction
Author: Louise McNally
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315536471
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 222
Book Description
First published in 1997, this book addresses the question: What is the interpretation of English there-existential construction? One of the principal goals is to develop an interpretation for the construction that will specifically address other properties of the postcopular DP. After outlining the problem, the author goes on to present a syntactic motivation for the claim that the postcopular DP is the sole complement to the existential predicate, as well as for the claim that the optional final phrase is a predictive adjunct. In chapter 3 the interpretation for the basic existential construction is developed and then compared to analyses that take the postcopular DP to denote an ordinary individual or a generalised quantifier of individuals. This analysis is then augmented to account for the contribution of the final XP and shows how the predicate restriction can be derived from a more general condition on depictive/circumstantial VP-adjuncts. The final chapter contain some speculative discussion of the broader implications of the proposal in the context of data such as "list" existential and "presentational-there" sentences.
- By : Geoffrey S. Nathan
The Syntax and Semantics of the English Existential Construction
Author: Geoffrey S. Nathan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 142
Book Description
- By : Simone E. Pfenninger
- English language
Grammaticalization Paths of English and High German Existential Constructions
Author: Simone E. Pfenninger
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783034300216
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
Existential constructions are a fundamental feature of many Indo-European languages, and constructions with non-referential subjects have developed in all of the latter, albeit at different stages in their histories. High German does not feature a prototypical existential construction that is equivalent in syntactic and pragmatic function and semantic meaning to the English existential there-construction. How did a prototypical existential structure originate in English? Why is it that High German has never developed such a construction? Has it ever shown a tendency towards developing one? How did two closely related languages such as English and High German come to differ so much with respect to these constructions? By means of investigating a variety of historical and contemporary data this study shows that not only semantic, pragmatic and syntactic factors are involved, which decide the choice of a certain construction, but also very much the more general different linguistic development that the two languages underwent in the course of time.
- By : Geoffrey Steven Nathan
- English language
The syntax and semantics of the English existential construction
Author: Geoffrey Steven Nathan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages : 142
Book Description
- By : Henrik Høeg Müller
Essays on Nominal Determination
Author: Henrik Høeg Müller
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027231109
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 392
Book Description
This volume brings together scholars of diverse theoretical persuasions who all share an interest in capturing the role that nominal determination and reference assignment play in the complicated interplay between thought, language and communication. The articles can be divided roughly into five main areas of concern: the conceptual level of determination; the emergence and function of articles; their semantic contribution to nominal interpretation; the morphology and syntax of determiners; and the interplay and contrasts between articles, demonstratives and possessives. Thus, linguistic and philosophical issues in the subject field of nominal determination are addressed at all interface levels between morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. This volume shows that different theoretical frameworks may be brought fruitfully together in the effort to formulate new analyses of well-known problems, but also to raise new questions and point to new areas which may prove interesting topics for future research both in functional and formal paradigms.
- By : Artemis Alexiadou
The Syntax of Argument Structure
Author: Artemis Alexiadou
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110757257
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 209
Book Description
Die Buchreihe Linguistische Arbeiten hat mit über 500 Bänden zur linguistischen Theoriebildung der letzten Jahrzehnte in Deutschland und international wesentlich beigetragen. Die Reihe wird auch weiterhin neue Impulse für die Forschung setzen und die zentrale Einsicht der Sprachwissenschaft präsentieren, dass Fortschritt in der Erforschung der menschlichen Sprachen nur durch die enge Verbindung von empirischen und theoretischen Analysen sowohl diachron wie synchron möglich ist. Daher laden wir hochwertige linguistische Arbeiten aus allen zentralen Teilgebieten der allgemeinen und einzelsprachlichen Linguistik ein, die aktuelle Fragestellungen bearbeiten, neue Daten diskutieren und die Theorieentwicklung vorantreiben.
- By : Delia Bentley
- Foreign Language Study
Existentials and Locatives in Romance Dialects of Italy
Author: Delia Bentley
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198745265
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 331
Book Description
This volume provides the first ever large-scale comparative treatment of there sentences (there copula NP), reporting the results of a survey of Italo-Romance and Sardinian dialects of Italy. The volume comprises detailed discussions of focus structure, predication and argument realization, the definiteness effects, and the linking from semantics to syntax in there sentences, advancing novel proposals in each case. The testing of influential hypotheses on existential constructions against first-hand dialect evidence leads the book to argue that existential and locative there sentences differ in focus structure and semantics, although their not being predicate focus constructions and the non-canonicality of the predicate?which is typically referential'is reflected in their shared morphosyntactic features. The hypothesis that the pivot is the predicate of the existential construction is adopted in the analysis, although a distinction is drawn between referential and non-referential pivots, which explains variation in pivot behaviour in morphosyntax. The volume also provides the historical background of Romance there sentences, relying on the findings of the analysis of a substantial corpus of early Italo-Romance vernacular texts.
- By : Anastasia Giannakidou
Quantification, Definiteness, and Nominalization
Author: Anastasia Giannakidou
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191562017
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 432
Book Description
This book addresses recent developments in the study of quantifier phrases, nominalizations, and the linking definite determiner. It reflects the intense reconsideration of the nature of quantification, and of fundamental aspects of the syntax and semantics of quantifier phrases. Leading international scholars explore novel and challenging ideas at the interfaces between syntax and morphology, syntax and semantics, morphology and the lexicon. They examine core issues in the field, such as kind reference, number marking, partitivity, context dependence and the way presuppositions are built into the meanings of quantifiers. They also consider how in this context definiteness and the definite determiner D play a central role, and the way in which D is also instrumental in nominalizations. With nominalization, the lexical semantic contribution of verbs and their arguments becomes central, and within the perspective of this book the question is asked whether syntactic nominalizations share with noun phrases the same external layer, namely the functional projection DP. If so, what exactly is the contribution of D in this case, and how much of the lexical correspondence between nouns and verbs is preserved? This book presents the latest thinking on cross-paradigm and cross-linguistic approaches in three of the most vibrant and productive research areas in linguistics. It paves the way towards a more comprehensive understanding of how quantification, definiteness, and nominalizations are encoded in the grammar.
- By : Balder D. ten Cate
- Philosophy
Logic, Language, and Computation
Author: Balder D. ten Cate
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3540751440
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
Edited in collaboration with FoLLI, the Association of Logic, Language and Information, this book represents the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 6th International Tbilisi Symposium on Logic, Language, and Computation, TbiLLC 2005, held in Batumi, Georgia. The 19 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous presentations at the symposium. The papers present current research in all aspects of linguistics, logic and computation.
- By : Geoffrey Nathan (Steven.)
The Syntax and Semantics of the English Existential Construction
Author: Geoffrey Nathan (Steven.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description