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Author: Li Chen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351268821
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 135
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Book Description
Polarity phenomena are pervasively observed in natural languages. Previous studies on Chinese polarity items are mainly in line with the non-veridicality approach. This book, however, employs the downward-entailing hypothesis as its analytical foundation, and argues that downward entailment is the only licensor for different kinds of Chinese polarity items, and non-veridicality is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition and thus offers inferior explanatory power compared with the former. To begin with, it lays the groundwork for this research by presenting a brief introduction to polarity phenomena and reviewing the existing relevant theories. Then it addresses the status of the commonly used element dou in Chinese. Specifically, it applies the tripartite structural frame to the studies of dou, and examines the role of dou in licensing the polarity items. Moreover, it investigates the properties and behavior of dou with respect to modality. Based on the analysis above, it observes that non-interrogative wh-indeterminates in Chinese can be licensed in the restriction domain of a necessity operator. Also, the non-uniformity of three Chinese polarity items, i.e., shenme, na-CL, and renhe, is scrutinized within the downward-entailing framework. This book will appeal to scholars, teachers and students in the field of linguistics, especially in the areas of formal semantics and generative grammar. Researchers and engineers in cloud computing and big data who are seeking help from linguistic contributions to meaning and logic will also benefit from it.
Author: Li Chen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351268821
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 135
Get Book Here
Book Description
Polarity phenomena are pervasively observed in natural languages. Previous studies on Chinese polarity items are mainly in line with the non-veridicality approach. This book, however, employs the downward-entailing hypothesis as its analytical foundation, and argues that downward entailment is the only licensor for different kinds of Chinese polarity items, and non-veridicality is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition and thus offers inferior explanatory power compared with the former. To begin with, it lays the groundwork for this research by presenting a brief introduction to polarity phenomena and reviewing the existing relevant theories. Then it addresses the status of the commonly used element dou in Chinese. Specifically, it applies the tripartite structural frame to the studies of dou, and examines the role of dou in licensing the polarity items. Moreover, it investigates the properties and behavior of dou with respect to modality. Based on the analysis above, it observes that non-interrogative wh-indeterminates in Chinese can be licensed in the restriction domain of a necessity operator. Also, the non-uniformity of three Chinese polarity items, i.e., shenme, na-CL, and renhe, is scrutinized within the downward-entailing framework. This book will appeal to scholars, teachers and students in the field of linguistics, especially in the areas of formal semantics and generative grammar. Researchers and engineers in cloud computing and big data who are seeking help from linguistic contributions to meaning and logic will also benefit from it.
Author: Daniel Hole
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 113437531X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 193
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Book Description
This is an investigation into the grammaticalized system of focus-background agreement in Mandarin Chinese. The particles cái, jiù, dou and ye are, in a specific use type, shown to form the core of a highly systematic paradigm. This book is not just a valuable companion for anyone interested in core aspects of Mandarin Chinese grammar. It caters for the interests of theoretical linguists as well as for linguists from other fields with an interest in information-structure, focus and contrastive topics, and quantification. The outstanding characteristic of this book, viz. its effortless integration of findings from formal semantics without heavy formal load, makes it rewarding reading both for linguists with a less formal background, and for researchers with some knowledge of formal semantics.
Author: Dongyan Chen
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527559947
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
This volume explores the implications of Chinese for linguistic theory building and for the field of second language acquisition. Bringing together selected papers from the first International Symposium on Chinese Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, it sheds light upon under-documented topics in a variety of areas within theoretical and applied research. The topics covered here include competing approaches within optimality theory to phonological opacity, formal solutions to puzzles in Shanghainese morphosyntax, and different approaches to polarity items and presentational sentences in Chinese. With regard to applied linguistics, the contributions in this volume address challenges in the acquisition of Chinese phonology by L1 Danish speakers as well as the acquisition of the Mandarin ba construction by Cantonese learners, and the expression of social judgements in the L1 and L2. Taken together, the papers in this volume contribute to the empirical documentation of aspects of the Chinese language and its acquisition, as well as helping to unpack the significance of Chinese for mainstream linguistic theory.
Author: Yuxia Wang
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1351796410
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 199
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Book Description
This book investigates the acquisition of English transitivity alternation by Chinese English learners. It suggests that the acquisition of English transitivity alternation follows as a consequence of the cognitive processing of language input, which is induced by the nature of task requirements in different learning conditions and influenced by individual differences in language learning aptitude and proficiency level.
Author: Stephen Crain
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139560298
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 307
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Book Description
Over the past forty years, scientists have developed models of human reasoning based on the principle that human languages and classical logic involve fundamentally different concepts and different methods of interpretation. In The Emergence of Meaning Stephen Crain challenges this view, arguing that a common logical nativism underpins human language and logical reasoning. The approach which Crain takes is twofold. Firstly, he uncovers the underlying meanings of logical expressions and logical principles that appear in typologically different languages - English and Mandarin Chinese - and he demonstrates that these meanings and principles directly correspond to the expressions and structures of classical logic. Secondly he reports the findings of new experimental studies which investigate how children acquire the logical concepts of these languages. A step-by-step introduction to logic and a comprehensive review of the literature on child language acquisition make this work accessible to those unfamiliar with either field.
Author: C. T. James Huang
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470655348
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 692
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Book Description
The Handbook of Chinese Linguistics is the first comprehensive introduction to Chinese linguistics from the perspective of modern theoretical and formal linguistics. Containing twenty-five chapters, the book offers a balanced, accessible and thoughtfully organized introduction to some of the most important results of research into Chinese linguistics carried out by theoretical linguists during the last thirty years. Presenting critical overviews of a wide range of major topics, it is the first to meet the great demand for an overview volume on core areas of Chinese linguistics. Authoritative contributions describe and assess the major achievements and controversies of research undertaken in each area, and provide bibliographies for further reading. The contributors refer both to their own work in relevant fields, and objectively present a range of competitor theories and analyses, resulting in a volume that is fully comprehensive in its coverage of theoretical research into Chinese linguistics in recent years. This unique Handbook is suitable both as a primary reader for structured, taught courses on Chinese linguistics at university level, and for individual study by graduates and other professional linguists.
Author: Klaus Heusinger
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110587327
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 636
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Book Description
Now available in paperback for the first time since its original publication, the material in this book provides a broad, accessible guide to semantic typology, crosslinguistic semantics and diachronic semantics. Coming from a world-leading team of authors, the book also deals with the concept of meaning in psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics, and the understanding of semantics in computer science. It is packed with highly cited, expert guidance on the key topics in the field, making it a bookshelf essential for linguists, cognitive scientists, philosophers, and computer scientists working on natural language.
Author: Barry Schein
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262193344
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 412
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Book Description
Barry Schein proposes combining a second-order treatment of plurals with Donald Davidson's suggestion that there are positions for reference to events in ordinary predicates in order to account for several of the more puzzling features of plurals without invoking plural objects, with its attendant metaphysics, and also provide an absolute truth-theoretic characterization of the semantics of sentences with plurals in them. How do we make sense of sentences with plural noun phrases in them? In Plurals and Events, Barry Schein proposes combining a second-order treatment of plurals with Donald Davidson's suggestion that there are positions for reference to events in ordinary predicates in order to account for several of the more puzzling features of plurals without invoking plural objects, with its attendant metaphysics, and also provide an absolute truth-theoretic characterization of the semantics of sentences with plurals in them. Schein's highly original argument should have significant impact on how natural-language semantics is done, with repercussions for philosophy and logic. The book opens with foundational arguments that the logical language should have four major features: reduction to singular predication via a Davidsonian logical form, amereology of events, a logical syntax that allows the constituents of a Davidsonian analysis to be predicated of distinct events and separated from one another by other logical elements, and descriptive anaphors that cross-refer to the events described by antecedent clauses. A semantics for plurality and quantification is developed in the remaining chapters, which address some of the empirical and formal questions raised by the variety of interpretations in which plurals and quantifiers participate.
Author: Mineharu Nakayama
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027265860
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 294
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Book Description
This book focuses on important methodological and theoretical issues in Chinese and Japanese L1 and L2 acquisition. All contributions discuss experiments using the Truth Value Judgment Task (TVJT), on three syntactic and semantic domains, binding, scope interaction, and wh- and logical expressions. The issues in these grammatical domains are particularly well suited for TVJT studies as the task allows for the testing of particular interpretations among alternative representations and reveals children’s and adults’ understandings of these constructions. The book is a tribute to Stephen Crain’s contribution to the field of Chinese and Japanese language acquisition within the framework of Generative Grammar. It is a state-of-the-art collection that offers a picture of cutting-edge research on children’s and adult’s Chinese and Japanese acquisition. Readers will find the book a rich source of ideas and the starting point of new projects.
Author: Stephen Crain
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521858097
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 307
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Book Description
An investigation into the underlying logic of human languages which looks at how children acquire English and Mandarin.
