Redefining Indefinites

Redefining Indefinites PDF Author: Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400730020
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
This volume explores the interpretation of indefinites and the constraints on their distribution by paying particular attention to key issues in the interface between syntax and semantics: the relation between the semantic properties of indefinite determiners and the denotation of indefinite DPs, their scope, and their behaviour in generic and conditional sentences. Examples come from French, other Romance languages and English. Central to the proposed analyses is a distinction between two types of entities, individualized entities and amounts. Weak indefinites are analyzed as existential generalized quantifiers over amounts and strong indefinites as either Skolem terms or generalized quantifiers over individualized entities. The up-to-date review of the literature and the new falsifiable proposals contained in this book will be of particular interest to linguistics students and scholars interested in the cross-linguistic semantics of indefinites.

Redefining Indefinites

Redefining Indefinites PDF Author: Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400730020
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
This volume explores the interpretation of indefinites and the constraints on their distribution by paying particular attention to key issues in the interface between syntax and semantics: the relation between the semantic properties of indefinite determiners and the denotation of indefinite DPs, their scope, and their behaviour in generic and conditional sentences. Examples come from French, other Romance languages and English. Central to the proposed analyses is a distinction between two types of entities, individualized entities and amounts. Weak indefinites are analyzed as existential generalized quantifiers over amounts and strong indefinites as either Skolem terms or generalized quantifiers over individualized entities. The up-to-date review of the literature and the new falsifiable proposals contained in this book will be of particular interest to linguistics students and scholars interested in the cross-linguistic semantics of indefinites.

Special Indefinites in Sentence and Discourse

Special Indefinites in Sentence and Discourse PDF Author: Sofiana Lindemann
Publisher: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag
ISBN: 3823302108
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
Das vorliegende Buch untersucht die semantischen und diskurs-pragmatischen Eigenschaften indefiniter Nominalphrasen. Dabei wird der Zusammenhang zwischen den folgenden zwei Faktoren untersucht: (i) der referenziellen Form (markierte indefinite Nominalphrasen vs. unmarkierte indefinite Nominalphrasen), und (ii) dem diskursstrukturierenden Potential. Durch eine sprachvergleichende Studie mit Schwerpunkt auf Englisch, Deutsch und Rumänisch, wird die Analyse der Funktionen unterschiedlicher indefiniten Nominalphrasen empirisch gestützt und weiterentwickelt. Damit wird die Arbeit zu einem besseren Verständnis von Textstruktur, den kognitiven Grundlagen von Textproduktion und Textverständnis, sowie den allgemeinen Prinzipien der Kommunikation zwischen Gesprächsteilnehmern beitragen.

Indefinites Between Latin and Romance

Indefinites Between Latin and Romance PDF Author: Chiara Gianollo
Publisher: Oxford Studies in Diachronic a
ISBN: 0198812663
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
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.

Epistemic Indefinites

Epistemic Indefinites PDF Author: Luis Alonso-Ovalle
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019966529X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
This book examines the semantics and pragmatics of determiners or pronouns that signal ignorance on the part of the speaker, such as Spanish algun. It offers novel empirical observations and important theoretical insights on epistemic indefinites and related topics such as modal free relatives, modified numerals, and epistemic modals.

Indefinite Pronouns

Indefinite Pronouns PDF Author: Martin Haspelmath
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 0198235607
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
This book is the first comprehensive and encyclopaedic investigation of indefinite pronouns (expressions like someone, anything, nowhere) in the languages of the world. It shows that the range of variation in the functional and formal properties of indefinite pronouns is subject to a set of universal implicational constraints, and proposes explanations for these universals.

Pronouns

Pronouns PDF Author: Horst J. Simon
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027227737
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
The contributions of this thematic collection center around the typology of pronominal paradigms, the generation of syntactic and semantic representations for constructions containing pronouns, and the neurological underpinnings for linguistic distinctions that are relevant for the production and interpretation of these constructions. They come from different theoretical approaches and methodological backgrounds and take into account data from a wide range of Indoeuropean and non-Indoeuropean languages. Bringing together a cross-section of recent research on the grammar and representation of pronouns, the volume offers a kaleidoscope of studies united by the common topic of pronouns as a domain of language that exemplarily shows the interaction of different components responsible for computational (syntactic and semantic), lexical, and discourse-pragmatic processes.

A Presuppositional Analysis of Specific Indefinites

A Presuppositional Analysis of Specific Indefinites PDF Author: Jae-Il Yeom
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317776534
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
First published in 1998. In this book the author presents the view that although many linguists have been interested in specific indefinites, their theories are not quite satisfactory in that they have only tried to explore some aspects of specific indefinites. This paper assumes a standard notion of specificity, i.e., the notion of someone having-in-mind an individual or a relation. Under this assumption, there is an attempt to review previous studies on specific indefinites, and propose a new theory of specificity which I believe can capture all aspects which the previous studies have explored. This leads us to a new information theory which is partially representational and partially denotational., and which is useful for dealing with conversational aspects, like the distinction between the speaker and the audience.

The World Atlas of Language Structures

The World Atlas of Language Structures PDF Author: Martin Haspelmath
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191531243
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 712

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Book Description
The World Atlas of Language Structures is a book and CD combination displaying the structural properties of the world's languages. 142 world maps and numerous regional maps - all in colour - display the geographical distribution of features of pronunciation and grammar, such as number of vowels, tone systems, gender, plurals, tense, word order, and body part terminology. Each world map shows an average of 400 languages and is accompanied by a fully referenced description of the structural feature in question. The CD provides an interactive electronic version of the database which allows the reader to zoom in on or customize the maps, to display bibliographical sources, and to establish correlations between features. The book and the CD together provide an indispensable source of information for linguists and others seeking to understand human languages. The Atlas will be especially valuable for linguistic typologists, grammatical theorists, historical and comparative linguists, and for those studying a region such as Africa, Southeast Asia, North America, Australia, and Europe. It will also interest anthropologists and geographers. More than fifty authors from many different countries have collaborated to produce a work that sets new standards in comparative linguistics. No institution involved in language research can afford to be without it.

Case, Referentiality, and Phrase Structure

Case, Referentiality, and Phrase Structure PDF Author: Balk?z Öztürk
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027228017
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
This book proposes that the two independent conditions on argumenthood, namely, case and referentiality, are strongly correlated and have to be associated with each other in syntax as syntactic features. It shows that languages exhibit variation in the way this association is implemented in their syntax, which presents an explanation for the differences observed in their phrase structure in terms of (non-)configurationality. Thus, this book not only presents an innovative overarching theory for case and referentiality, but also aims to bring a new look at the issues of (non-)configurationality. It specifically argues for parameterization of functional categories associated with case and referentiality, which has certain implications not only for the acquisition but also for the diachronic development of functional categories. Providing rich comparative data from typologically different languages such as Turkish, Chinese, Hungarian, English and Japanese, this book is of particular interest to typologists as well.

Indefinite Pronouns

Indefinite Pronouns PDF Author: Martin Haspelmath
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 019829963X
Category : Comparative linguistics
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Presents an encyclopaedic investigation of indefinite pronouns in the languages of the world. This book shows that the range of variation in the functional and formal properties of indefinite pronouns is subject to a set of universal implicational constraints, and proposes explanations for these universals.