Interrogative Phrases and the Syntax-Semantics Interface

Interrogative Phrases and the Syntax-Semantics Interface PDF Author: I. Comorovski
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401586888
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Interrogative Phrases and the Syntax-Semantics Interface starts by analyzing the interpretation of interrogative phrases in single and multiple constituent questions, including their interpretation under adverbs of quantification. The results are then put to work in a novel approach to some of the constraints on dependencies between fronted interrogative phrases and the associated gaps: superiority, weak crossover, as well as the so-called `weak islands' (the WH-island, the negative island and the Factive Island). It is argued that the possibility of fronting an interrogative phrase out of these configurations is determined by a semantic/pragmatic condition on questions, which requires them to be answerable. The analysis is worked out principally on Romanian, a language which allows multiple wh-fronting. The results are then extended to English. Audience: Researchers and students in syntax, semantics and their interface, as well as linguists studying the relation between the acceptability of sentences and the larger discourse context.

Interrogative Phrases and the Syntax-Semantics Interface

Interrogative Phrases and the Syntax-Semantics Interface PDF Author: I. Comorovski
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401586888
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Interrogative Phrases and the Syntax-Semantics Interface starts by analyzing the interpretation of interrogative phrases in single and multiple constituent questions, including their interpretation under adverbs of quantification. The results are then put to work in a novel approach to some of the constraints on dependencies between fronted interrogative phrases and the associated gaps: superiority, weak crossover, as well as the so-called `weak islands' (the WH-island, the negative island and the Factive Island). It is argued that the possibility of fronting an interrogative phrase out of these configurations is determined by a semantic/pragmatic condition on questions, which requires them to be answerable. The analysis is worked out principally on Romanian, a language which allows multiple wh-fronting. The results are then extended to English. Audience: Researchers and students in syntax, semantics and their interface, as well as linguists studying the relation between the acceptability of sentences and the larger discourse context.

On the Semantics of Wh-Clauses

On the Semantics of Wh-Clauses PDF Author: Stephen Berman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134998929
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
First published in 1994, this book is concerned with certain kinds of wh-clauses, whose interpretations are easily and, the author argues, plausibly rendered by a logicosemantic analysis on which wh-phrases translate as open sentences, that is, as expressions of the semantically interpreted representation which contain free variables. After a review of influential contemporary analyses of the semantics of questions, concentrating on issues related to the truthconditional interpretation of these constructions, the author goes on to analyse logicosemantic similarities between wh-phrases and indefinite NPs. This analysis is extended in chapter V to account for asymmetries between wh-phrases and indefinites, but is preceded by the engagement and refutation of some of the challenges to it. The appendices discuss some peripheral points relating to the central points made by the author which are in need of further study.

Ways of Scope Taking

Ways of Scope Taking PDF Author: A. Szabolcsi
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401158142
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
The present volume is as much a book co-authored by all the contributors as it is an edited collection of their papers. Most of the contributors have been involved in regular discussions over the past years, often inspiring the questions, or some aspects of the proposals, in each other's papers or actually collaborating on co-authored papers. ! For this reason, the contributions make related assumptions and explore highly related issues. The organization of the volume reflects this unity of aims and interests. It starts out with an overview of some of the shared formal background, and the chapters are arranged in a sequence that is intended to invite the reader to proceed from one directly to the next. Nevertheless, there has been no attempt to eliminate individual differences in either assumptions or choice of topic. All the chapters are entirely self-contained, so the reader will find it equally possible to read any of them in isolation. Two members of the UCLA community do not appear in this volume but have been an important source of inspiration for this project: Ed Keenan and Feng-hsi Liu. Many of Keenan's works have drawn attention to the empirically diverse behavior of natural language determiners and developed theoretical tools for studying them. Liu's 1990 dissertation examined the abilities of a representative sample of noun phrases to participate in scopal dependencies and branching, coming up with provocative generalizations and pointing out their significance for then-standard theories in powerful terms.

Questions and Answers in Embedded Contexts

Questions and Answers in Embedded Contexts PDF Author: Utpal Lahiri
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780199246526
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Linguists have realized for some time that predicates of the "know" and "wonder" classes behave differently in semantic terms with respect to their interrogative complements, but have not so far fully understood how or why. This book seeks to explore and to provide solutions to this and to related problems in explaining the meaning and grammar of embedded interrogatives and the predicates that take interrogative complements (indirect questions and how they are answered).

Handbook of Logic and Language

Handbook of Logic and Language PDF Author: Johan F.A.K. van Benthem
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0444537279
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 1169

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Book Description
The logical study of language is becoming more interdisciplinary, playing a role in fields such as computer science, artificial intelligence, cognitive science and game theory. This new edition, written by the leading experts in the field, presents an overview of the latest developments at the interface of logic and linguistics as well as a historical perspective. It is divided into three parts covering Frameworks, General Topics and Descriptive Themes. - Completely revised and updated - includes over 25% new material - Discusses the interface between logic and language - Many of the authors are creators or active developers of the theories

Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports

Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Aeronautics
Languages : en
Pages : 880

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Book Description
Lists citations with abstracts for aerospace related reports obtained from world wide sources and announces documents that have recently been entered into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Database.

Questions

Questions PDF Author: Veneeta Dayal
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019166703X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
This book synthesizes and integrates 40 years of research on the semantics of questions, and its interface with pragmatics and syntax, conducted within the formal semantics tradition. A wide range of topics are covered, including weak-strong exhaustiveness, maximality, functional answers, single-multiple-trapped list answers, embedding predicates, quantificational variability, concealed questions, weak islands, polar and alternative questions, negative polarity, and non-canonical questions. The literature on this rich set of topics, theoretically diverse and scattered across multiple venues, is often hard to assimilate. Veneeta Dayal, drawing on her own research, brings them together for the first time in a coherent, concise, and well-structured whole. Each chapter begins with a non-technical introduction to the issues discussed; semantically sophisticated accounts are then presented incrementally, with the major points summarized at the end of each section. Written in an accessible style, this book provides both a guide to one of the most vibrant areas of research in natural language and an account of how this area of study is developing. It will be a unique resource for the novice and expert alike, and seeks to appeal to a variety of readers without compromising depth and breadth of coverage.

Locality in WH Quantification

Locality in WH Quantification PDF Author: Veneeta Dayal
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401148082
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
Locality in WH Quantification argues that Logical Form, the level that mediates between syntax and semantics, is derived from S-structure by strictly local movement. The primary data for the claim of locality at LF is drawn from Hindi but English data is used in discussing the semantics of questions and relative clauses. The book takes a cross-linguistic perspective showing how the Hindi and English facts can be brought to bear on the theory of universal grammar. There are several phenomena generally thought to involve long-distance dependencies at LF, such as scope marking, long-distance list answers and correlatives. In this book they are handled by explicating novel types of local relationships that interrogative and relative clauses can enter. Amore articulated semantics is shown leading to a simpler syntax. Among other issues addressed is the switch from uniqueness/maximality effects in single WH constructions to list readings in multiple WH constructions. These effects are captured by adapting the treatment of WH expressions as quantifying over functions to the cases of multiple WH questions and correlatives. List readings due to functional dependencies are systematically distinguished from those that are based on plurality.

Routledge Library Editions: Semantics and Semiology

Routledge Library Editions: Semantics and Semiology PDF Author: Various Authors
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1315520281
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 3362

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Book Description
Semantics and semiology are two of the most important branches of linguistics and have proven to be fecund areas for research. They examine language structures and how they are dictated by both the meanings and forms of communication employed — semantics by focusing on the denotation of words and fixed word combinations, and semiology by studying sign and sign processes. As numerous interrelated fields connect to and sub-disciplines branch off from these major spheres, they are essential to a thorough grounding in linguistics and crucial for further study. ‘Routledge Library Editions: Semantics and Semiology’ collects together wide-ranging works of scholarship that together provide a comprehensive overview of the preceding theoretical landscape, and expand and extend it in numerous directions. A number of interrelated disciplines are also discussed in conjunction with semantics and semiology such as anaphora, pragmatics, syntax, discourse analysis and the philosophy of language. This set reissues 14 books originally published between 1960 to 2000 and will be of interest to students of linguistics and the philosophy of language.

Pronouns, Presuppositions, and Hierarchies

Pronouns, Presuppositions, and Hierarchies PDF Author: Andrew Carnie
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135082340
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
Eloise Jelinek was a leading authority on syntactic and semantic theory, information structure, and several Native American languages (including Lummi, Yaqui, and Navajo). She was one of the very first generative linguists who brought the theoretical implications of the properties of typologically unusual and understudied languages to the forefront of mainstream generative thinking. Jelinek originated the Pronominal Argument Hypothesis – the idea that many languages restrict realization of their arguments to pronouns. In other work, Jelinek investigated a broad range of morphological, syntactic and semantic phenomena in understudied and endangered languages. Besides the theoretical value of that work, it was instrumental in providing sophisticated semantic and syntactic documentation for such languages, where description is typically limited to the basic morphophonology and morphosyntax, as well as texts, that form the core of most descriptive work. Thirteen of her most important papers, together with a fourteenth essay previously unpublished, are here collected, each preceded by a short introduction that provides context for the work and evidence of its subsequent influence.