The Conduct of Linguistic Inquiry

The Conduct of Linguistic Inquiry PDF Author: Rudolf P. Botha
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110822946
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description

The Conduct of Linguistic Inquiry

The Conduct of Linguistic Inquiry PDF Author: Rudolf P. Botha
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110822946
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description


The Reflexivity of Language and Linguistic Inquiry

The Reflexivity of Language and Linguistic Inquiry PDF Author: Dorthe Duncker
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351060376
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
This book explores the reflexivity of language both from the perspective of the lay speaker and the linguistic analyst. Linguistic inquiry is conditional upon linguistic reflexivity, but so is language. Without linguistic reflexivity, we would not be able to make sense of everyday linguistic communication, and the idea of a language would not be conceivable. Not even fundamental notions such as words or meaning would exist. Linguistic reflexivity is a feature of the communication process, and it essentially depends on situated participants and time. It is a defining characteristic of the human language but despite its obvious importance, it is not very well understood theoretically, and it is strangely under-researched empirically. Throughout history and in modern linguistics, it has mostly either been taken for granted, misconstrued, or ignored. Only integrational linguistics fully recognizes its specifically linguistic implications. However, integrational linguistics does not provide the necessary methodological basis for investigating linguistic phenomena empirically. This catch-22 situation means that the goal of the book is twofold: one part is to explore the reflexivity of language theoretically, and the other part is to propose an applied integrational linguistics and to implement this proposal in practice.

The Architecture of the Language Faculty

The Architecture of the Language Faculty PDF Author: Ray Jackendoff
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262600255
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Ray Jackendoff steps back to survey the broader theoretical landscape in linguistics, in an attempt to identify some of the sources of the widely perceived malaise with respect to much current theorizing. Over the past twenty-five years, Ray Jackendoff has investigated many complex issues in syntax, semantics, and the relation of language to other cognitive domains. He steps back in this new book to survey the broader theoretical landscape in linguistics, in an attempt to identify some of the sources of the widely perceived malaise with respect to much current theorizing. Starting from the "Minimalist" necessity for interfaces of the grammar with sound, meaning, and the lexicon, Jackendoff examines many standard assumptions of generative grammar that in retrospect may be seen as the product of historical accident. He then develops alternatives more congenial to contemporary understanding of linguistic phenomena. The Architecture of the Language Faculty seeks to situate the language capacity in a more general theory of mental representations and to connect the theory of grammar with processing. To this end, Jackendoff works out an architecture that generates multiple co-constraining structures, and he embeds this proposal in a version of the modularity hypothesis called Representational Modularity. Jackendoff carefully articulates the nature of lexical insertion and the content of lexical entries, including idioms and productive affixes. The resulting organization of the grammar is compatible with many different technical realizations, which he shows can be instantiated in terms of a variety of current theoretical frameworks. Linguistic Inquiry Monograph No. 28

Some Concepts and Consequences of the Theory of Government and Binding

Some Concepts and Consequences of the Theory of Government and Binding PDF Author: Noam Chomsky
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262530422
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
Noam Chomsky, more than any other researcher, has radically restructured the study of human language over the past several decades. While the study of government and binding is an outgrowth of Chomsky's earlier work in transformational grammar, it represents a significant shift in focus and a new direction of investigation into the fundamentals of linguistic theory.This monograph consolidates and extends this new approach. It serves as a concise introduction to government-binding theory, applies it to several new domains of empirical data, and proposes some revisions to the principles of the theory that lead to greater unification, descriptive scope, and explanatory depth.Earlier work in the theory of grammar was concerned primarily with rule systems. The accent in government-binding theory, however, is on systems of principles of universal grammar. In the course of this book, Chomsky proposes and evaluates various general principles that limit and constrain the types of rules that are possible, and the ways they interact and function. In particular, he proposes that rule systems are in fact highly restricted in variety: only a finite number of grammars are attainable in principle, and these fall into a limited set of types. Another consequence of this shift in focus is the change of emphasis from derivations to representations. The major topic in the study of syntactic representations is the analysis of empty categories, which is a central theme of the book. After his introductory comments and a chapter on the variety of rule system, Chomsky takes up, in turn, the general properties of empty categories, the functional determination of empty categories, parasitic gaps, and binding theory and the typology of empty categories. The book is the sixth in the series Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, edited by Samuel Jay Keyser.

Linguistic Inquiry

Linguistic Inquiry PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Language and languages
Languages : en
Pages : 806

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Book Description
Research on current topics in linguistic theory, including new theoretical developments based on the latest international discoveries.

A Syntax of Substance

A Syntax of Substance PDF Author: David Adger
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262518309
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
A new approach to grammar and meaning of relational nouns is presented along with its empirical consequences.

(Re)labeling

(Re)labeling PDF Author: Carlo Cecchetto
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262028727
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
This book owes its title to a simple idea: words are special because they can provide a label for nothing when they merge with some other category. An exemplification of this special power of words is introduced by the familiar head-complement configurations. For example, the structure that is created when a verb and a direct object DP are merged receives a label from the verb, namely it is a VP. One idea that unifies the linguistic analyses presented in this book is that a word can provide the label even in case of movement.

Syntax of Scope

Syntax of Scope PDF Author: Joseph Aoun
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262510684
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Syntax of Scope takes up the issue of relative operator scope in generative grammar and offers a comparative study of quantifiers and interrogative wh-operators.

Restriction and Saturation

Restriction and Saturation PDF Author: Sandra Chung
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262262156
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
With this study of Maori and Chamorro, Sandra Chung and William Ladusaw make a valuable contribution to the growing literature on the formal semantic analysis of non-Indo-European languages. Their ultimate focus is on how the study of these Austronesian languages can illuminate the alternatives for semantic interpretation and their interaction with syntactic structure. Revisiting the analysis of indefiniteness in terms of restricted free variables, they claim that some varieties of indefinites are better analyzed by taking restriction and saturation to be fundamental semantic operations.Chapters examine the general topic of modes of composition (including predicate restriction and syntactic versus semantic saturation), types of indefinite determiners in Maori, and object incorporation in Chamorro (including discussions of the extra object and restriction without saturation). The authors' goal is that the two case studies they offer, and their larger focus on modes of composition, will contribute to a broader account of the interaction of form, position, and semantic interpretation.

Economy and Semantic Interpretation

Economy and Semantic Interpretation PDF Author: Danny Fox
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262561211
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Exploring the relevance of principles of optimization to the interface between syntax and semantics. In Economy and Semantic Interpretation, Danny Fox investigates the relevance of principles of optimization (economy) to the interface between syntax and semantics. Supporting the view that grammar is restricted by economy considerations, Fox argues for various economy conditions that constrain the application of covert operations. Among other things, he argues that syntactic operations that do not affect phonology cannot apply unless they affect the semantic interpretation of a sentence. This position has a number of consequences for the architecture of grammar. For example, it suggests that the modularity assumption, according to which a language's syntax must be characterized independently of its semantics, needs to be revised. Another consequence concerns new answers to the question of exactly where in the syntactic derivation the various constraints on interpretation apply. Linguistic Inquiry Monograph No. 35Copublished with the MIT Working Papers in Linguistics series.