Norwegian Discourse Ellipsis

Norwegian Discourse Ellipsis PDF Author: Mari Nygård
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027264376
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
This book develops a grammar model which accounts for discourse ellipses in spoken Norwegian. This is a previously unexplored area, which has also been sparsely investigated internationally. The model takes an exoskeletal view, where lexical items are inserted late and where syntactic structure is generated independently of lexical items. Two major questions are addressed. Firstly, is there active syntactic structure in the ellipsis site? Secondly, how are discourse ellipses licensed? It is argued that both structural and semantic restrictions are required to account for the empirical patterns. Discourse ellipses can be seen as a contextual adaptation. Ellipsis is only possible in certain contexts. The existence of ellipsis may lead to the impression that syntax is partly destroyed. However, the analysis shows that narrow syntax is not affected. The underlying structure stays intact, as the licensing restrictions concern only phonological realization. Hence, the grammar of discourse ellipses is best characterized as an interface phenomenon.

Norwegian Discourse Ellipsis

Norwegian Discourse Ellipsis PDF Author: Mari Nygård
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027264376
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
This book develops a grammar model which accounts for discourse ellipses in spoken Norwegian. This is a previously unexplored area, which has also been sparsely investigated internationally. The model takes an exoskeletal view, where lexical items are inserted late and where syntactic structure is generated independently of lexical items. Two major questions are addressed. Firstly, is there active syntactic structure in the ellipsis site? Secondly, how are discourse ellipses licensed? It is argued that both structural and semantic restrictions are required to account for the empirical patterns. Discourse ellipses can be seen as a contextual adaptation. Ellipsis is only possible in certain contexts. The existence of ellipsis may lead to the impression that syntax is partly destroyed. However, the analysis shows that narrow syntax is not affected. The underlying structure stays intact, as the licensing restrictions concern only phonological realization. Hence, the grammar of discourse ellipses is best characterized as an interface phenomenon.

Norwegian Verb Particles

Norwegian Verb Particles PDF Author: Leiv Inge Aa
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027260834
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
This book aims to explain the syntax and semantics of Norwegian verb particles. While particles have been claimed to be distributed optionally to the left (as LPrt) or right (as RPrt) of an associated DP in the linguistic literature, the dialectologically oriented literature has shown for a long time that many Norwegian particles are preferred as LPrt (corresponding to English ‘throw out the dog’). While spatial particles can appear in both positions, non-spatial particles primarily appear as LPrt. A complex predicate analysis is adopted for non-spatial particles, and a small clause analysis for spatial particles. It is argued that a non-spatial LPrt construction triggers an atelic reading, and the RPrt counterpart identifies a result state. The book combines traditional dialectology with modern linguistic theories and includes much Norwegian data that has not been shed theoretical light on before: simplex and complex spatial and non-spatial constructions, phrasal particles, ground promotion, and unaccusatives. Several earlier theoretical accounts of Norwegian particles are reviewed in a separate chapter.

The Derivational Timing of Ellipsis

The Derivational Timing of Ellipsis PDF Author: Güliz Güneş
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198849494
Category : Grammar, Comparative and general
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
This volume explores the nature of ellipsis, the core phenomenon that results in various types of omission in sentences. The chapters adopt the popular 'silent structure' accounts of ellipsis, and investigate the question of when linguistic material becomes silenced during the derivation and realization of syntactic structure. The book begins with a detailed introduction from the editors that outlines the current generative syntactic approaches to the derivational timing of ellipsis. In the chapters that follow, internationally-recognized experts in the field address key topics including structure building, the architecture of grammar, the interaction of distinct modules with syntax, the order of operations in the post-syntactic component, and constraints on binding relations. The authors also present novel arguments for and against the derivational approaches to ellipsis, the licensing of ellipsis, and phonological constraints on elliptical sentences. The findings, based on data from English and other languages such as Armenian, Italo-Romance, Ossetic, Spanish, Taiwanese, and Turkish, facilitate a deeper understanding of the interaction between syntax and the neighbouring modules in the formation of elliptical utterances.

The Sociolinguistics of Grammar

The Sociolinguistics of Grammar PDF Author: Tor A. Åfarli
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027270511
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
The aim of this book is to investigate and attain new insights on how and to what extent the wider sociolinguistic context of language use and contact impinges on formal grammatical structures. The papers contained in the book approach this important problem from various points of view by focusing on language evolution and change, on multilingualism, language mixing and dialect variation, on spoken language, and on creole languages. Given the theoretical perspectives, methodological focus, and analyses, the book will be of interest to theoretical linguists as well as sociolinguists, from undergraduate students to researchers.

The Syntax of Mainland Scandinavian

The Syntax of Mainland Scandinavian PDF Author: Jan Terje Faarlund
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019255008X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
This book explores the syntactic structures of Mainland Scandinavian, a term that covers the Northern Germanic languages spoken in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and parts of Finland. The continuum of mutually intelligible standard languages, regional varieties, and dialects stretching from southern Jutland to eastern Finland share many syntactic patterns and features, but also present interesting syntactic differences. In this volume, Jan Terje Faarlund discusses the main syntactic features of the national languages, alongside the most widespread or typologically interesting features of the non-standard varieties. Each topic is illustrated with examples drawn from reference grammars, research literature, corpora of various sorts, and the author's own research. The framework is current generative grammar, but the volume is descriptive in nature, with technical formalities and theoretical discussion kept to a minimum. It will hence be a valuable reference for students and researchers working on any Scandinavian language, as well as for syntacticians and typologists interested in Scandinavian facts and data without necessarily being able to read Scandinavian.

On Words and Sounds

On Words and Sounds PDF Author: Kamila Dębowska-Kozłowska
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443832251
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
The present volume On Words and Sounds is a collection of selected papers from PLM 2009. The Poznań Linguistic Meeting (PLM) is an annual international general linguistics conference. The book consists of fifteen articles, each of which can be read separately or in relation to others. The book will definitely appeal to the academic readership interested in linguistic disciplines such as: phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, sociolinguistics, pragmatics and clinical linguistics. Collectively, the contributions investigate the interrelationships among those disciplines as well as between language and music. The central aim for the scholars was to explore the PLM 2009 leitmotif “Variants, Variability, Variation” and show that the complete study of language involves diversified frameworks often rooted in interdisciplinary approaches.

The Perfect Volume

The Perfect Volume PDF Author: Kristin Melum Eide
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027259992
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 495

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Book Description
Drawing on the data and history from a wide range of languages, from Atayal to Zapotec, this volume brings together leading scholars in the field of tense and aspect research resulting in 18 contributions on the perfect and some of its close relatives (e.g. iamitives). Different approaches complement each other to shed light on the source, emergence, grammaticalization, and the typological extension of perfect constructions cross-linguistically. One focal point is the so-called aoristic drift, where the perfect comes to resemble the simple past or aorist (often via the hodiernal ‘today’ reading). The semantics and pragmatics of perfects are also investigated through their interaction with other categories (e.g. negation, mood). Over time some perfects undergo auxiliary doubling or omission, or the auxiliary becomes subject to selection. These facts also receive special attention in this book, presenting new insights on perfects in both well-studied as well as very understudied languages.

The Syntax of Ellipsis

The Syntax of Ellipsis PDF Author: Jeroen Van Craenenbroeck
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199704910
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
The Syntax of Ellipsis investigates a number of elliptical constructions found in Dutch dialects within the framework of the Minimalist Program. Using two case studies, Van Craenenbroeck argues that both the PF-deletion and the pro-theory of ellipsis are needed to account for the full range of elliptical phenomena attested in natural language. The first case study focuses on instances of stranding to the right of a sluiced wh-phrase: prepositions in English (What about?) and demonstrative pronouns in southern Dutch dialects (Wie dat? 'who that'). Van Craenenbroeck gives both of these phenomena a PF-deletion analysis, which turns out to have considerable repercussions for the structure of the left periphery and the syntax of wh-movement. Specifically, while minimal wh-phrases move from their IP-internal base position to specCP, complex ones are base-generated in the (split) left periphery. The second case study is concerned with Short Do Replies in southern Dutch dialects, a type of contradictory reply that at first sight bears a close resemblance to English VP-ellipsis. Van Craenenbroeck shows that in this case the ellipsis site is best represented as a null, structureless proform that is licensed by the head of a high PolP. Moreover, this pronominal is argued to occur in two other dialectal constructions as well: contradictory replies of the type Da's nie 'that is not' found in Brabant Dutch, and the occurrence of subject clitics and agreement endings on the words for yes and no in Southern Dutch dialects (e.g. Ja-n-s 'yes-PLURAL-they'). The Syntax of Ellipsis will be of interest to scholars of the left periphery, wh-movement, and Dutch dialects.

Referential Null Subjects in Early English

Referential Null Subjects in Early English PDF Author: Kristian A. Rusten
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192535765
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
This book offers a large-scale quantitative investigation of referential null subjects as they occur in Old, Middle, and Early Modern English. Using corpus linguistic methods, and drawing on five corpora of early English, it empirically examines the occurrence of subjectless finite clauses in more than 500 early English texts, spanning nearly 850 years. On the basis of this substantial data, Kristian A. Rusten re-evaluates previous conflicting claims concerning the occurrence and distribution of null subjects in Old English. He explores the question of whether the earliest stage of English can be considered a canonical or partial pro-drop language, and provides an empirical examination of the role played by central licensors of null subjects proposed in the theoretical literature. The predictions of two important pragmatic accounts of null arguments are also tested. Throughout, the book builds its arguments primarily by means of powerful statistical tools, including generalized fixed-effects and mixed-effects logistic regression modelling. The volume is the most comprehensive examination of null subjects in the history of English to date, and will be of interest to syntacticians, historical linguists, and those working in English and Germanic linguistics more widely.

Cycle Of Discourse

Cycle Of Discourse PDF Author: Tantri R. Indhiarti, M.A.; Eni Maharsi, M.A.
Publisher: Media Nusa Creative (MNC Publishing)
ISBN: 6024624263
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Furthermore, in this book, discourse analysis is treated as a rigorous way in texts that are organised as a series of overviews of the research topics such as narrative media discourse, gender and discourse, and institutional discourse throughout the social sciences. As seen in the book, the writers set out to answer many kinds of questions about language and about culture and society. It is performed by paying systematic attention to particular contexts and particular sets of utterances. This will help alleviate a problem in teaching discourse analysis that of ending up with the students who are unable to perform analyses going much beyond paraphrasing.