Polarity-Sensitive Expressions

Polarity-Sensitive Expressions PDF Author: Hideki Kishimoto
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110755122
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 472

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Book Description
Polarity (positive, negative) is one of the most fundamental concepts in the system of language and there are many expressions that are sensitive to polarity. For example, any in English and wh-mo in Japanese appear in negative contexts, but not in positive contexts. While previous studies have shown that polarity-sensitive expressions are a general phenomenon in languages, it has also become clear that there are variations in polarity-sensitive expressions. This volume explores the variations in polarity-sensitive expressions through comparisons between Japanese and other languages, such as English, German, Spanish, and Old Japanese, and examines the environments and contexts in which polarity-sensitive expressions occur, as well as the types of (cross-linguistic) variation allowed. The value of the present volume lies in its inclusion of research papers inquiring into various types of polarity-sensitive expressions, such as negative-, positive-, and discourse-sensitive polarity items as well as their variations. The research indicates new directions for the study of polarity-sensitive expressions in the fields of syntax, semantics, pragmatics, historical linguistics, corpus linguistics and psycholinguistics.

Polarity-Sensitive Expressions

Polarity-Sensitive Expressions PDF Author: Hideki Kishimoto
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110755122
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 472

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Book Description
Polarity (positive, negative) is one of the most fundamental concepts in the system of language and there are many expressions that are sensitive to polarity. For example, any in English and wh-mo in Japanese appear in negative contexts, but not in positive contexts. While previous studies have shown that polarity-sensitive expressions are a general phenomenon in languages, it has also become clear that there are variations in polarity-sensitive expressions. This volume explores the variations in polarity-sensitive expressions through comparisons between Japanese and other languages, such as English, German, Spanish, and Old Japanese, and examines the environments and contexts in which polarity-sensitive expressions occur, as well as the types of (cross-linguistic) variation allowed. The value of the present volume lies in its inclusion of research papers inquiring into various types of polarity-sensitive expressions, such as negative-, positive-, and discourse-sensitive polarity items as well as their variations. The research indicates new directions for the study of polarity-sensitive expressions in the fields of syntax, semantics, pragmatics, historical linguistics, corpus linguistics and psycholinguistics.

Expression and Interpretation of Negation

Expression and Interpretation of Negation PDF Author: Henriëtte de Swart
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9048131634
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
This study in cross-linguistic semantics deploys the framework of bi-directional Optimality Theory to develop a typology of the relationship between syntax and semantics in negation markers and negation indefinites.

Clitic and Affix Combinations

Clitic and Affix Combinations PDF Author: Lorie Heggie
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027227980
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
In this volume, the relationship between clitics and affixes and their combinatorial properties has led to a serious discussion of the interface between syntax, morphology, semantics, and phonology that draws on a variety of theoretical perspectives (e.g., HPSG , Optimality Theory, Minimalism). Clitic/affix phenomena provide a rich range of data, not only for the identification of an affix vs. clitic, but also for the best way to explain ordering constraints, some of which are contradictory. A range of languages are considered, including Romance and Slavic languages, as well as Turkish, Greek, Icelandic, Korean, and Passamaquoddy. Moreover, several articles consider dialectal microparameterization, notably in Spanish, French, and Occitan. This volume thus reflects current debate on issues such as clitic ordering constraints, the relationship of clitics to inalienable possession and the left periphery, and templatic approaches to affixes vs. clitics while examining a broad range of languages.

The Expression of Negation

The Expression of Negation PDF Author: Laurence R. Horn
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110219301
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
Negation is a sine qua non of every human language but is absent from otherwise complex systems of animal communication. In many ways, it is negation that makes us human, imbuing us with the capacity to deny, to contradict, to misrepresent, to lie, and to convey irony. The apparent simplicity of logical negation as a one-place operator that toggles truth and falsity belies the intricate complexity of the expression of negation in natural language. Not only do we find negative adverbs, verbs, copulas, quantifiers, and affixes, but the interaction of negation with other operators (including multiple iterations of negation itself) can be exceedingly complex to describe, extending (as first detailed by Otto Jespersen) to negative concord, negative incorporation, and the widespread occurrence of negative polarity items whose distribution is subject to principles of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. The chapters in this book survey the patterning of negative utterances in natural languages, spanning such foundational issues as how negative sentences are realized cross-linguistically and how that realization tends to change over time, how negation is acquired by children, how it is processed by adults, and how its expression changes over time. Specific chapters offer focused empirical studies of negative polarity, pleonastic negation, and negative/quantifier scope interaction, as well as detailed examinations of the form and function of sentential negation in modern Romance languages and Classical Japanese.

A Unified Theory of Polarity Sensitivity

A Unified Theory of Polarity Sensitivity PDF Author: Ahmad Alqassas
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197554881
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Polarity sensitivity is a ubiquitous phenomenon involving expressions such as anybody, nobody, ever, never, somebody and their counterparts in other languages. These expressions belong to different classes such as negative and positive polarity, negative concord, and negative indefinites. In this book, Ahmad Alqassas proposes a unified approach to the study of this phenomenon that relies on examining the interaction between the various types of polarity sensitivity, with a particular focus on Arabic. Alqassas shows that treating this interaction is fundamental for scrutinizing their licensing conditions. Alqassas draws on data from Standard Arabic and the major regional dialects represented by Jordanian, Egyptian, Moroccan, and Qatari. Through the (micro)comparative approach, Alqassas explains the distributional contrasts with a minimal set of universal syntactic operations such as Merge, Move, and Agree. He also considers a fine-grained inventory of negative formal features for polarity items and their licensors. These simple features paint a complex landscape of polarity and lead to important conclusions about syntactic computation. By engaging with the rich but under-studied landscape of Arabic polarity sensitivity, this book provides a new perspective on the syntax-semantic interface and develops a unified syntactic analysis for polarity sensitivity. These contributions have important implications for the study of Arabic and for syntactic theory more generally.

The polyfunctionality of 'still' expressions

The polyfunctionality of 'still' expressions PDF Author: Bastian Persohn
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3961104751
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 783

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Book Description
Expressions from the semasiological domain of phasal polarity (ʻstillʼ, ʻalreadyʼ, etc.) tend to be highly polyfunctional, with their various uses often extending into a wide range of other linguistic domains, both time-related and non-temporal. Yet these patterns have hitherto been investigated mostly for individual languages or smaller groups. This volume presents the first ever larger-scale survey of the numerous functions of expressions whose meanings include the notion of ʻstill’, making use of a global sample of 76 varieties from 45 distinct phyla. It is aimed at semanticists, typologists and descriptive grammarians alike.

The Oxford Handbook of Negation

The Oxford Handbook of Negation PDF Author: Viviane Déprez
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192566261
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 889

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Book Description
In this volume, international experts in negation provide a comprehensive overview of cross-linguistic and philosophical research in the field, as well as accounts of more recent results from experimental linguistics, psycholinguistics, and neuroscience. The volume adopts an interdisciplinary approach to a range of fundamental questions ranging from why negation displays so many distinct linguistic forms to how prosody and gesture participate in the interpretation of negative utterances. Following an introduction from the editors, the chapters are arranged in eight parts that explore, respectively, the fundamentals of negation; issues in syntax; the syntax-semantics interface; semantics and pragmatics; negative dependencies; synchronic and diachronic variation; the emergence and acquisition of negation; and experimental investigations of negation. The volume will be an essential reference for students and researchers across a wide range of disciplines, and will facilitate further interdisciplinary work in the field.

Understanding Natural Language Understanding

Understanding Natural Language Understanding PDF Author: Erik Cambria
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031739744
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description


Investigating Language as Social (Inter-)Action

Investigating Language as Social (Inter-)Action PDF Author: Marinela Burada
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527535487
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
This volume consists of papers presented during the 15th Conference on British and American Studies, held at Transilvania University of Brașov, Romania. It reflects the work conducted by senior and junior researchers on a range of interesting topics falling into the wider scope of cognitive linguistics, language contact, translation and lexicography. The investigations reported here are streamlined into three chapters. The first, “Native Language Explorations and Acquisition”, has Romanian as its central theme. The second chapter, “Aspects of English – Insights into its Impact, Structure, and Descriptive Potential”, centres around the English language considered both as an object of academic inquiry in its own right, and against a larger cultural backdrop. The final chapter, “Translatability of Language, Translatability of Culture”, looks into matters concerning intra- and inter-linguistic translation, and their impact on intercultural communication.

Crosslinguistic Research in Syntax and Semantics

Crosslinguistic Research in Syntax and Semantics PDF Author: Raffaella Zanuttini
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 9781589013056
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Presenting cutting-edge research in syntax and semantics, this important volume furthers theoretical claims in generative linguistics and represents a significant addition to present scholarship in the field. Leading scholars present crosslinguistic studies dealing with clausal architecture, negation, and tense and aspect, and the issue of whether a statistical model can by itself capture the richness of human linguistic abilities. Taken together, these contributions elegantly show how theoretical tools can propel our understanding of language beyond pretheoretical descriptions, especially when combined with the insight and skills of linguists who can analyze difficult and complex data. Crosslinguistic Research in Syntax and Semantics covers a range of topics currently at the center of lively debate in the linguistic literature, such as the structure of the left periphery of the clause, the proper treatment of negative polarity items, and the role of statistical learning in building a model of linguistic competence. The ten original contributions offer an excellent balance of novel empirical description and theoretical analysis, applied to a wide range of languages, including Dutch, German, Irish English, Italian, Malagasy, Malay, and a number of medieval Romance languages. Scholars and students of semantics, syntax, and linguistic theory will find it to be a valuable resource for ongoing scholarship and advanced study.