Author: Doris L. Payne
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027229058
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
For some time the assumption has been widely held that for a majority of the world's languages, one can identify a "basic" order of subject and object relative to the verb, and that when combined with other facts of the language, the "basic" order constitutes a useful way of typologizing languages. New debate has arisen over varying definitions of "basic," with investigators encountering languages where branding a particular order of grammatical relations as basic yielded no particular insightfulness. This work asserts that explanatory factors behind word order variation go beyond the syntactic and are to be found in studies of how the mind grammaticizes forms, processes information, and speech act theory considerations of speakers' attempts to get their hearers to build one, rather than another, mental representation of incoming information. Thus three domains must be distinguished in understanding order variation: syntactic, cognitive and pragmatic. The works in this volume explore various aspects of this assertion.
Pragmatics of Word Order Flexibility
Author: Doris L. Payne
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027229058
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
For some time the assumption has been widely held that for a majority of the world's languages, one can identify a "basic" order of subject and object relative to the verb, and that when combined with other facts of the language, the "basic" order constitutes a useful way of typologizing languages. New debate has arisen over varying definitions of "basic," with investigators encountering languages where branding a particular order of grammatical relations as basic yielded no particular insightfulness. This work asserts that explanatory factors behind word order variation go beyond the syntactic and are to be found in studies of how the mind grammaticizes forms, processes information, and speech act theory considerations of speakers' attempts to get their hearers to build one, rather than another, mental representation of incoming information. Thus three domains must be distinguished in understanding order variation: syntactic, cognitive and pragmatic. The works in this volume explore various aspects of this assertion.
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027229058
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
For some time the assumption has been widely held that for a majority of the world's languages, one can identify a "basic" order of subject and object relative to the verb, and that when combined with other facts of the language, the "basic" order constitutes a useful way of typologizing languages. New debate has arisen over varying definitions of "basic," with investigators encountering languages where branding a particular order of grammatical relations as basic yielded no particular insightfulness. This work asserts that explanatory factors behind word order variation go beyond the syntactic and are to be found in studies of how the mind grammaticizes forms, processes information, and speech act theory considerations of speakers' attempts to get their hearers to build one, rather than another, mental representation of incoming information. Thus three domains must be distinguished in understanding order variation: syntactic, cognitive and pragmatic. The works in this volume explore various aspects of this assertion.
Pragmatic Organization of Discourse in the Languages of Europe
Author: Giuliano Bernini
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110892227
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 657
Book Description
The volume is a collection of papers reporting the results of investigations on the interaction of discourse and sentence structure in the languages of Europe. The subjects discussed in the book include: morphosyntactic characteristics of spontaneous spoken texts; different patterns of word order in a pragmatic perspective; the coding of the pragmatic functions topic and focus in sentences with non-canonical word orders (e.g. dislocations, clefts); the range of functions of verb-subject order in declarative clauses and the notion of theticity; prosodic patterns of de-accenting of given information; deixis and anaphora; coding of definiteness and article systems. The book provides the empirical basis for the comparative survey of major phenomena found in the languages of Europe which have pragmatic relevance. Beside traditional areas of investigation at the interface between syntax and pragmatics such as dislocations, new areas are explored, such as the prosody of given information. Data are considered within a functional-typological approach.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110892227
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 657
Book Description
The volume is a collection of papers reporting the results of investigations on the interaction of discourse and sentence structure in the languages of Europe. The subjects discussed in the book include: morphosyntactic characteristics of spontaneous spoken texts; different patterns of word order in a pragmatic perspective; the coding of the pragmatic functions topic and focus in sentences with non-canonical word orders (e.g. dislocations, clefts); the range of functions of verb-subject order in declarative clauses and the notion of theticity; prosodic patterns of de-accenting of given information; deixis and anaphora; coding of definiteness and article systems. The book provides the empirical basis for the comparative survey of major phenomena found in the languages of Europe which have pragmatic relevance. Beside traditional areas of investigation at the interface between syntax and pragmatics such as dislocations, new areas are explored, such as the prosody of given information. Data are considered within a functional-typological approach.
Stability, Variation and Change of Word-Order Patterns over Time
Author: Rosanna Sornicola
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027284717
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
The issue of permanence and change of word-order patterns has long been debated in both historical linguistics and structural theories. The interest in this theme has been revamped by contemporary research in typology with its emphasis on correlation or ‘harmonies’ of structures of word-order as explicative principles of both synchronic and diachronic processes. The aim of this book is to stimulate a critical reconsideration of perspectives and methods in the study of continuities and discontinuities of word-order patterns. Bringing together contributions by specialists of various theoretical backgrounds and with expertise in different language families or groups (Caucasian, Hamito-Semitic, and — among Indo-European — Hittite, Greek, Celtic, Germanic, Slavonic, Romance), the book addresses issues like the notions of stability, variation and change of word-order and their interrelations, the interplay of syntactic and pragmatic factors, and the role of internal and external factors in synchronic and diachronic dynamics of word-order. The book contains a selection of papers presented at a workshop held at the XIII International Conference on Historical Linguistics (Düsseldorf, August 1997) and additonal invited contributions.
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027284717
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
The issue of permanence and change of word-order patterns has long been debated in both historical linguistics and structural theories. The interest in this theme has been revamped by contemporary research in typology with its emphasis on correlation or ‘harmonies’ of structures of word-order as explicative principles of both synchronic and diachronic processes. The aim of this book is to stimulate a critical reconsideration of perspectives and methods in the study of continuities and discontinuities of word-order patterns. Bringing together contributions by specialists of various theoretical backgrounds and with expertise in different language families or groups (Caucasian, Hamito-Semitic, and — among Indo-European — Hittite, Greek, Celtic, Germanic, Slavonic, Romance), the book addresses issues like the notions of stability, variation and change of word-order and their interrelations, the interplay of syntactic and pragmatic factors, and the role of internal and external factors in synchronic and diachronic dynamics of word-order. The book contains a selection of papers presented at a workshop held at the XIII International Conference on Historical Linguistics (Düsseldorf, August 1997) and additonal invited contributions.
Defining Pragmatics
Author: Mira Ariel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521732034
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 349
Book Description
Research surveys in Linguistics In large domains of theoretical and empirical linguistics, scholarly communication needs are directly comparable to those in analytical and natural sciences. Conspicuously lacking in the inventory publications for linguists, compared to those in the sciences, are concise, single-authored, non-textbook reviews of rapidly evolving areas of inquiry. Research Surveys in Linguistics is intended to fill this gap. It consists of well-indexed volumes that survey topics of significant theoretical interest on which there has been a proliferation of research in the last two decades. The goal is to provide an efficient overview and entry into the primary literature for linguists - both advanced students and researchers -who wish to move into, or stay literate in, the areas covered. Series authors are recognized authorities on the subject matter as well as clear, highly organized writers. Each book offers the reader relatively tight structuring in sections and subsections and a detailed index for ease of orientation. Although there is no shortage of definitions for pragmatics (context-dependence, nontruthconditionality, implicitness, etc.), the received wisdom is that "pragmatics" simply cannot be coherently defined. In this ground-breaking book, Mira Ariel challenges the prominent definitions of pragmatics, as well as the widely held assumption that specific topics - implicatures, deixis, speech acts, politeness - naturally and uniformly belong on the pragmatics turf. She reconstitutes the field, defining grammar as a set of conventional codes, and pragmatics as a set of inferences, rationally derived. The book applies this division of labor between codes and inferences to many classical pragmatic phenomena, and even to phenomena considered "beyond pragmatics." Surprisingly, although some of these turn out pragmatic, others actually turn out grammatical. Additional intriguing questions addressed in the book include: Why is it sometimes difficult to distinguish grammar from pragmatics? Why is there no grand design behind grammar or behind pragmatics? Are all extragrammatical phenomena pragmatic? Includes a basic introduction to the main topics in pragmatics Shows how different approaches to pragmatics can be integrated with each other Based on natural, attested examples, from many languages Extra examples are available online at www.cambridge.org/ariel "In a masterful confrontation with decades of received wisdom, Mira Ariel redefines the proper task of pragmatics in a simple, crystal-clear way. An essential read."-Arie Verhagen. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics "...a new way to unify the field of linguistic pragmatics. Ariel critically surveys ten criteria for defining pragmatics, and argues for equating it with inferential as opposed to encoded meaning. She then shows how to apply the definition to the complete range of topics taken to constitute pragmatics in a broad sense."-Nancy Hedberg, Simon Fraser University
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521732034
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 349
Book Description
Research surveys in Linguistics In large domains of theoretical and empirical linguistics, scholarly communication needs are directly comparable to those in analytical and natural sciences. Conspicuously lacking in the inventory publications for linguists, compared to those in the sciences, are concise, single-authored, non-textbook reviews of rapidly evolving areas of inquiry. Research Surveys in Linguistics is intended to fill this gap. It consists of well-indexed volumes that survey topics of significant theoretical interest on which there has been a proliferation of research in the last two decades. The goal is to provide an efficient overview and entry into the primary literature for linguists - both advanced students and researchers -who wish to move into, or stay literate in, the areas covered. Series authors are recognized authorities on the subject matter as well as clear, highly organized writers. Each book offers the reader relatively tight structuring in sections and subsections and a detailed index for ease of orientation. Although there is no shortage of definitions for pragmatics (context-dependence, nontruthconditionality, implicitness, etc.), the received wisdom is that "pragmatics" simply cannot be coherently defined. In this ground-breaking book, Mira Ariel challenges the prominent definitions of pragmatics, as well as the widely held assumption that specific topics - implicatures, deixis, speech acts, politeness - naturally and uniformly belong on the pragmatics turf. She reconstitutes the field, defining grammar as a set of conventional codes, and pragmatics as a set of inferences, rationally derived. The book applies this division of labor between codes and inferences to many classical pragmatic phenomena, and even to phenomena considered "beyond pragmatics." Surprisingly, although some of these turn out pragmatic, others actually turn out grammatical. Additional intriguing questions addressed in the book include: Why is it sometimes difficult to distinguish grammar from pragmatics? Why is there no grand design behind grammar or behind pragmatics? Are all extragrammatical phenomena pragmatic? Includes a basic introduction to the main topics in pragmatics Shows how different approaches to pragmatics can be integrated with each other Based on natural, attested examples, from many languages Extra examples are available online at www.cambridge.org/ariel "In a masterful confrontation with decades of received wisdom, Mira Ariel redefines the proper task of pragmatics in a simple, crystal-clear way. An essential read."-Arie Verhagen. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics "...a new way to unify the field of linguistic pragmatics. Ariel critically surveys ten criteria for defining pragmatics, and argues for equating it with inferential as opposed to encoded meaning. She then shows how to apply the definition to the complete range of topics taken to constitute pragmatics in a broad sense."-Nancy Hedberg, Simon Fraser University
Word Order in Discourse
Author: Pamela Downing
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 902722921X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 606
Book Description
This volume brings together a collection of 18 papers dealing with the problem of word order variation in discourse. Word order variation has often been treated as an essentially unpredictable phenomenon, a matter of selecting randomly one of the set of possible orders generated by the grammar. However, as the papers in this collection show, word order variation is not random, but rather governed by principles which can be subjected to scientific investigation and are common to all languages.The papers in this volume discuss word order variation in a diverse collection of languages and from a number of perspectives, including experimental and quantitative text based studies. A number of papers address the problem of deciding which order is 'basic' among the alternatives. The volume will be of interest to typologists, to other linguists interested in problems of word order variation, and to those interested in discourse syntax.
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 902722921X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 606
Book Description
This volume brings together a collection of 18 papers dealing with the problem of word order variation in discourse. Word order variation has often been treated as an essentially unpredictable phenomenon, a matter of selecting randomly one of the set of possible orders generated by the grammar. However, as the papers in this collection show, word order variation is not random, but rather governed by principles which can be subjected to scientific investigation and are common to all languages.The papers in this volume discuss word order variation in a diverse collection of languages and from a number of perspectives, including experimental and quantitative text based studies. A number of papers address the problem of deciding which order is 'basic' among the alternatives. The volume will be of interest to typologists, to other linguists interested in problems of word order variation, and to those interested in discourse syntax.
Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics: General papers
Author: Mike Darnell
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027230447
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 520
Book Description
The 23rd UWM Linguistics Symposium (1996) brought together linguists of opposing theoretical approaches functionalists and formalists in order to determine to what extent these approaches really differ from each other and to what extent the approaches complement each other. The two volumes of Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics contain a careful selection of the papers originally presented at the symposium. Volume I includes papers discussing the two basic approaches to linguistics; with contributions by: Werner Abraham, Stephen R. Anderson, Joan L. Bybee, William Croft, Alice Davidson, Mark Durie, Ken Hale, Michael Hammond, Bruce P. Hayes, Nina Hyams, Howard Lasnik, Brian MacWhinney, Geoffrey S. Nathan, Daniell Nettle, Frederick J. Newmeyer, Edith A. Moravcsik, Doris Payne, Janet Pierrehumbert, Kathleen M. Wheatley. Volume II consists of case studies which draw upon the strengths of both approaches and thus help to bridge the gap between the two camps; with contributions by: Mira Ariel, Melissa Axelrod, Robbin Clamons, Bernard Comrie, Kees Hengeveld, Erika Hoff-Ginsberg, James Hurford, Lizanne Kaiser, Nicholas Kibre, Simon Kirby, Feng-hsi Liu, André Meinunger , Viola Miglio, Ann Mulkern, Waturu Nakamura, Maria Polinsky, Elizabeth Purnell, Gerald Sanders, Nancy Stenson, Maggie Tallerman, Ronnie Wilbur.
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027230447
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 520
Book Description
The 23rd UWM Linguistics Symposium (1996) brought together linguists of opposing theoretical approaches functionalists and formalists in order to determine to what extent these approaches really differ from each other and to what extent the approaches complement each other. The two volumes of Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics contain a careful selection of the papers originally presented at the symposium. Volume I includes papers discussing the two basic approaches to linguistics; with contributions by: Werner Abraham, Stephen R. Anderson, Joan L. Bybee, William Croft, Alice Davidson, Mark Durie, Ken Hale, Michael Hammond, Bruce P. Hayes, Nina Hyams, Howard Lasnik, Brian MacWhinney, Geoffrey S. Nathan, Daniell Nettle, Frederick J. Newmeyer, Edith A. Moravcsik, Doris Payne, Janet Pierrehumbert, Kathleen M. Wheatley. Volume II consists of case studies which draw upon the strengths of both approaches and thus help to bridge the gap between the two camps; with contributions by: Mira Ariel, Melissa Axelrod, Robbin Clamons, Bernard Comrie, Kees Hengeveld, Erika Hoff-Ginsberg, James Hurford, Lizanne Kaiser, Nicholas Kibre, Simon Kirby, Feng-hsi Liu, André Meinunger , Viola Miglio, Ann Mulkern, Waturu Nakamura, Maria Polinsky, Elizabeth Purnell, Gerald Sanders, Nancy Stenson, Maggie Tallerman, Ronnie Wilbur.
Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004643257
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 746
Book Description
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004643257
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 746
Book Description
Word Order Variation
Author: Hiwa Asadpour
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311079036X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
In the Iranic-Semitic-Turkic contact area, where many languages are described as verb-final, ‘Targets’ (Goals, Recipients, etc.) tend to appear in the immediate postverbal position, a pattern violating the alleged ‘basic word order’. Investigating empirical material, the present volume examines the idea of its contact-induced origin by combining various languages from inside and outside this contact area: the Greek variety Romeyka; Indic Domari; Iranic Balochi, Kurdish, Middle Persian, Parthian, Bactrian and Sogdian; Nilotic Maa; Semitic Arabic and Aramaic; Siberian and Iran-Turkic. The contributors investigate word order variation of transitive, ditransitive, and copula structures as well as intransitives with Targets. Their analyses highlight the relevance of grammatical, discourse-pragmatic, and cognitive principles. The volume highlights the importance of Target structures for linguistic theory by offering new perspectives and will be of interest to typologists and linguists interested in word order variation and information structure.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311079036X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
In the Iranic-Semitic-Turkic contact area, where many languages are described as verb-final, ‘Targets’ (Goals, Recipients, etc.) tend to appear in the immediate postverbal position, a pattern violating the alleged ‘basic word order’. Investigating empirical material, the present volume examines the idea of its contact-induced origin by combining various languages from inside and outside this contact area: the Greek variety Romeyka; Indic Domari; Iranic Balochi, Kurdish, Middle Persian, Parthian, Bactrian and Sogdian; Nilotic Maa; Semitic Arabic and Aramaic; Siberian and Iran-Turkic. The contributors investigate word order variation of transitive, ditransitive, and copula structures as well as intransitives with Targets. Their analyses highlight the relevance of grammatical, discourse-pragmatic, and cognitive principles. The volume highlights the importance of Target structures for linguistic theory by offering new perspectives and will be of interest to typologists and linguists interested in word order variation and information structure.
Pragmatic Syntax
Author: Jieun Kiaer
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1623568358
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 247
Book Description
Jieun Kiaer puts forward an argument in this book that the grammar of a language directly underpins the processing of the language, in real time. This is a view that runs against the orthodoxy of linguistic theorizing for the last 50 years, which has insisted that languages have to be characterized in terms that make little or no reference to the dynamics of language use. This orthodox view fails to fit languages in which the verb has to be at the end of the clause - which encompasses more than half of the world's languages. Thus, as this book shows, these languages remain very problematic for conventional theories. Using a mixture of corpus methods, sentence structure analysis, prosody and psycholinguistic theory, Kiaer redresses this imbalance. The data features both Korean and English example and it functions as one of the very first general introductions to Dynamic Syntax available.
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1623568358
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 247
Book Description
Jieun Kiaer puts forward an argument in this book that the grammar of a language directly underpins the processing of the language, in real time. This is a view that runs against the orthodoxy of linguistic theorizing for the last 50 years, which has insisted that languages have to be characterized in terms that make little or no reference to the dynamics of language use. This orthodox view fails to fit languages in which the verb has to be at the end of the clause - which encompasses more than half of the world's languages. Thus, as this book shows, these languages remain very problematic for conventional theories. Using a mixture of corpus methods, sentence structure analysis, prosody and psycholinguistic theory, Kiaer redresses this imbalance. The data features both Korean and English example and it functions as one of the very first general introductions to Dynamic Syntax available.
Studies in Syntactic Typology
Author: Michael Hammond
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027278601
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 410
Book Description
The papers in this volume are revised versions of presentations at the conference on Language Universals and Language Typology in March 1985 at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. They include new proposals of universals, results of investigations to validate or refine previously proposed universal generalizations, and discussions concerning the explanation of universals. The volume will be of great interest to researchers in syntax and in language universals. In addition, scholars in pragmatics, philosophy of linguistics, psycholinguistics, anthropological linguistics and semantics will also find articles of interest in the book.
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027278601
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 410
Book Description
The papers in this volume are revised versions of presentations at the conference on Language Universals and Language Typology in March 1985 at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. They include new proposals of universals, results of investigations to validate or refine previously proposed universal generalizations, and discussions concerning the explanation of universals. The volume will be of great interest to researchers in syntax and in language universals. In addition, scholars in pragmatics, philosophy of linguistics, psycholinguistics, anthropological linguistics and semantics will also find articles of interest in the book.