The Grammar of Interactives

The Grammar of Interactives PDF Author: Bernd Heine
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192699326
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
This book explores a domain of discourse processing referred to as 'interactive grammar', based on an analysis of grammatical descriptions of over 100 languages spoken across the world. While much previous work has treated interactive grammar as a fairly marginal part of language, Bernd Heine describes it here as a distinct category that contrasts with sentence grammar both in its functions and its structural behavior. He identifies ten types of interactives - i.e. extra-clausal expressions of linguistic discourse: attention signals, directives, discourse markers, evaluatives, ideophones, interjections, response elicitors, response signals, social formulae, and vocatives. The analysis reveals that speakers make use of two contrasting modes for structuring their discourses, both of which are needed for successful communication: one is sentence grammar, which has a propositional format and analytic organization; the other is interactive grammar, which has a holophrastic organization and a focus on social communication. While the argument structure of sentence grammar is shaped by the propositional format of sentences, that of interactive grammar is shaped by the indexical nature of the situation of discourse. This distinction shows interesting correlations both with findings from neurolinguistic studies on differential activity in the two hemispheres of the human brain, and with observations from social psychology on the differences between systems of reasoning and judgment.

The Grammar of Interactives

The Grammar of Interactives PDF Author: Bernd Heine
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192699326
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 481

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book explores a domain of discourse processing referred to as 'interactive grammar', based on an analysis of grammatical descriptions of over 100 languages spoken across the world. While much previous work has treated interactive grammar as a fairly marginal part of language, Bernd Heine describes it here as a distinct category that contrasts with sentence grammar both in its functions and its structural behavior. He identifies ten types of interactives - i.e. extra-clausal expressions of linguistic discourse: attention signals, directives, discourse markers, evaluatives, ideophones, interjections, response elicitors, response signals, social formulae, and vocatives. The analysis reveals that speakers make use of two contrasting modes for structuring their discourses, both of which are needed for successful communication: one is sentence grammar, which has a propositional format and analytic organization; the other is interactive grammar, which has a holophrastic organization and a focus on social communication. While the argument structure of sentence grammar is shaped by the propositional format of sentences, that of interactive grammar is shaped by the indexical nature of the situation of discourse. This distinction shows interesting correlations both with findings from neurolinguistic studies on differential activity in the two hemispheres of the human brain, and with observations from social psychology on the differences between systems of reasoning and judgment.

Studies at the Grammar-Discourse Interface

Studies at the Grammar-Discourse Interface PDF Author: Alexander Haselow
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027259895
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
This book investigates phenomena at the grammar–discourse interface with a strong focus on discourse markers, whose development and concrete uses in a given language tend to be based on a close interplay of grammatical and discourse-related forces. The topics range from the transition of linguistic signs “out of” sentence grammar and “into” the domain of discourse to differences between more grammatical vs. more discourse-pragmatic expressions in terms of structural behavior and cognitive processing, and the different, intricate ways in which the usage conditions and meanings of grammatical constituents or structural units are affected by the discourse context in which they are used. The twelve studies in this book are based on fresh empirical data from languages such as English, Basque, Korean, Japanese and French and involve the study of linguistic expressions and structures such as pragmatic markers and particles, comment clauses, expletives, adverbial connectors, and expressives.

Logic in Grammar

Logic in Grammar PDF Author: Gennaro Chierchia
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199697973
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
In a fundamental investigation of language and human reasoning, Gennaro Chierchia looks at how syntactic and inferential processes interact through the study of polarity sensitive and free choice items. He reformulates the semantics of focus and scope and the pragmatics of implicature as part of the recursive semantic system.

Essentials of Cognitive Grammar

Essentials of Cognitive Grammar PDF Author: Ronald W. Langacker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199937354
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
Tailored to students, this abridged version of Cognitive Grammar positions Langacker's authoritative work as an accessible, attractive cornerstone of cognitive linguistics as the field continues to evolve.

Unified Discourse Analysis

Unified Discourse Analysis PDF Author: James Paul Gee
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317684478
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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Book Description
Discourse Analysis is becoming increasingly "multimodal", concerned primarily with the interplay of language, image and sound. Video Games allow humans to create, live in and have conversations with new multimodal worlds. In this ground-breaking new textbook, best-selling author and experienced gamer, James Paul Gee, sets out a new theory and method of discourse analysis which applies to language, the real world, science and video games. Rather than analysing the language of video games, this book uses discourse analysis to study games as communicational forms. Gee argues that language, science, games and everyday life are deeply related and each is a series of conversations. Discourse analysis should not be just about language, but about human interactions with the world, with games, and with each other, interactions that make meaning and sustain lives amid risk and complexity. Written in a highly accessible style and drawing on a wide range of video games from World of Warcraft and Chibi-Robo to Tetris, this engaging textbook is essential reading for students in discourse analysis, new media and digital culture.

Parameter Hierarchies and Universal Grammar

Parameter Hierarchies and Universal Grammar PDF Author: Ian G. Roberts
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198804636
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 730

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Book Description
In this book, Ian Roberts argues that the essential insight of the principles-and-parameters approach to variation can be maintained - albeit in a somewhat different guise - in the context of the minimalist programme. The book represents a significant new contribution to the formal study of cross-linguistic morphosyntactic variation.

The Rise of Discourse Markers

The Rise of Discourse Markers PDF Author: Bernd Heine
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108995888
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Discourse markers constitute an important part of linguistic communication, and research on this phenomenon has been a thriving field of study over the past three decades. However, a problem that has plagued this research is that these markers exhibit a number of structural characteristics that are hard to interpret based on existing methodologies, such as grammaticalization. This study argues that it is possible to explain such characteristics in a meaningful way. It presents a cross-linguistic survey of the development of discourse markers, their important role in communication, and their relation to the wider context of sociocultural behaviour, with the goal of explaining their similarities and differences across a typologically wide range of languages. By giving a clear definition of discourse markers, it aims to provide a guide for future research, making it essential reading for students and researchers in linguistics, and anyone interested in exploring this fascinating linguistic phenomenon.

Evolutionary Syntax

Evolutionary Syntax PDF Author: Ljiljana Progovac
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198736541
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
In this book, Ljiljana Progovac proposes a gradualist, adaptationist approach to the evolution of syntax, subject to natural selection. She provides a specific framework for its study, combining the fields of evolutionary biology, theoretical syntax, typology, neuroscience, and genetics. The author pursues an internal reconstruction of the stages of grammar based on the syntactic theory associated with Chomskyan Minimalism and arrives at specific, testable hypotheses, which are then corroborated by an abundance of theoretically analysed 'living fossils' drawn from a variety of languages. Her approach demonstrates that these fossil structures do not just coexist alongside more modern structures, but are in fact built into the very foundation of more complex structures, leading to quirks and complexities that are suggestive of a gradualist evolutionary scenario. By reconstructing a particular path along which syntax evolved, Evolutionary Syntax sheds light on the crucial properties of language design itself, as well as on the major parameters of crosslinguistic variation. As a result, this reconstruction can be meaningfully correlated with both the hominin timeline and the ever-growing body of genetic evidence that is available.

Rethinking Verb Second

Rethinking Verb Second PDF Author: Rebecca Woods
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198844301
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 979

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Book Description
This book offers the most exhaustive and comprehensive treatment available of the Verb Second property. It includes formal theoretical work alongside psycholinguistic and language acquisition studies, examines data from a range of languages, and shows that V2 phenomena are much more widely attested cross-linguistically than previously thought.

Singular and Plural

Singular and Plural PDF Author: Kathryn Ann Woolard
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190258624
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
Singular and Plural develops a framework for analyzing ideologies of linguistic authority and illuminates the institutional and interpersonal politics of language in Catalonia. Drawing on ethnographic research across thirty years of political autonomy, Kathryn Woolard shows new relationships of Catalan language, identity, and politics in the new millennium.