The Syntax of Sentential Stress

The Syntax of Sentential Stress PDF Author: Arsalan Kahnemuyipour
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191570206
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
This book explores the nature of sentential stress, how it is assigned and its interaction with information structure. Its central thesis is that the position of sentential or nuclear stress, the element with the highest prominence in the sentence, is determined syntactically and that cross-linguistic differences in this respect follow from syntactic variations. Presented in a Chomskian multiple spell-out framework, the author develops the Sentential Stress Rule and provides a systematic way of accounting for a wide range of cross-linguistic facts, with data taken from Persian, English, German and Eastern Armenian. The author further proposes the Focus Stress Rule to handle the interaction between sentential structure and information structure. Sentential stress is thus determined through an interplay between two components, the default Sentential Stress Rule and the Focus Stress Rule. Syntactic phenomena are not, the author argues, triggered by phonology or prosodic motivations: the relationship between syntax and phonology is always from syntax to phonology. This important contribution to understanding processes at the syntax-phonology interface will interest syntacticians and phonologists at graduate level and above.

The Syntax of Sentential Stress

The Syntax of Sentential Stress PDF Author: Arsalan Kahnemuyipour
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191570206
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book explores the nature of sentential stress, how it is assigned and its interaction with information structure. Its central thesis is that the position of sentential or nuclear stress, the element with the highest prominence in the sentence, is determined syntactically and that cross-linguistic differences in this respect follow from syntactic variations. Presented in a Chomskian multiple spell-out framework, the author develops the Sentential Stress Rule and provides a systematic way of accounting for a wide range of cross-linguistic facts, with data taken from Persian, English, German and Eastern Armenian. The author further proposes the Focus Stress Rule to handle the interaction between sentential structure and information structure. Sentential stress is thus determined through an interplay between two components, the default Sentential Stress Rule and the Focus Stress Rule. Syntactic phenomena are not, the author argues, triggered by phonology or prosodic motivations: the relationship between syntax and phonology is always from syntax to phonology. This important contribution to understanding processes at the syntax-phonology interface will interest syntacticians and phonologists at graduate level and above.

The Syntax of Sentential Stress [microform]

The Syntax of Sentential Stress [microform] PDF Author: Arsalan Kahnemuyipour
Publisher: Library and Archives Canada = Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
ISBN: 9780612943902
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description
This thesis explores the nature of sentential stress, how it is assigned and its interaction with information structure. The central thesis is that the position of sentential or nuclear stress, the element with the highest prominence in the sentence, is determined syntactically and that cross-linguistic differences in this respect follow from syntactic variations. In particular, it is proposed that the Sentential Stress Rule applies in a phase-based manner (Chomsky 2000, 2001 and subsequent work) and assigns stress to the highest element in the spelled out constituent. This proposal provides a systematic way of accounting for a wide range of cross-linguistic facts, with data taken from Persian, English, German, Eastern Armenian and some Romance languages. An additional rule, namely the Focus Stress Rule, is proposed to handle the interaction between sentential stress and information structure. The Focus Stress Rule, which is also proposed to apply in a phase-based manner, ensures that a focussed constituent receives the highest clausal prominence in languages which mark focus prosodically. It is shown that sentential stress is determined in an interplay between the default Sentential Stress Rule and the Focus Stress Rule. It is argued that the relationship between syntax and phonology is unidirectional, always from syntax to phonology, thereby arguing against syntactic phenomena being triggered by phonological or prosodic motivations (contra Zubizarreta 1998). It is also shown that, from a conceptual and empirical perspective, the proposed account of the interaction between focus and sentential stress is preferable to the theories based on the focus projection algorithm (Selkirk 1995).

The Morphosyntax of Imperatives

The Morphosyntax of Imperatives PDF Author: Daniela Isac
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198733275
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
This book studies the properties of imperative clauses in the context of a theory of Universal Grammar. The analysis, based on data from a wide range of languages, accounts for patterns in the interaction of imperative mood with phenomena like negation, restrictions on grammatical subjects, and the possibility of embedding imperative clauses.

A Guide to Morphosyntax-Phonology Interface Theories

A Guide to Morphosyntax-Phonology Interface Theories PDF Author: Tobias Scheer
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110238632
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 902

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Book Description
This book reviews the history of the interface between morpho-syntax and phonology roughly since World War II. Structuralist and generative interface thinking is presented chronologically, but also theory by theory from the point of view of a historically interested observer who however in the last third of the book distills lessons in order to assess present-day interface theories, and to establish a catalogue of properties that a correct interface theory should or must not have. The book also introduces modularity, the rationalist theory of the (human) cognitive system that underlies the generative approach to language, from a Cognitive Science perspective. Modularity is used as a referee for interface theories in the book. Finally, the book locates the interface debate in the landscape of current minimalist syntax and phase theory and fosters intermodular argumentation: how can we use properties of morpho-syntactic theory in order to argue for or against competing theories of phonology (and vice-versa)?

The Syntax of Sentential Stress

The Syntax of Sentential Stress PDF Author: Arsalan Kahnemuyipour
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780199219247
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Kahnemuyipour explores the nature of sentential stress, how it is assigned and its interaction with information structure. The central thesis is that the position of sentential or nuclear stress is determined syntactically and that cross-linguistic differences in this respect follow from syntactic variations.

The Handbook of Phonological Theory

The Handbook of Phonological Theory PDF Author: John A. Goldsmith
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444343041
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 979

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Book Description
The Handbook of Phonological Theory, second edition offers an innovative and detailed examination of recent developments in phonology, and the implications of these within linguistic theory and related disciplines. Revised from the ground-up for the second edition, the book is comprised almost entirely of newly-written and previously unpublished chapters Addresses the important questions in the field including learnability, phonological interfaces, tone, and variation, and assesses the findings and accomplishments in these domains Brings together a renowned and international contributor team Offers new and unique reflections on the advances in phonological theory since publication of the first edition in 1995 Along with the first edition, still in publication, it forms the most complete and current overview of the subject in print

The Theta System

The Theta System PDF Author: Martin Everaert
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199602522
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
This book considers the recent results and evaluations of the Theta System in both theoretical and experimental domains. Distinguished linguists from all over the world examine the theory in the context of an impressive array of new empirical data ranging from Germanic, Romance, and Slavic to Ugro-Finnish, and Semitic languages.

The Grammar of Expressivity

The Grammar of Expressivity PDF Author: Daniel Gutzmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192540165
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
This volume provides a detailed account of the syntax of expressive language, that is, utterances that express, rather than describe, the emotions and attitudes of the speaker. While the expressive function of natural language has been widely studied in recent years, the role that grammar plays in the interpretation of expressive items has been largely neglected in the semantic and pragmatic literature. Daniel Gutzmann demonstrates that expressivity has strong syntactic reflexes that interact with the semantic and pragmatic interpretation of these utterances, and argues that expressivity is in fact a syntactic feature on a par with other established features such as tense and gender. Evidence for this claim is drawn from three detailed case studies of expressive adjectives, intensifiers, and vocatives; their puzzling properties are accounted for through a minimalist approach to syntactic features and agreement, which shows that expressivity can partake in agreement operations, trigger movement, and be selected for syntactically. The analysis not only supports the hypothesis of expressive syntax, but also highlights the hidden role that grammar may play in phenomena that are traditionally considered to be solely semantic in nature.

The Morphosyntax of Gender

The Morphosyntax of Gender PDF Author: Ruth T. Kramer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199679932
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
This book presents a new cross-linguistic analysis of gender and its effects on morphosyntax. It addresses questions including the syntactic location of gender features; the role of natural gender; and the relationship between syntactic gender features and the morphological realization of gender. Ruth Kramer argues that gender features are syntactically located on the n head ('little n'), which serves to nominalize category-neutral roots. Those gender features are either interpretable, as in the case of natural gender, or uninterpretable, like the gender of an inanimate noun in Spanish. Adopting Distributed Morphology, the book lays out how the gender features on n map onto the gender features relevant for morphological exponence. The analysis is supported by an in-depth case study of Amharic, which poses challenges for previous gender analyses and provides clear support for gender on n. The proposals generate a typology of two- and three-gender systems, with the various types illustrated using data from a genetically diverse set of languages. Finally, further evidence for gender being on n is provided from case studies of Somali and Romanian, as well as from the relationship between gender and other linguistic phenomena including derived nouns and declension class. Overall, the book provides one of the first large-scale, cross-linguistically-oriented, theoretical approaches to the morphosyntax of gender.

The Roots of Verbal Meaning

The Roots of Verbal Meaning PDF Author: John Beavers
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198855788
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
This book explores possible and impossible word meanings, with a specific focus on the meanings of verbs. It presents a new theory of possible root meanings and their interaction with event templates that produces a new typology of possible verbs, with semantic and grammatical properties determined not just by templates, but also by roots.