Anaphora and Language Design

Anaphora and Language Design PDF Author: Eric J. Reuland
Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
ISBN: 9780262015059
Category : Anaphora (Linguistics).
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Pronouns and anaphors (including reflexives such as himself and herself) may or must depend on antecedents for their interpretation. These dependencies are subject to conditions that prima facie show substantial crosslinguistic variation. In this monograph, Eric Reuland presents a theory of how these anaphoric dependencies are represented in natural language in a way that does justice to the the variation one finds across languages. He explains the conditions on these dependencies in terms of elementary properties of the computational system of natural language. He shows that the encoding of anaphoric dependencies makes use of components of the language system that all reflect different cognitive capacities; thus the empirical research he reports on offers insights into the design of the language system. Reuland's account reduces the conditions on binding to independent properties of the grammar, none of which is specific to binding. He offers a principled account of the roles of the lexicon, syntax, semantics, and the discourse component in the encoding of anaphoric dependencies; a window into the overall organization of the grammar and the roles of linguistic and extralinguistic factors; a new typology of anaphoric expressions; a view of crosslinguistic variation (examining facts in a range of languages, from English, Dutch, Frisian, German, and Scandinavian languages to Fijian, Georgian, and Malayalam) that shows unity in diversity.

Anaphora and Language Design

Anaphora and Language Design PDF Author: Eric J. Reuland
Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
ISBN: 9780262015059
Category : Anaphora (Linguistics).
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Pronouns and anaphors (including reflexives such as himself and herself) may or must depend on antecedents for their interpretation. These dependencies are subject to conditions that prima facie show substantial crosslinguistic variation. In this monograph, Eric Reuland presents a theory of how these anaphoric dependencies are represented in natural language in a way that does justice to the the variation one finds across languages. He explains the conditions on these dependencies in terms of elementary properties of the computational system of natural language. He shows that the encoding of anaphoric dependencies makes use of components of the language system that all reflect different cognitive capacities; thus the empirical research he reports on offers insights into the design of the language system. Reuland's account reduces the conditions on binding to independent properties of the grammar, none of which is specific to binding. He offers a principled account of the roles of the lexicon, syntax, semantics, and the discourse component in the encoding of anaphoric dependencies; a window into the overall organization of the grammar and the roles of linguistic and extralinguistic factors; a new typology of anaphoric expressions; a view of crosslinguistic variation (examining facts in a range of languages, from English, Dutch, Frisian, German, and Scandinavian languages to Fijian, Georgian, and Malayalam) that shows unity in diversity.

The Handbook of Language Emergence

The Handbook of Language Emergence PDF Author: Brian MacWhinney
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118346092
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 651

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Book Description
This authoritative handbook explores the latest integrated theory for understanding human language, offering the most inclusive text yet published on the rapidly evolving emergentist paradigm. Brings together an international team of contributors, including the most prominent advocates of linguistic emergentism Focuses on the ways in which the learning, processing, and structure of language emerge from a competing set of cognitive, communicative, and biological constraints Examines forces on widely divergent timescales, from instantaneous neurolinguistic processing to historical changes and language evolution Addresses key theoretical, empirical, and methodological issues, making this handbook the most rigorous examination of emergentist linguistic theory ever

The Syntax of Anaphora

The Syntax of Anaphora PDF Author: Ken Safir
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019803718X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
In this work, Ken Safir develops a comprehensive theory on the role of anaphora in syntax. First, he contends that the complementary distribution of forms that support the anaphoric readings is not accidental, contrary to most current thinking, but rather should be derived from a principle, one that he proposes in the form of an algorithm. Secondly, he maintains that dependent identity relations are always possible where they are not prohibited by a constraint. Lastly, he proposes that there are no parameters of anaphora - that all anaphora-specific principles are universal, and that the patterns of anaphora across languages arise entirely from a restricted set of lexical properties. This comprehensive consideration of anaphora redirects current thinking on the subject.

Towards a Biolinguistic Understanding of Grammar

Towards a Biolinguistic Understanding of Grammar PDF Author: Anne-Marie Di Sciullo
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027255776
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
Explores the interaction of grammar with the factors reducing complexity. This book aims to bring about further understanding of the interfaces of the grammar in a broader biolinguistic sense. It anchors the formal properties of grammar at the interfaces between language and biology, language and experience, bringing about language acquisition.

Pragmemes and Theories of Language Use

Pragmemes and Theories of Language Use PDF Author: Keith Allan
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319434918
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 914

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Book Description
This volume offers recent developments in pragmatics and adjacent territories of investigation, including important new concepts such as the pragmatic act and the pragmeme, and combines developments in neighboring disciplines in an integrative holistic pragmatic approach. The young science of pragmatics has, from its inception, differentiated itself from neighboring fields in the humanities, especially the disciplines dealing with language and those focusing on the social and anthropological aspects of human behavior, by focusing on the language user in his or her societal environment.This collection of papers continues that emphasis on language use, and pragmatic acts in their context. The editors and contributors share a perspective that essentially considers language as a system for communication and wants to look at language from a societal perspective, and accept the view that acts of interpretation are essentially embedded in culture. In an interdisciplinary approach, some authors explore connections with social theory, in particular sociology or socio-linguistics, some offer a political stance (critical discourse analysis), others explore connections with philosophy and philosophy of language, and several papers address problems in theoretical pragmatics.

The Targeting System of Language

The Targeting System of Language PDF Author: Leonard Talmy
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262036975
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 673

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Book Description
A proposal that a single linguistic/cognitive system, “targeting,” underlies two domains of reference, anaphora (speech-internal) and deixis (speech-external). In this book, Leonard Talmy proposes that a single linguistic/cognitive system, targeting, underlies two domains of linguistic reference, those termed anaphora (for a referent that is an element of the current discourse) and deixis (for a referent outside the discourse and in the spatiotemporal surroundings). Talmy argues that language engages the same cognitive system to single out referents whether they are speech-internal or speech-external. Talmy explains the targeting system in this way: as a speaker communicates with a hearer, her attention is on an object to which she wishes to refer; this is her target. To get the hearer's attention on it as well, she uses a trigger—a word such as this, that, here, there, or now. The trigger initiates a three-stage process in the hearer: he seeks cues of ten distinct categories; uses these cues to determine the target; and then maps the concept of the target gleaned from the cues back onto the trigger to integrate it into the speaker's sentence, achieving comprehension. The whole interaction, Talmy explains, rests on a coordination of the speaker's and hearer's cognitive processing. The process is the same whether the referent is anaphoric or deictic. Talmy presents and analyzes the ten categories of cues, and examines sequences in targeting, including the steps by which interaction leads to joint attention. A glossary defines the new terms in the argument.

Reflexive constructions in the world's languages

Reflexive constructions in the world's languages PDF Author: Katarzyna Janic
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3961104115
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 888

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Book Description
This landmark publication brings together 28 papers on reflexive constructions in languages from all continents, representing very diverse language types. While reflexive constructions have been discussed in the past from a variety of angles, this is the first edited volume of its kind. All the chapters are based on original data, and they are broadly comparable through a common terminological framework. The volume opens with two introductory chapters by the editors that set the stage and lay out the main comparative concepts, and it concludes with a chapter presenting generalizations on the basis of the studies of individual languages.

A Two-Tiered Theory of Control

A Two-Tiered Theory of Control PDF Author: Idan Landau
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262527367
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 129

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Book Description
A theory of control, equally grounded in syntax and semantics, that argues that obligatory control is achieved either through predication or through logophoric anchoring. This book revives and reinterprets a persistent intuition running through much of the classical work: that the unitary appearance of Obligatory Control into complements conceals an underlying duality of structure and mechanism. Idan Landau argues that control complements divide into two types: In attitude contexts, control is established by logophoric anchoring, while non-attitude contexts it boils down to predication. The distinction is also syntactically represented: Logophoric complements are constructed as a second tier above predicative complements. The theory derives the obligatory de se reading of PRO as a special kind of de re attitude without ascribing any inherent feature to PRO. At the same time, it provides a principled explanation, based on feature transmission, for the agreement properties of PRO, which are stipulated on competing semantic accounts. Finally, it derives a striking universal asymmetry: the fact that agreement on the embedded verb blocks control in attitude contexts but not in non-attitude contexts. This book is unique in being firmly grounded in both the formal semantic and the syntactic studies of control, offering an integrated view that will appeal to scholars in both areas. By bringing to bear current sophisticated grammatical analyses, it offers new insights into the classical problems of control theory.

The Impact of Pronominal Form on Interpretation

The Impact of Pronominal Form on Interpretation PDF Author: Patrick Grosz
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501500775
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
The interplay between the interpretation of pronouns (e.g. bound/referential) and their form (e.g. null/overt) is still ill-understood. This volume has a cross-linguistic orientation with in-depth investigations of more than 10 different languages. It unites researchers from the linguistic subfields of syntax, semantics, and psycholinguistics, thus furthering dialogue with the goal of shedding new light on the form/interpretation connection.

Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 13

Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 13 PDF Author: Janine Berns
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027264155
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
In the three decades of its existence, the annual Going Romance conference has turned out to be the major European discussion forum for theoretically relevant research on Romance languages where current theoretical ideas about language in general and about Romance languages in particular are exchanged. The twenty-ninth Going Romance conference was organized by the Radboud University and took place in December 2015 in Nijmegen. The present volume contains a selection of 18 peer-reviewed articles dealing with syntax, phonology, morphology, semantics and acquisition of the Romance languages. They represent the wide range of topics at the conference and the variety of research carried out on Romance languages within theoretical linguistics and will be of interest to scholars in Romance and in general linguistics.