Author: Valandis Bardzokas
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027275017
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 220
Book Description
The book explores finely-grained distinctions in causal meaning, mostly from a relevance-theoretic perspective. To increase the challenge of this double task, i.e. a thorough as well as satisfactory account of cause and a detailed assessment of the theoretical model employed to this end, the current study involves an investigation carried out by way of contrasting the prototypical causal exponents of Modern Greek subordination, i.e. epeiδi and γiati. In addition, this objective is achieved in the methodological framework of contrasting a range of contextual applications of the two connectives against their translated versions in English, realizable by means of because. Despite first impressions, a closer observation of the wide range of applications of these markers in the discourse of coherence relations illustrates divergences in their distribution, which, in turn, are taken to highlight differing aspects of causal interpretation. The proposal for the relevance-theoretic model emanates from a reaction to an array of problems undermining traditional tenets of pragmatic theory originating with Grice’s stance, but is also made in response to the common practice in pragmatic research (since its origin) to pay low regard for the contribution of typical causal markers to debates aiming at the determination of the distinction that has been instrumental to issues of cognition and pragmatic interpretation, i.e. propositional vs. non-propositional meaning.
Causality and Connectives
Author: Valandis Bardzokas
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027275017
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 220
Book Description
The book explores finely-grained distinctions in causal meaning, mostly from a relevance-theoretic perspective. To increase the challenge of this double task, i.e. a thorough as well as satisfactory account of cause and a detailed assessment of the theoretical model employed to this end, the current study involves an investigation carried out by way of contrasting the prototypical causal exponents of Modern Greek subordination, i.e. epeiδi and γiati. In addition, this objective is achieved in the methodological framework of contrasting a range of contextual applications of the two connectives against their translated versions in English, realizable by means of because. Despite first impressions, a closer observation of the wide range of applications of these markers in the discourse of coherence relations illustrates divergences in their distribution, which, in turn, are taken to highlight differing aspects of causal interpretation. The proposal for the relevance-theoretic model emanates from a reaction to an array of problems undermining traditional tenets of pragmatic theory originating with Grice’s stance, but is also made in response to the common practice in pragmatic research (since its origin) to pay low regard for the contribution of typical causal markers to debates aiming at the determination of the distinction that has been instrumental to issues of cognition and pragmatic interpretation, i.e. propositional vs. non-propositional meaning.
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027275017
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 220
Book Description
The book explores finely-grained distinctions in causal meaning, mostly from a relevance-theoretic perspective. To increase the challenge of this double task, i.e. a thorough as well as satisfactory account of cause and a detailed assessment of the theoretical model employed to this end, the current study involves an investigation carried out by way of contrasting the prototypical causal exponents of Modern Greek subordination, i.e. epeiδi and γiati. In addition, this objective is achieved in the methodological framework of contrasting a range of contextual applications of the two connectives against their translated versions in English, realizable by means of because. Despite first impressions, a closer observation of the wide range of applications of these markers in the discourse of coherence relations illustrates divergences in their distribution, which, in turn, are taken to highlight differing aspects of causal interpretation. The proposal for the relevance-theoretic model emanates from a reaction to an array of problems undermining traditional tenets of pragmatic theory originating with Grice’s stance, but is also made in response to the common practice in pragmatic research (since its origin) to pay low regard for the contribution of typical causal markers to debates aiming at the determination of the distinction that has been instrumental to issues of cognition and pragmatic interpretation, i.e. propositional vs. non-propositional meaning.
Causal Categories in Discourse and Cognition
Author: Ted Sanders
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110224410
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
Review text: "With all these contributions, this collection definitely constitutes a high quality volume in this research area and is a valuable reference to anyone who is interested in discourse and cognition."Han-wei in: Discourse Studies 3/2011
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110224410
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
Review text: "With all these contributions, this collection definitely constitutes a high quality volume in this research area and is a valuable reference to anyone who is interested in discourse and cognition."Han-wei in: Discourse Studies 3/2011
How to express yourself with a causal connective
Author: Mirna Pit
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004458565
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
The Dutch, German and French languages display a variety of regularly used connectives all of which introduce causes, arguments or reasons, such as Dutch omdat, want and aangezien, German weil, denn and da, and French parce que, car and puisque. Why should languages have different connectives to express the notion of backward causality? The central argument developed in this book is that different connectives express different degrees of subjectivity. In a series of corpus analyses it is shown that the degree of subjectivity of the main participant involved in the causal relation strongly predicts the occurrence of one or another connective. Hence, language users have at their disposal connectives of varying degrees of subjectivity. In an analysis of judiciary sentences, it is revealed that speakers are actually sensitive of this semantic distinction, and sometimes even exploit it for their communicative purposes: in order to conceal their subjective involvement, judges prefer objective over subjective connectives. This volume makes a contribution to the study of language in use, by applying empirical methods to authentic language data. It will be of interest to anyone concerned with discourse coherence, perspective and subjectivity, corpus linguistics and cross-linguistic analyses.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004458565
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
The Dutch, German and French languages display a variety of regularly used connectives all of which introduce causes, arguments or reasons, such as Dutch omdat, want and aangezien, German weil, denn and da, and French parce que, car and puisque. Why should languages have different connectives to express the notion of backward causality? The central argument developed in this book is that different connectives express different degrees of subjectivity. In a series of corpus analyses it is shown that the degree of subjectivity of the main participant involved in the causal relation strongly predicts the occurrence of one or another connective. Hence, language users have at their disposal connectives of varying degrees of subjectivity. In an analysis of judiciary sentences, it is revealed that speakers are actually sensitive of this semantic distinction, and sometimes even exploit it for their communicative purposes: in order to conceal their subjective involvement, judges prefer objective over subjective connectives. This volume makes a contribution to the study of language in use, by applying empirical methods to authentic language data. It will be of interest to anyone concerned with discourse coherence, perspective and subjectivity, corpus linguistics and cross-linguistic analyses.
Actual Causality
Author: Joseph Y. Halpern
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262035022
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Explores actual causality, and such related notions as degree of responsibility, degree of blame, and causal explanation. The goal is to arrive at a definition of causality that matches our natural language usage and is helpful, for example, to a jury deciding a legal case, a programmer looking for the line of code that cause some software to fail, or an economist trying to determine whether austerity caused a subsequent depression.
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262035022
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Explores actual causality, and such related notions as degree of responsibility, degree of blame, and causal explanation. The goal is to arrive at a definition of causality that matches our natural language usage and is helpful, for example, to a jury deciding a legal case, a programmer looking for the line of code that cause some software to fail, or an economist trying to determine whether austerity caused a subsequent depression.
Lexical Pragmatics and Theory of Mind
Author: Sandrine Zufferey
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027256055
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 209
Book Description
The concept of theory of mind (ToM), a hot topic in cognitive psychology for the past twenty-five years, has gained increasing importance in the fields of linguistics and pragmatics. However, even though the relationship between ToM and verbal communication is now recognized, the extent, causality and full implications of this connection remain mostly to be explored. This book presents a comprehensive discussion of the interface between language, communication, and theory of mind, and puts forward an innovative proposal regarding the role of discourse connectives for this interface. The proposed analysis of connectives is tested from the perspective of their acquisition, using empirical methods such as corpus analysis and controlled experiments, thus placing the study of connectives within the emerging framework of experimental pragmatics.
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027256055
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 209
Book Description
The concept of theory of mind (ToM), a hot topic in cognitive psychology for the past twenty-five years, has gained increasing importance in the fields of linguistics and pragmatics. However, even though the relationship between ToM and verbal communication is now recognized, the extent, causality and full implications of this connection remain mostly to be explored. This book presents a comprehensive discussion of the interface between language, communication, and theory of mind, and puts forward an innovative proposal regarding the role of discourse connectives for this interface. The proposed analysis of connectives is tested from the perspective of their acquisition, using empirical methods such as corpus analysis and controlled experiments, thus placing the study of connectives within the emerging framework of experimental pragmatics.
Perspectives on Causation
Author: Elitzur A. Bar-Asher Siegal
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030343081
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 484
Book Description
This book explores relationships and maps out intersections between discussions on causation in three scientific disciplines: linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. The book is organized in five thematic parts, investigating connections between philosophical and linguistic studies of causation; presenting novel methodologies for studying the representation of causation; tackling central issues in syntactic and semantic representation of causal relations; and introducing recent advances in philosophical thinking on causation. Beyond its thematic organization, readers will find several recurring topics throughout this book, such as the attempt to reduce causality to other non-causal terms; causal pluralism vs. one all-encompassing account for causation; causal relations pertaining to the mental as opposed to the physical realm, and more. This collection also lays the foundation for questioning whether it is possible to evaluate available philosophical approaches to causation against the variety of linguistic phenomena ranging across diverse lexical and grammatical items, such as bound morphemes, prepositions, connectives, and verbs. Above all, it lays the groundwork for considering whether the fruits of the psychological-cognitive study of the perception of causal relations may contribute to linguistic and philosophical studies, and whether insights from linguistics can benefit the other two disciplines.
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030343081
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 484
Book Description
This book explores relationships and maps out intersections between discussions on causation in three scientific disciplines: linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. The book is organized in five thematic parts, investigating connections between philosophical and linguistic studies of causation; presenting novel methodologies for studying the representation of causation; tackling central issues in syntactic and semantic representation of causal relations; and introducing recent advances in philosophical thinking on causation. Beyond its thematic organization, readers will find several recurring topics throughout this book, such as the attempt to reduce causality to other non-causal terms; causal pluralism vs. one all-encompassing account for causation; causal relations pertaining to the mental as opposed to the physical realm, and more. This collection also lays the foundation for questioning whether it is possible to evaluate available philosophical approaches to causation against the variety of linguistic phenomena ranging across diverse lexical and grammatical items, such as bound morphemes, prepositions, connectives, and verbs. Above all, it lays the groundwork for considering whether the fruits of the psychological-cognitive study of the perception of causal relations may contribute to linguistic and philosophical studies, and whether insights from linguistics can benefit the other two disciplines.
Causal Categories in Discourse and Cognition
Author: Ted Sanders
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110224429
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
All languages of the world provide their speakers with linguistic means to express causal relations in discourse. Causal connectives and causative auxiliaries are among the salient markers of causal construals. Cognitive scientists and linguists are interested in how much of this causal modeling is specific to a given culture and language, and how much is characteristic of general human cognition. Speakers of English, for example, can choose between because and since or between therefore and so. How different are these from the choices made by Dutch speakers, who speak a closely related language, but (unlike English speakers) have a dedicated marker for non-volitional causality (daardoor)? The central question in this volume is: What parameters of categorization shape the use of causal connectives and auxiliary verbs across languages? The book discusses how differences between even quite closely related languages (English, Dutch, Polish) can help us to elaborate the typology of levels and categories of causation represented in language. In addition, the volume demonstrates convergence of linguistic, corpus-linguistic and psycholinguistic methodologies in determining cognitive categories of causality. The basic notion of causality appears to be an ideal linguistic phenomenon to provide an overview of methods and, perhaps more importantly, invoke a discussion on the most adequate methodological approaches to study fundamental issues in language and cognition.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110224429
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
All languages of the world provide their speakers with linguistic means to express causal relations in discourse. Causal connectives and causative auxiliaries are among the salient markers of causal construals. Cognitive scientists and linguists are interested in how much of this causal modeling is specific to a given culture and language, and how much is characteristic of general human cognition. Speakers of English, for example, can choose between because and since or between therefore and so. How different are these from the choices made by Dutch speakers, who speak a closely related language, but (unlike English speakers) have a dedicated marker for non-volitional causality (daardoor)? The central question in this volume is: What parameters of categorization shape the use of causal connectives and auxiliary verbs across languages? The book discusses how differences between even quite closely related languages (English, Dutch, Polish) can help us to elaborate the typology of levels and categories of causation represented in language. In addition, the volume demonstrates convergence of linguistic, corpus-linguistic and psycholinguistic methodologies in determining cognitive categories of causality. The basic notion of causality appears to be an ideal linguistic phenomenon to provide an overview of methods and, perhaps more importantly, invoke a discussion on the most adequate methodological approaches to study fundamental issues in language and cognition.
The Oxford Handbook of Causal Reasoning
Author: Michael Waldmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199399557
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 769
Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Causal Reasoning offers a state-of-the-art review of one of our most central cognitive competencies, which has for a long time been neglected in cognitive psychology. This Handbook provides introductions of competing theories of causal reasoning, and discusses its role in various cognitive functions and domains.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199399557
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 769
Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Causal Reasoning offers a state-of-the-art review of one of our most central cognitive competencies, which has for a long time been neglected in cognitive psychology. This Handbook provides introductions of competing theories of causal reasoning, and discusses its role in various cognitive functions and domains.
The Pragmatics of Discourse Coherence
Author: Helmut Gruber
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027269238
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
Over the past four decades, discourse coherence has been studied from linguistic, psycholinguistic, computational, and applied perspectives. This volume identifies current issues and under-researched topics in the pragmatics of discourse coherence. Nine studies from various disciplines address the realization and signalling of coherence relations in various genres and languages, their acquisition and use by first- and second-language learners and university students, the relationship between coherence relations and genre-specific discourse structure, and extensions of the coherence paradigm to multimodal discourse and visual art. This collection will be of interest to researchers from linguistics, applied linguistics, psychology, communication, and multimodal semiotics.
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027269238
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
Over the past four decades, discourse coherence has been studied from linguistic, psycholinguistic, computational, and applied perspectives. This volume identifies current issues and under-researched topics in the pragmatics of discourse coherence. Nine studies from various disciplines address the realization and signalling of coherence relations in various genres and languages, their acquisition and use by first- and second-language learners and university students, the relationship between coherence relations and genre-specific discourse structure, and extensions of the coherence paradigm to multimodal discourse and visual art. This collection will be of interest to researchers from linguistics, applied linguistics, psychology, communication, and multimodal semiotics.
Cause - Condition - Concession - Contrast
Author: Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110219042
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 485
Book Description
The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110219042
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 485
Book Description
The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.