Indefinite Objects

Indefinite Objects PDF Author: Luis Lopez
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262304708
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
A novel view of the syntax-semantics interface that analyzes the behavior of indefinite objects. In Indefinite Objects, Luis López presents a novel approach to the syntax-semantics interface using indefinite noun phrases as a database. Traditional approaches map structural configurations to semantic interpretations directly; López links configuration to a mode of semantic composition, with the latter yielding the interpretation. The polyvalent behavior of indefinites has long been explored by linguists who have been interested in their syntax, semantics, and case morphology, and López's contribution can be seen as a synthesis of findings from several traditions. He argues, first, that scrambled indefinite objects are composed by means of Function Application preceded by Choice Function while objects in situ are composed by means of Restrict. This difference yields the different interpretive possibilities of indefinite objects. López's more nuanced approach to the syntax-semantics interface turns out to be rich in empirical consequences. Second, he proposes that short scrambling also yields Differential Marking, provided that context conditions are fulfilled, while in situ objects remain unmarked. Thus, López contributes to the extensive literature on Differential Object Marking by showing that syntactic configuration is a crucial factor. López substantiates this approach with data from Spanish, Hindi-Urdu, Persian (Farsi), Kiswahili, Romanian, and German.

Indefinite Objects

Indefinite Objects PDF Author: Luis Lopez
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262304708
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 189

Get Book Here

Book Description
A novel view of the syntax-semantics interface that analyzes the behavior of indefinite objects. In Indefinite Objects, Luis López presents a novel approach to the syntax-semantics interface using indefinite noun phrases as a database. Traditional approaches map structural configurations to semantic interpretations directly; López links configuration to a mode of semantic composition, with the latter yielding the interpretation. The polyvalent behavior of indefinites has long been explored by linguists who have been interested in their syntax, semantics, and case morphology, and López's contribution can be seen as a synthesis of findings from several traditions. He argues, first, that scrambled indefinite objects are composed by means of Function Application preceded by Choice Function while objects in situ are composed by means of Restrict. This difference yields the different interpretive possibilities of indefinite objects. López's more nuanced approach to the syntax-semantics interface turns out to be rich in empirical consequences. Second, he proposes that short scrambling also yields Differential Marking, provided that context conditions are fulfilled, while in situ objects remain unmarked. Thus, López contributes to the extensive literature on Differential Object Marking by showing that syntactic configuration is a crucial factor. López substantiates this approach with data from Spanish, Hindi-Urdu, Persian (Farsi), Kiswahili, Romanian, and German.

Objects and Information Structure

Objects and Information Structure PDF Author: Mary Dalrymple
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521199859
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
A cross-linguistic study of how objects are affected by information structure.

The Generic Book

The Generic Book PDF Author: Gregory N. Carlson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226092925
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 473

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Book Description
In an attempt to address the theoretical gap between linguistics and philosophy, a group of semanticists, calling itself the Generic Group, has worked to develop a common view of genericity. Their research has resulted in this book, which consists of a substantive introduction and eleven original articles on important aspects of the interpretation of generic expressions. The introduction provides a clear overview of the issues and synthesizes the major analytical approaches to them. Taken together, the papers that follow reflect the current state of the art in the semantics of generics, and afford insight into various generic phenomena.

On the Syntax of Missing Objects

On the Syntax of Missing Objects PDF Author: Marta Ruda
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 902726483X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
Focusing on objects, this book aims at contributing to the on-going inquiry into modelling structures with missing arguments. In addition to offering detailed discussion and analyses of a unique combination of three very different systems (English, Polish, and Hungarian), a larger goal here is to provide a framework for deriving cross-linguistic and intra-linguistic variation in the domain of object drop. Variation of this type is hypothesised to follow, first and foremost, from the association of heads in the extended nominal projection with phonemic features and from the system of interpretation of nominal expressions in a language. The book will be of interest to both theoretically- and descriptively-oriented researchers, since, even though its focus is theoretical, a detailed discussion of the empirical facts, including some novel findings drawn from corpus studies and grammaticality judgements, is also offered.

 PDF Author:
Publisher: IOS Press
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 7289

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Book Description


The Acquisition of Direct Object Scrambling and Clitic Placement

The Acquisition of Direct Object Scrambling and Clitic Placement PDF Author: Jeannette C. Schaeffer
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027224903
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
This book offers a new contribution to the debate concerning the “real time acquisition” of grammar in First Language Acquisition Theory. It combines detailed and quantitative observations of object placement in Dutch and Italian child language with an analysis that makes use of the Modularity Hypothesis. Real time development is explained by the interaction between two different modules of language, namely syntax and pragmatics. Children need to build up knowledge of how the world works, which includes learning that in communicating with someone else, one must realize that speaker and hearer knowledge are always independent. Since the syntactic feature referentiality can only be marked if this (pragmatic) distinction is made, and assuming that certain types of object placement (such as scrambling and clitic placement) are motivated by referentiality, it follows that the relevant syntactic mechanism is dependent on the prior acquisition of a pragmatic distinction.

Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Theory

Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Theory PDF Author: Britta Stolterfoht
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 1614510881
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
The mental representation of language cannot be directly observed but must be inferred and modelled from its effects at second hand. Linguists have traditionally responded to this in two ways, either going for a fairly data-light approach and valuing theoretical creativity, or pursuing just those goals for which data is available and trusting to data-driven descriptive work. More recently, advances in technology and experimental techniques have made data gathering easier and more accessible, so that a theoretically informed but empirically based approach is rapidly growing in popularity. This synthesis permits linguists to combine the intellectual hypothesis generation of the theoreticians with the ability to deliver hard answers of the empiricist. This volume is a collection of papers in this direction, using mostly experiment methods to yield insights into syntactic and semantic structures, language processing, and acquisition. Papers report corpus data, neurological investigations, child language studies, and fieldwork from minority languages.

The Blackwell Companion to Syntax

The Blackwell Companion to Syntax PDF Author: Martin Everaert
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1405178418
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 3575

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Book Description
*** Pre-Order The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, second edition, publishing December 2017. Find out more at www.companiontosyntax.com *** This long-awaited reference work marks the culmination of numerous years of research and international collaboration by the world's leading syntacticians. There exists no other comparable collection of research that documents the development of syntax in this way. Under the editorial direction of Martin Everaert and Henk van Riemsdijk, this 5 volume set comprises 70 case studies commissioned specifically for this volume. The 80 contributors are drawn from an international group of prestigious linguists, including Joe Emonds, Sandra Chung, Susan Rothstein, Adriana Belletti, Jim Huang, Howard Lasnik, and Marcel den Dikken, among many others. A unique collection of 70 newly-commissioned case studies, offering access to research completed over the last 40 years. Brings together the world’s leading syntacticians to provide a large and diverse number of case studies in the field. Explores a comprehensive range of syntax topics from an historical perspective. Investigates empirical domains which have been well-documented and which have played a prominent role in theoretical syntax at some stage in the development of generative grammar. Serves as a research tool for not only theoretical linguistics but also the various forms of applied linguistics. Contains an accessible alphabetical structure, with an index integral to each volume featuring keywords and key figures. Each multi-volume set is also accompanied by a CD Rom of the entire Companion. Like the prestigious Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics series, this multi-volume work, in the new The Wiley Blackwell Companions to Linguistics series, can be relied upon to deliver the quality and expertise with which Blackwell Publishing’s linguistics list is associated.

Chamorro Reference Grammar

Chamorro Reference Grammar PDF Author: Donald M. Topping
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824841263
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
Chamorro Reference Grammar is a detailed description of the grammatical structure of the indigenous language of the Mariana Islands. It is designed primarily as a reference work which will serve to give native speakers some insight into the complexities of their language and to encourage its use at a time when other languages are more prestigious. The book contains an introduction to Chamorro, and its developmental history and dialectal variations, and, with a minimum of technical linguistic terms, it treats phonology, morphology, and syntax. Notes to linguists and a glossary of linguistic terms are included.

The Function of Word Order in Turkish Grammar

The Function of Word Order in Turkish Grammar PDF Author: Eser Ermine Erguvanli
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520099555
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description