Author: John Hinds
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027278814
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 319
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Book Description
Within the field of Japanese linguistics, few areas have generated as much controversy as the morpheme wa; traditionally described as a marker of old or contrasted information, its function as a discourse marker has also been studied. This work aims to deepen the understanding of wa through careful examination of the particle at both sentence and discourse levels in old Japanese as well as present-day Japanese. Previous studies have concentrated on syntactic analyses of wa. The contributors to this volume challenge the old approach and uncover new properties of wa. The four topics discussed are: 'WA' in Narrative and Expository Discourse; 'WA' and other Syntactic Phenomena; Historical Perspectives on 'WA' and Pragmatic Perspectives on 'WA'.
Author: Kerstin Schwabe
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027233646
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 584
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Book Description
This collection of articles offers a new and compelling perspective on the interface connecting syntax, phonology, semantics and pragmatics. At the core of this volume is the hypothesis that information structure represents the common interface of these grammatical components. Information structure is investigated here from different theoretical viewpoints yielding typologically relevant information and structural generalizations. In the volume's introductory chapter, the editors identify two central approaches to information structure: the formal and the interpretive view. The remainder of the book is organized accordingly. The first part examines information structure and grammar, concentrating on generalizations across languages. The second part investigates information structure and pragmatics, concentrating on clause structure and context. Through concrete analyses of topic, focus, and related phenomena across different languages, the contributors add new and convincing evidence to the research on information structure.
Author: Marcel Den Dikken
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110981742
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 430
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Book Description
The topic of secondary predication has attracted much attention especially in the generative literature. The present volume distinguishes itself from previous volumes on this topic in that all chapters discuss current issues in the syntax and semantics of secondary predication in the languages of Europe (including the Indo-European languages English, Dutch, French, and Spanish, as well as Hungarian, a Finno-Ugric language) and the languages of Asia (including Japanese, Chinese, and Korean) from formal linguistic perspectives. This book brings to light important new results in and directions for research on secondary predication.
Author: M. M. Jocelyne Fernandez-Vest
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110368757
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 340
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Book Description
Information structure and the organization of oral texts have been rarely studied crosslinguistically. This book contains studies of the grammatical organization of information in languages from different areas (e.g. Amazonian, Finno-Ugric, South-Asian) from a variety of theoretical angles. It will be a valuable resource for researchers investigating the interaction of morphosyntax and discourse in familiar and less familiar languages.
Author: Johannes Kabatek
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027271259
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 342
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Book Description
This book envisions the study of bare noun phrases as a field of research in its own right rather than an accessory matter in the wider domain of nominal determination. Combining insights from different theoretical backgrounds and extending the empirical coverage of bare noun phenomena, the ten contributions provide new perspectives on long-standing but still actively debated problems as well as investigations into previously ignored issues. The volume focuses on the wide range of bare noun phenomena in Romance languages, including Spanish, Catalan, Brazilian and European Portuguese, Italian and French; but also widens its inherently comparative perspective to languages such as Bulgarian and Modern Hebrew. The authors discuss the importance of cross-linguistic patterns in the modeling of the syntax and semantics of noun phrases and of common noun denotations, the role of information structure as well as that of discourse traditions and coordination.
Author: Sven Leuckert
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351000411
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 235
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Book Description
Shortlisted for the 2020 ESSE Book Award in English Language and Linguistics This monograph is the first comprehensive study of topicalization in Asian second-language varieties of English and provides an in-depth analysis of the forms, functions, and frequencies of topicalization in four Asian Englishes. Topicalization, that is, the sentence-initial placement of constituents other than the subject, has been found to occur frequently in the English spoken by many Asians, but so far the possible reasons for this have never been scrutinized. This book closes this research gap by taking into account the structures of the major contact languages, the roles of second-language acquisition and politeness as well as other factors in order to explain why topicalization is highly frequent in some varieties such as Indian English and much less frequent in other varieties such as Hong Kong English. In addition to exploring major and minor forces involved in explaining the frequency of topicalization, the forms and functions of the feature are assessed. Central questions addressed in this regard are the following: Which syntactic constituents tend to be topicalized the most and the least frequently? Which discourse effects does topicalization achieve? How can we approach topicalization methodologically? And, lastly, which influence do language processing and production have on topicalization?
Author: Max Louwerse
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9781588112828
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 468
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Book Description
Themes play a central role in our everyday communication: we have to know what a text is about in order to understand it. Intended meaning cannot be understood without some knowledge of the underlying theme. This book helps to define the concept of 'themes' in texts and how they are structured in language use.Much of the literature on Thematics is scattered over different disciplines (literature, psychology, linguistics, cognitive science), which this detailed collection pulls together in one coherent overview. The result is a new landmark for the study and understanding of themes in their everyday manifestation.
Author: Miriam Butt
Publisher: Center for the Study of Language (CSLI)
ISBN: 9781881526490
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 294
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Book Description
A collection of papers on word order variation in the languages of South Asia.
Author: Chungmin Lee
Publisher: Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 316
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Book Description
This book contains a collection of papers exploring the cross-linguistic expression of topic and focus. A diverse set of perspectives from some of the leading scholars in the areas of semantics and intonation are represented in the collection, which is based on papers presented at the Topic and Focus Workshop at the 2001 LSA Summer Institute in Santa Barbara. This book is unique in the breadth of its typological coverage of topic and focus phenomena. Material is presented from nine languages, including several that are severely under-documented from a theoretical perspective. The expression of topic and focus are integral aspects of linguistic communication that introduce the content of discourse and emphasize its most crucial elements. Topic and focus phenomena are complex and involve both a meaning and a prosodic component. This book is the first collection of papers devoted to the rigorous examination of both semantic and intonational features of topic and focus from a broad typological perspective.
Author: Yoko Hasegawa
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107032776
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 415
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Book Description
A succinct overview of the Japanese language, looking at grammar, vocabulary, meaning and sound structure, as well as sociolinguistics and history.
