Universal Grammar and Iconicity

Universal Grammar and Iconicity PDF Author: Yafei Li
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108840434
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
Explores the relationship between two widely discussed topics in linguistics - universal grammar and iconicity.

Universal Grammar and Iconicity

Universal Grammar and Iconicity PDF Author: Yafei Li
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108840434
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
Explores the relationship between two widely discussed topics in linguistics - universal grammar and iconicity.

Natural Syntax

Natural Syntax PDF Author: John Haiman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521319812
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
The view that language is in some way 'arbitrary', that there is no formal relationship between a linguistic message and the thought it is meant to convey, is long established and pervasive. The goal of John Haiman's study is to challenge the monopoly of arbitrariness, which he believes has affected in significant ways many models of linguistic description and analysis, notably those proposed by Saussure and more recently by Chomsky and his associates. Linguistic structures, Dr Hainian claims, may be compared to (non-linguistic) diagrams of our thoughts, and deviate from iconicity in many of the same ways and for much the same reasons as do diagrams in general. Arbitrariness develops as a result of the relatively familiar principles of economy, generalization and association. In relation to this thesis, Dr Haiman considers a wide variety of constructions, including conditionals and interrogatives, gapping, causative structures, auxiliaries and reflexives, and provides a wealth of exemplification from different languages that also points to typological differences in respect of iconicity.

A Grammar of Iconism

A Grammar of Iconism PDF Author: Earl R. Anderson
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press
ISBN: 9780838637647
Category : Grammar, Comparative and general
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
Literary criticism often includes ad hoc comments about onomatopoeia, synaesthesia, or other forms of iconism. In A Grammar of Iconism, Earl Anderson discusses these phenomena systematically. According to Anderson, modern post-Saussurian linguistics has as its central tenet the arbitrariness of linguistic signs. Thus, linguistic elements that bear some relationship to their referent have been seen as marginal to the system of language, or at best similar in their arbitrariness to other linguistic signs. As an example of the latter, while most languages have an onomatopoeic element, different languages imitate sounds differently. Anderson argues against the standard view, provides a detailed critique of the negative arguments against iconism, and offers a positive typology that demonstrates the extensiveness and complexity of iconism in language.

A Theory of Syntax

A Theory of Syntax PDF Author: Norbert Hornstein
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521449707
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
Discusses a topical set of issues in syntactic theory, including a number of original proposals at the cutting edge of research in this area. The book provides a theory of the basic grammatical operations and suggests that there is only one that is distinctive to language.

Meaning and Universal Grammar

Meaning and Universal Grammar PDF Author: Cliff Goddard
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027230633
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
Volume one of a set of studies that is founded on the idea that universal grammar is based on - indeed, inseparable from - meaning. The theoretical framework is the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) approach originated by Anna Wierzbicka and developed in collaboration with Cliff Goddard.

Subjects and Universal Grammar

Subjects and Universal Grammar PDF Author: Yehuda N. Falk
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139458566
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
The 'subject' of a sentence is a concept that presents great challenges to linguists. Most languages have something which looks like a subject, but subjects differ across languages in their nature and properties, making them an interesting phenomenon for those seeking linguistic universals. This pioneering volume addresses 'subject' nature from a simultaneously formal and typological perspective. Dividing the subject into two distinct grammatical functions, it shows how the nature of these functions explains their respective properties, and argues that the split in properties shown in 'ergative' languages (whereby the subject of intransitive verbs is marked as an object) results from the functions being assigned to different elements of the clause. Drawing on data from a typologically wide variety of languages, including English, Hebrew, Tagalog, Inuit and Acehnese, it explains why, even in the case of very different languages, certain core properties can be found.

Universal Grammar in the Reconstruction of Ancient Languages

Universal Grammar in the Reconstruction of Ancient Languages PDF Author: Katalin É. Kiss
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110902222
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 533

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Book Description
Philologists aiming to reconstruct the grammar of ancient languages face the problem that the available data always underdetermine grammar, and in the case of gaps, possible mistakes, and idiosyncracies there are no native speakers to consult. The authors of this volume overcome this difficulty by adopting the methodology that a child uses in the course of language acquisition: they interpret the data they have access to in terms of Universal Grammar (more precisely, in terms of a hypothetical model of UG). Their studies, discussing syntactic and morphosyntactic questions of Older Egyptian, Coptic, Sumerian, Akkadian, Biblical Hebrew, Classical Greek, Latin, and Classical Sanskrit, demonstrate that descriptive problems which have proved unsolvable for the traditional, inductive approach can be reduced to the interaction of regular operations and constraints of UG. The proposed analyses also bear on linguistic theory. They provide crucial new data and new generalizations concerning such basic questions of generative syntax as discourse-motivated movement operations, the correlation of movement and agreement, a shift from lexical case marking to structural case marking, the licensing of structural case in infinitival constructions, the structure of coordinate phrases, possessive constructions with an external possessor, and the role of event structure in syntax. In addition to confirming or refuting certain specific hypotheses, they also provide empirical evidence of the perhaps most basic tenet of generative theory, according to which UG is part of the genetic endowment of the human species - i.e., human languages do not "develop" parallel with the development of human civilization. Some of the languages examined in this volume were spoken as much as 5000 years old, still their grammars do not differ in any relevant respect from the grammars of languages spoken today.

Sign Language Phonology

Sign Language Phonology PDF Author: Diane Brentari
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107113474
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Surveys key findings and ideas in sign language phonology, exploring the crucial areas in phonology to which sign language studies has contributed.

In Search of Universal Grammar

In Search of Universal Grammar PDF Author: Terje Lohndal
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027272433
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
This volume in honor of Jan Terje Faarlund covers the areas in which he has contributed to linguistic theorizing, ranging from in-depth studies of Norwegian and Scandinavian grammar both synchronically and diachronically, to work on the Indian language Chiapas Zoque. The book is organized thematically with two chapters on each topic: The grammar of the Scandinavian languages (Tor A. Åfarli and Christer Platzack); language policies and sociolinguistics (Unn Røyneland and Peter Trudgill); French (Hans Petter Helland and Christine Meklenborg Salvesen); language change (Werner Abraham and Elly van Gelderen); lesser-studied languages (Alice Harris and Jerry Sadock); language acquisition (David Lightfoot and Marit Westergaard); and language evolution (Erika Hagelberg and Salikoko Mufwene). This book will be of interest to a wide range of readers, from students to scholars working on any of the areas covered.

Universal Grammar

Universal Grammar PDF Author: Edward Louis Keenan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Grammar, Comparative and general
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description