The Semantics Of Grammar
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The Semantics Of Grammar
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Author : Anna Wierzbicka
language : en
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Release Date : 1988-01-01
The Semantics Of Grammar written by Anna Wierzbicka and has been published by John Benjamins Publishing this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 1988-01-01 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
"The semantics of grammar" presents a radically semantic approach to syntax and morphology. It offers a methodology which makes it possible to demonstrate, on an empirical basis, that syntax is neither "autonomous" nor "arbitrary," but that it follows from "semantics." It is shown that every grammatical construction encodes a certain semantic structure, which can be revealed and rigorously stated, so that the meanings encoded in grammar can be compared in a precise and illuminating way, within one language and across language boundaries. The author develops a semantic metalanguage based on lexical universals or near-universals (and, ultimately, on a system of universal semantic primitives), and shows that the same semantic metalanguage can be used for explicating lexical, grammatical and pragmatic aspects of language and thus offers a method for an integrated linguistic description based on semantic foundations. Analyzing data from a number of different languages (including English, Russian and Japanese) the author explores the notion of ethnosyntax and, via semantics, links syntax and morphology with culture. She attemps to demonstrate that the use of a semantic metalanguage based on lexical universals makes it possible to rephrase the Humboldt-Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in such a way that it can be tested and treated as a program for empirical research.
The Semantics Of Syntax
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Author : Denis Bouchard
language : en
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Release Date : 1995-12
The Semantics Of Syntax written by Denis Bouchard and has been published by University of Chicago Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 1995-12 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
During the last thirty years, most linguists and philosophers have assumed that meaning can be represented symbolically and that the mental processing of language involves the manipulation of symbols. Scholars have assembled strong evidence that there must be linguistic representations at several abstract levels—phonological, syntactic, and semantic—and that those representations are related by a describable system of rules. Because meaning is so complex, linguists often posit an equally complex relationship between semantic and other levels of grammar. The Semantics of Syntax is an elegant and powerful analysis of the relationship between syntax and semantics. Noting that meaning is underdetermined by form even in simple cases, Denis Bouchard argues that it is impossible to build knowledge of the world into grammar and still have a describable grammar. He thus proposes simple semantic representations and simple rules to relate linguistic levels. Focusing on a class of French verbs, Bouchard shows how multiple senses can be accounted for by the assumption of a single abstract core meaning along with background information about how objects behave in the world. He demonstrates that this move simplifies the syntax at no cost to the descriptive power of the semantics. In two important final chapters, he examines the consequences of his approach for standard syntactic theories.
The Semantics Of Determiners Rle Linguistics B Grammar
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Author : Johan Van Der Auwera
language : en
Publisher: Routledge
Release Date : 2014-01-21
The Semantics Of Determiners Rle Linguistics B Grammar written by Johan Van Der Auwera and has been published by Routledge this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2014-01-21 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
This book is a collection of linguistic and philosophical papers dealing with the semantic problems of determiners. The language under investigation is mostly English, although a few papers deal with French and German, and, to a lesser extent, with Dutch, Polish, Russian and Hebrew. The majority of the contributions focus on the semantics of the definite and indefinite articles, leading into discussions of anaphoricness, specificness, opacity and transparency, referentiality and attributiveness and genericness. The relation of the determiners to other parts of grammar, in particular relativisation and predication, is also investigated. Some attention is also given to quantifiers. In the spirit of pluralism, there is no single paradigm unifying all the papers, rather, the volume reflects elements of the Extended Standard Theory, Generative Semantics, Montague Grammar, (Gricean) Pragmatics and Speech Act Theory.
Word Meaning And Montague Grammar
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Author : D. R. Dowty
language : en
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Release Date : 2012-12-06
Word Meaning And Montague Grammar written by D. R. Dowty and has been published by Springer Science & Business Media this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2012-12-06 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
The most general goal of this book is to propose and illustrate a program of research in word semantics that combines some of the methodology and results in linguistic semantics, primarily that of the generative semantics school, with the rigorously formalized syntactic and semantic framework for the analysis of natural languages developed by Richard Montague and his associates, a framework in which truth and denotation with respect to a model are taken as the fundamental semantic notions. I hope to show, both from the linguist's and the philosopher's point of view, not only why this synthesis can be undertaken but also why it will be useful to pursue it. On the one hand, the linguists' decompositions of word meanings into more primitive parts are by themselves inherently incomplete, in that they deal only in distinctions in meaning without providing an account of what mean ings really are. Not only can these analyses be made complete by a model theoretic semantics, but also such an account of these analyses renders them more exact and more readily testable than they could ever be otherwise.
Grammar And Meaning
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Author : Howard Jackson
language : en
Publisher: Routledge
Release Date : 2014-06-11
Grammar And Meaning written by Howard Jackson and has been published by Routledge this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2014-06-11 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
Grammar and Meaning is an introduction to the study of grammar of contemporary English. It provides an impressive survey of all the main areas of English grammar, from words through to sentences and texts. It introduces and explains the linguistic terms needed to talk about the ways in which language works, from simple terms like adjective to more complex terms like non-finite clause. To meet the needs of both students and scholars, Howard Jackson has produced an innovative approach to the study of English grammar. Instead of concentrating on the formal and theoretical discussion of grammar, as many introductions do, this original analysis examines the 'meanings' we want to express when we use language. Beginning with the question, "What do we talk about?", it goes on to investigate how these meanings are structured in the grammar of English. These notions are closer to our ordinary understanding of what language is doing, and therefore the forms and structures of grammar are more easily grasped. The book is extensively illustrated with examples from real English. With analytical exercises in each chapter and a comprehensive glossary of terms, the book will prove and invaluable aid to students of English language, linguistics and English as a Foreign Language, whilst also being accessible to anyone who studies English grammar as part of their course.
Cross Linguistic Semantics
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Author : Cliff Goddard
language : en
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Release Date : 2008
Cross Linguistic Semantics written by Cliff Goddard and has been published by John Benjamins Publishing this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2008 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
Cross-linguistic semantics investigating how languages package and express meanings differently is central to the linguistic quest to understand the nature of human language. This set of studies explores and demonstrates cross-linguistic semantics as practised in the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) framework, originated by Anna Wierzbicka. The opening chapters give a state-of-the-art overview of the NSM model, propose several theoretical innovations and advance a number of original analyses in connection with names and naming, clefts and other specificational sentences, and discourse anaphora. Subsequent chapters describe and analyse diverse phenomena in ten languages from multiple families, geographical locations, and cultural settings around the globe. Three substantial studies document how the metalanguage of NSM semantic primes can be realised in languages of widely differing types: Amharic (Ethiopia), Korean, and East Cree. Each constitutes a lexicogrammatical portrait in miniature of the language concerned. Other chapters probe topics such as inalienable possession in Koromu (Papua New Guinea), epistemic verbs in Swedish, hyperpolysemy in Bunuba (Australia), the expression of "momentariness" in Berber, ethnogeometry in Makasai (East Timor), value concepts in Russian, and virtuous emotions in Japanese. This book will be valuable for linguists working on language description, lexical semantics, or the semantics of grammar, for advanced students of linguistics, and for others interested in language universals and language diversity.
On The Semantics Of Syntax
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Author : Eirian C. Davies
language : en
Publisher: Routledge
Release Date : 2015-07-03
On The Semantics Of Syntax written by Eirian C. Davies and has been published by Routledge this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2015-07-03 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
First published in 1979, this book develops a grammatically orientated semantics (as opposed to a semantically orientated grammar) of mood and condition in English. It seeks to establish correspondences between areas of semantic organisation (‘planes’) and surface grammar, without reverting to an intermediate notion of deep grammar. The chapters explore topics including the differences between ‘literal meaning’ and ‘significance’, speech roles, and constructions of condition and reason in terms of the four panes discussed earlier in the volume.
Meaning And Grammar
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Author : Gennaro Chierchia
language : en
Publisher: Mit Press
Release Date : 2000
Meaning And Grammar written by Gennaro Chierchia and has been published by Mit Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2000 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
This self-contained introduction to natural language semantics addresses the majortheoretical questions in the field. The authors introduce the systematic study of linguistic meaningthrough a sequence of formal tools and their linguistic applications. Starting with propositionalconnectives and truth conditions, the book moves to quantification and binding, intensionality andtense, and so on. To set their approach in a broader perspective, the authors also explore theinteraction of meaning with context and use (the semantics-pragmatics interface) and address some ofthe foundational questions, especially in connection with cognition in general. They also introducea few of the most accessible and interesting ideas from recent research to give the reader a bit ofthe flavor of current work in semantics. The organization of this new edition is modular; after theintroductory chapters, the remaining material can be covered in flexible order. The book presupposesno background in formal logic (an appendix introduces the basic notions of set theory) and only aminimal acquaintance with linguistics. This edition includes a substantial amount of completely newmaterial and has been not only updated but redesigned throughout to enhance itsuser-friendliness.
The Study Of Aspect Tense And Action
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Author : Carl Bache
language : en
Publisher: Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften
Release Date : 1997
The Study Of Aspect Tense And Action written by Carl Bache and has been published by Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 1997 with Grammar, Comparative and general categories.
This book addresses some methodological problems in the study of tense, aspect and action: How should linguists go about describing these categories and with what terminology? How does our work in this area relate to descriptions of language(s) in general? What research strategies should be explored? Bache discusses the interaction between language-specific grammars and universal grammar, including the problems of analytic directionality, semantic minimalism, and the general metalanguage of universal grammar. The book has several sources of inspiration: generative linguistics, structuralist phonology, glossematics, functional grammar, cognitive semantics and prototype theory. Bache argues strongly for the inclusion of a paradigmatic dimension in the study of the semantics of morphosyntactic categories. Rather than adhering to one particular linguistic school, Bache provides a general description of tense, aspect and action in the form of generalizations that should be accommodated in any theory.
Formal Semantics And Pragmatics For Natural Languages
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Author : Franz Guenthner
language : en
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Release Date : 2012-12-06
Formal Semantics And Pragmatics For Natural Languages written by Franz Guenthner and has been published by Springer Science & Business Media this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2012-12-06 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
The essays in this collection are the outgrowth of a workshop, held in June 1976, on formal approaches to the semantics and pragmatics of natural languages. They document in an astoundingly uniform way the develop ments in the formal analysis of natural languages since the late sixties. The avowed aim of the' workshop was in fact to assess the progress made in the application of formal methods to semantics, to confront different approaches to essentially the same problems on the one hand, and, on the other, to show the way in relating semantic and pragmatic explanations of linguistic phenomena. Several of these papers can in fact be regarded as attempts to close the 'semiotic circle' by bringing together the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties of certain constructions in an explanatory framework thereby making it more than obvious that these three components of an integrated linguistic theory cannot be as neatly separated as one would have liked to believe. In other words, not only can we not elaborate a syntactic description of (a fragment of) a language and then proceed to the semantics (as Montague pointed out already forcefully in 1968), we cannot hope to achieve an adequate integrated syntax and semantics without paying heed to the pragmatic aspects of the constructions involved. The behavior of polarity items, 'quantifiers' like any, conditionals or even logical particles like and and or in non-indicative sentences is clear-cut evidence for the need to let each component of the grammar inform the other.