Contrast and Representations in Syntax - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Contrast and Representations in Syntax write by Bronwyn M. Bjorkman. This book was released on 2020-10-05. Contrast and Representations in Syntax available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This book explores how grammatical oppositions - for instance, the contrast between present and past tense - are represented in the syntax of natural languages. The nature of syntactic contrast is tied to a fundamental question in generative syntactic theory: what is universal in syntax, and what is variable? The chapters in this volume examine the dual role of features, which both define a set of paradigmatic contrasts and act as the building blocks of syntactic structures and the drivers of syntactic operations. In both of these roles, features are increasingly considered the locus of parametric variation. This identification of parameters with features has opened up new possibilities for investigating connections between the morphological system of a language and its syntax, and suggests a new role for featural contrast in syntactic theory. The contributors to this volume address these two major questions from a range of perspectives, drawing on data from a variety of typologically diverse languages, including Blackfoot, Greek, Onondaga, and Scottish Gaelic.
Comparisons and Contrasts
Comparisons and Contrasts - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Comparisons and Contrasts write by Richard S. Kayne. This book was released on 2010-08-19. Comparisons and Contrasts available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Comparisons and Contrasts collects eleven of Richard Kayne's recent articles in theoretical syntax, with an emphasis on comparative syntax, which uses syntactic differences among languages to probe the properties of the human language faculty. Kayne attaches particular importance to uncovering the primitives of syntax/semantics, demonstrating the existence of silent elements that are syntactically and semantically active, and showing their distribution and limitations. He attempts to derive the very existence of the noun-verb distinction-and to account for the sharp differences between nouns and verbs and for the lack of parallelism between them-from the antisymmetric character of syntax. The common theme is an exploration of how wide a range of questions the field of syntax can reasonably attempt to ask and then answer. Comparisons and Contrasts will appeal to scholars and graduate students interested in syntax, semantics, and their effects on other areas of linguistics.
The Syntax of Topic, Focus, and Contrast
The Syntax of Topic, Focus, and Contrast - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Syntax of Topic, Focus, and Contrast write by Ad Neeleman. This book was released on 2012-12-06. The Syntax of Topic, Focus, and Contrast available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This book addresses how core notions of information structure (topic, focus and contrast) are expressed in syntax. The authors propose that the syntactic effects of information structure come about as a result of mapping rules that are flexible enough to allow topics and foci to be expressed in a variety of positions, but strict enough to capture certain cross-linguistic generalisations about their distribution. In particular, the papers argue that only contrastive topics and contrastive foci undergo movement and that this is because such movement has the function of marking the scope of contrast. Several predications are derived from this proposal: such as that a focus cannot move across a topic – whether the latter is in situ or not. Syntactic and semantic evidence in support of this proposal is presented from a wide range of languages (including Dutch, English, Japanese, Korean and Russian) and theoretical consequences explored. The first chapter not only outlines its theoretical aims, but also provides an introduction to information structure. As a consequence, the book is accessible to advanced students as well as professional linguists.
The Semantics of Syntax
The Semantics of Syntax - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Semantics of Syntax write by Denis Bouchard. This book was released on 1995-12. The Semantics of Syntax available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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.
Conjunctive Markers of Contrast in English and French
Conjunctive Markers of Contrast in English and French - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Conjunctive Markers of Contrast in English and French write by Maïté Dupont. This book was released on 2021-06-15. Conjunctive Markers of Contrast in English and French available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Situated at the interface between corpus linguistics and Systemic Functional Linguistics, this volume focuses on conjunctive markers expressing contrast in English and French. The frequency and placement patterns of the markers are analysed using large corpora of texts from two written registers: newspaper editorials and research articles. The corpus study revisits the long-standing but largely unsubstantiated claim that French requires more explicit markers of cohesive conjunction than English and shows that the opposite is in fact the case. Novel insights into the placement preferences of English and French conjunctive markers are provided by a new approach to theme and rheme that attaches more importance to the rheme than previous studies. The study demonstrates the significant benefits of a combined corpus and Systemic Functional Linguistics approach to the cross-linguistic analysis of cohesion.
