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The Motivated Syntax Of Arbitrary Signs
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Book Synopsis The Motivated Syntax of Arbitrary Signs by : Erica C. García
Download or read book The Motivated Syntax of Arbitrary Signs written by Erica C. García and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2009-09-14 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This detailed study challenges the claim that syntax is arbitrary and autonomous, as well as the assumption that Spanish clitic clusters constitute grammaticalized units. Diverse--apparently unrelated--restrictions on clitic clustering in both simplex VP's and Accusative cum Infinitive structures are shown to be cognitively motivated, given the meaning of the individual clitics, and the compositional/interpretative routines those meanings motivate. The analysis accounts, in coherent and principled fashion, for the absolute non-occurrence of some clusters, and the interpretation-dependent acceptability of all remaining clitic combinations: cluster acceptability depends on the ease with which the given clitic combination can be processed to yield a congruent message; there is no point in combining clitics whose meanings preclude speedy processing of the cluster. The monograph goes beyond previous work on Spanish clitics in its wealth of data, the range of syntactic phenomena discussed, and its analytic scope.
Book Synopsis The Motivated Syntax of Arbitrary Signs by : Erica C. Garcia
Download or read book The Motivated Syntax of Arbitrary Signs written by Erica C. Garcia and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This detailed study challenges the claim that syntax is arbitrary and autonomous, as well as the assumption that Spanish clitic clusters constitute grammaticalized units. Diverse--apparently unrelated--restrictions on clitic clustering in both simplex VP's and Accusative cum Infinitive structures are shown to be cognitively motivated, given the meaning of the individual clitics, and the compositional/interpretative routines those meanings motivate. The analysis accounts, in coherent and principled fashion, for the absolute non-occurrence of some clusters, and the interpretation-dependent acceptability of all remaining clitic combinations: cluster acceptability depends on the ease with which the given clitic combination can be processed to yield a congruent message; there is no point in combining clitics whose meanings preclude speedy processing of the cluster. The monograph goes beyond previous work on Spanish clitics in its wealth of data, the range of syntactic phenomena discussed, and its analytic scope.
Book Synopsis The German Demonstratives by : Lin Lin
Download or read book The German Demonstratives written by Lin Lin and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-12-06 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores, analyzes, and compares the use of German and Chinese demonstratives. Discourse and textual uses of the forms are considered, as well as their locative and temporal uses. The author observes that in both languages the demonstratives can be used to refer to referents. However, she departs from the common assumption that proximal demonstratives refer to entities or places close to the speaker, while non-proximal demonstratives refer to entities or places far from the speaker. Having analyzed a representative sampling consisting of a German text and a Chinese text, the author argues that both German and Chinese proximal demonstratives can signal the meaning of HIGH DEIXIS in a system of DEIXIS in the Columbia School of linguistics framework, whereas their non-proximal demonstratives can signal the meaning of LOW DEIXIS. In addition, Chinese demonstratives can be used under more circumstances than German demonstratives due to the lack of articles in Chinese. The author also argues that Cognitive Linguistic analysis is more helpful for new language learners, whereas the Columbia School of linguistics may be better suited to advanced learners who wish to know more about the intrinsic differences between words with similar meanings and uses. This book aims to help German learners better understand the German reference system. Readers with a Chinese language background will definitely benefit more from the book, as well as Chinese learners with a German language background. For pure linguistic enthusiasts and multi-linguals, the book offers an extensive introduction to the Columbia School of linguistics, and can open a new horizon for learning a new language comparatively.
Book Synopsis Arbitrariness and Complex Signs by : Tilo Voltz
Download or read book Arbitrariness and Complex Signs written by Tilo Voltz and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2009 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,3, University of Leipzig (Institut für Anglistik), course: Motivation and Arbitrariness in the English Language, 9 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The following essay wants to draw attention to the relation between motivation and ar-bitrariness within complex linguistic signs. Modern linguistics tries to establish motivation within the language system and by this often seems to negotiate arbitrariness. Bolinger claimed in 1980: "Arbitrary and conventional is a fitting description of distinctive sounds, less so of words, even less of sentences, and beyond that scarcely fits at all" (Fischer & Nänny, 1999, p. xxi). Dirven and Verspoor proclaim that "most of the complex forms of lan-guage...are...not arbitrary, but transparent or motivated" (Dirven & Verspoor, p. 21). Motivation is used to construct convincing explanations for sometimes mystified phe-nomena in a language. Motivated by C.S. Peirce's sign system, linguistic signs are recently moved from a box signed 'symbol' into a box signed 'icon'. Language by this is meant to be a more or less predictable act, which is based on translucent regularities and ordering princi-ples. Structural similarities are the basis of motivation, which examines and proclaims ordeing principles in all spheres of the language: phonology, morphology, lexicon and semantics Motivation even obstructs the syntax of a language. Three main ideas underlie the principle of motivation: (i) sequential ordering, (ii) quan-tity and (iii) proximity. Simplified, the ideas can be summarized as follows: (i) arrangement of linguistic elements according to temporal events, like he opened the door and came in or veni, vidi, vici; (ii) the amount of meaning is reflected in the amount of linguistic form, like I go - I went - I had gone or a car - a green car - a green convertible; (iii) conceptual distance is reflected
Book Synopsis The Handbook of Lexical Functional Grammar by : Mary Dalrymple
Download or read book The Handbook of Lexical Functional Grammar written by Mary Dalrymple and published by Language Science Press. This book was released on 2023-12-14 with total page 2192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) is a nontransformational theory of linguistic structure, first developed in the 1970s by Joan Bresnan and Ronald M. Kaplan, which assumes that language is best described and modeled by parallel structures representing different facets of linguistic organization and information, related by means of functional correspondences. This volume has five parts. Part I, Overview and Introduction, provides an introduction to core syntactic concepts and representations. Part II, Grammatical Phenomena, reviews LFG work on a range of grammatical phenomena or constructions. Part III, Grammatical modules and interfaces, provides an overview of LFG work on semantics, argument structure, prosody, information structure, and morphology. Part IV, Linguistic disciplines, reviews LFG work in the disciplines of historical linguistics, learnability, psycholinguistics, and second language learning. Part V, Formal and computational issues and applications, provides an overview of computational and formal properties of the theory, implementations, and computational work on parsing, translation, grammar induction, and treebanks. Part VI, Language families and regions, reviews LFG work on languages spoken in particular geographical areas or in particular language families. The final section, Comparing LFG with other linguistic theories, discusses LFG work in relation to other theoretical approaches.
Book Synopsis Explanations in Sociosyntactic Variation by : Tanya Karoli Christensen
Download or read book Explanations in Sociosyntactic Variation written by Tanya Karoli Christensen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-20 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New perspectives on how and why syntax varies between and within speakers, focusing on explaining theoretical backgrounds and methods.
Book Synopsis The Substance and Value of Italian Si by : Joseph Davis
Download or read book The Substance and Value of Italian Si written by Joseph Davis and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2017-09-08 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an original treatment of the Italian clitic si. Sharply separating encoded grammar from inference in discourse, it proposes a unitary meaning for si, including impersonals, passives, and reflexives. Si signals third-person participancy but makes no distinctions of number, gender, or case role. The analysis advances the Columbia School framework by relying on just these straightforward oppositions, attributing variety of interpretation largely to language use rather than to grammar. The analysis places si within a network of oppositions involving all the other clitics. Data come primarily from twentieth-century and more recent published and on-line literature. The book will be of interest to functional linguists, students of reflexivity, and scholars of the Italian language.
Book Synopsis Binominal Quantifiers in Spanish by : Katrien Dora Verveckken
Download or read book Binominal Quantifiers in Spanish written by Katrien Dora Verveckken and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2015-07-24 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Quantification is central to human experience (cf. Aristotle’s Organon): the most basic aspects of human life and reasoning involve quantity assessment. This study sheds lights on a highly frequent way to express quantification in Spanish, viz. the binominal quantifier (e.g. un aluviónN1 de llamadasN2 ‘a flood of calls’) which assesses the quantity of N2 in terms of N1. This volume offers a corpus-based, cognitive-functional analysis of binominal quantifiers (BQ) in Spanish. The first part is dedicated to the development of BQs and starts from the assumption that BQs are cross-linguistically involved in grammaticalization. This monograph frames the history of BQs in Spanish in terms of constructional levels of change and highlights the complex interplay between analogical thinking and conceptual persistence. The second part motivates both the ample variation in the paradigm of quantifying nouns and their combinatorial pattern by the very same mechanism of conceptually-driven analogy. The study thus yields an innovative functional model of BQs in Spanish, in synchrony and in diachrony, with major implications for reference grammars and theory building.
Book Synopsis Columbia School Linguistics in the 21st Century by : Nancy Stern
Download or read book Columbia School Linguistics in the 21st Century written by Nancy Stern and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection is the fifth volume of selected papers to emerge from Columbia School (CS) linguistics conferences. A radically functionalist approach, CS shares with Cognitive linguistics the view that grammar is composed of form-meaning correspondences. CS views language as a symbolic tool whose structure is shaped both by its communicative function and by the characteristics of its users. The volume includes papers on methodological issues and innovative analyses on English, Spanish, and Mandarin that illustrate the value of the strict application of clearly spelled out theoretical principles to the execution of linguistic analysis. Four of the volume’s eleven papers are written in Spanish, and all papers have abstracts in both English and Spanish. An introduction highlights the theoretical and analytical premises of CS, and their differences from and similarities with cognitive-functional approaches. The collection will be of interest to researchers and laymen who aim to understand the role of language in human communication.
Book Synopsis Constructing Us by : Miguel A. Aijón Oliva
Download or read book Constructing Us written by Miguel A. Aijón Oliva and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-07-08 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Developments in the analysis of linguistic variation show the need for a theoretical model whereby variants are viewed as cognitively-based communicative choices. In this book, the analysis of the first and second grammatical persons in Spanish media discourse illustrates an approach to linguistic structure and usage as motivated by the need to create meaning at all semiotic levels. Rather than mere sets of deictic forms, persons constitute arrays of functional strategies used by speakers to develop certain representations of themselves and others. The degree of salience attributed to some participant through grammatical configuration – including features like person, way of formulation and syntactic function – strongly conditions the discursive role of that participant, as well as the communicative situation at large. Methodologically, the demonstration conjugates the analysis of quantitative usage patterns with that of specific instances of choice, in order to elucidate the stylistic potential of syntactic forms in media contexts. Understanding variation as the construction of meaning is essential to the scientific advancement of linguistics as an inherently social and cognitive discipline.
Book Synopsis Linguistic Theory and Empirical Evidence by : Bob de Jonge
Download or read book Linguistic Theory and Empirical Evidence written by Bob de Jonge and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume further elaborates the empirical tradition of Columbia School (CS) Linguistics by offering diverse empirical analyses for a wide variety of languages. These studies open a much needed debate advocating the necessity of the independent validation of linguistic hypotheses. This research exemplifies how such a validation should be conducted by determining which forms underlie the analyses and extracting those observations that are considered to be objective. The volume consists of two parts: a section on synchronic and diachronic grammatical problems and a section on Phonology as Human Behavior (PHB), the Columbia School version of phonology, applied to evolutionary, developmental and clinical issues and the phonotactics of the selected lexicon of a literary text. It provides a wealth of useful empirical data and in-depth and sophisticated qualitative and quantitative analyses of a broad range of languages from diverse families: French, Spanish, Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Polish, Russian, Japanese, and Hebrew.
Download or read book The Arabic Verb written by Warwick Danks and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Arabic verbal system is, for most grammarians, the keystone of the language. Notable for the regularity of its patterns, it presents the linguist with an unparalleled opportunity to explore the Saussurean notion of the indivisible sign: form and meaning. Whilst Arabic forms are well-documented, the elucidation of the corresponding meanings has proved more challenging. Beginning with an examination of the verbal morphology of Modern Standard Arabic, including an evaluation of the significance of the consonantal root, this volume then concentrates on establishing the function of the vowel-lengthening verbal patterns (III and VI). It explores issues of mutuality and reciprocity, valency and transitivity, ultimately focusing on atelic lexical aspect as the unified meaning of these patterns. This study is rich in data and relies extensively upon contemporary examples (with transliteration and translation) to illustrate its arguments, adopting an empirical structuralist approach which is aimed both at general linguists and at specialist Arabists.
Book Synopsis Limiting the Arbitrary by : John E. Joseph
Download or read book Limiting the Arbitrary written by John E. Joseph and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2000-10-15 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea that some aspects of language are ‘natural’, while others are arbitrary, artificial or derived, runs all through modern linguistics, from Chomsky’s GB theory and Minimalist program and his concept of E- and I-language, to Greenberg’s search for linguistic universals, Pinker’s views on regular and irregular morphology and the brain, and the markedness-based constraints of Optimality Theory. This book traces the heritage of this linguistic naturalism back to its locus classicus, Plato’s dialogue Cratylus. The first half of the book is a detailed examination of the linguistic arguments in the Cratylus. The second half follows three of the dialogue’s naturalistic themes through subsequent linguistic history — natural grammar and conventional words, from Aristotle to Pinker; natural dialect and artificial language, from Varro to Chomsky; and invisible hierarchies, from Jakobson to Optimality Theory — in search of a way forward beyond these seductive yet spurious and limiting dichotomies.
Book Synopsis The Motivated Sign by : Olga Fischer
Download or read book The Motivated Sign written by Olga Fischer and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2001-03-08 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, a sequel to Form Miming Meaning (1999), offers a selection of papers given at the second international symposium on iconicity (Amsterdam 1999). In the light of semiotic, linguistic and literary theory the studies gathered here investigate how iconicity works on all levels of language, in literary texts and other forms of verbal discourse. They investigate, among other subjects, the semiotic foundations of iconicity, the role played by iconicity in language evolution and in the way words are positioned syntactically. Special consideration is given to the iconic nature of metaphor and the ‘mise en abyme’, to iconically motivated punctuation and other typographic matters such as the manipulation of colour, fonts and spacing in advertising and in poetry. Other studies show how iconicity influences Shakespeare’s rhetoric, the structural design of Margaret Atwood’s writings and the changing fashions in fictional landscape description. Thus, these analyses of ‘the motivated sign’ represent yet another strong challenge to “Saussure’s dogma of arbitrariness” (Jakobson).
Book Synopsis Arbitrariness and Complex Signs by : Tilo Voltz
Download or read book Arbitrariness and Complex Signs written by Tilo Voltz and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2008-12-23 with total page 15 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,3, University of Leipzig (Institut für Anglistik), course: Motivation and Arbitrariness in the English Language, 9 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The following essay wants to draw attention to the relation between motivation and ar-bitrariness within complex linguistic signs. Modern linguistics tries to establish motivation within the language system and by this often seems to negotiate arbitrariness. Bolinger claimed in 1980: “Arbitrary and conventional is a fitting description of distinctive sounds, less so of words, even less of sentences, and beyond that scarcely fits at all“ (Fischer & Nänny, 1999, p. xxi). Dirven and Verspoor proclaim that “most of the complex forms of lan-guage...are...not arbitrary, but transparent or motivated“ (Dirven & Verspoor, p. 21). Motivation is used to construct convincing explanations for sometimes mystified phe-nomena in a language. Motivated by C.S. Peirce’s sign system, linguistic signs are recently moved from a box signed ‘symbol’ into a box signed ‘icon’. Language by this is meant to be a more or less predictable act, which is based on translucent regularities and ordering princi-ples. Structural similarities are the basis of motivation, which examines and proclaims ordeing principles in all spheres of the language: phonology, morphology, lexicon and semantics Motivation even obstructs the syntax of a language. Three main ideas underlie the principle of motivation: (i) sequential ordering, (ii) quan-tity and (iii) proximity. Simplified, the ideas can be summarized as follows: (i) arrangement of linguistic elements according to temporal events, like he opened the door and came in or veni, vidi, vici; (ii) the amount of meaning is reflected in the amount of linguistic form , like I go – I went – I had gone or a car – a green car – a green convertible; (iii) conceptual distance is reflected in formal distance, like I made her leave – I wanted her to leave – I wished she would leave. Essential to all three principles of iconicity is the kind of motivation they supply. What can be identified by sequential ordering, quantity and proximity is the formal and conceptual structure of a linguistic sign. Metaphorically speaking, motivation provides the bones (formal structure) and the muscles (conceptual structure) to complex linguistic sign. What motiva-tion can neither answer nor negotiate is the question of element’s arbitrariness, and why a certain concept is conventionally linked to a representing sound pattern. Moreover, it is the arbitrary character of simplex forms, which enables the understanding of complex signs. The aim of this paper is to raise an awareness for the inseparable connection of arbi-trariness and motivation in the analysis of complex signs. This aim will be achieved in three steps. First, the distinction between simplex and complex sign is focused, followed by a short introduction of the linguistic sign and a simplified understanding of language. Beyond, two important possibilities of analyzing linguistic signs and language are proposed: a sign inter-nal and a sign related analysis. In a second step, arbitrariness and motivation are correlated to the two processes of analyzing a language. In a last step, the thesis will be exemplified.
Book Synopsis Grammatical Reconstruction by : Don Daniels
Download or read book Grammatical Reconstruction written by Don Daniels and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-03-09 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is still widespread disagreement among historical linguists about how, or whether, syntactic reconstruction can be done. This book presents a comprehensive methodology for syntactic reconstruction, grounded in a constructional understanding of language. The author then uses that methodology to reconstruct Proto-Sogeram, the ancestor to ten languages in Papua New Guinea. Chapters are devoted to phonology, lexicon, verbal morphosyntax, nominal morphosyntax, and syntactic constructions. The work culminates in a sketch of Proto-Sogeram grammar. Based largely on the author's original fieldwork, this is an innovative application of a novel methodology to new data, and the most complete reconstruction of a Papuan proto-language to date. It will be of interest to scholars of language change, language reconstruction, typology, and Papuan languages.
Book Synopsis Linguistic Turns, 1890-1950 by : Ken Hirschkop
Download or read book Linguistic Turns, 1890-1950 written by Ken Hirschkop and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-04 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Linguistic Turns rewrites the intellectual and cultural history of early twentieth-century Europe. In chapters that study the work of Saussure, Russell, Wittgenstein, Bakhtin, Benjamin, Cassirer, Shklovskii, the Russian Futurists, Ogden and Richards, Sorel, Gramsci, and others, it shows how European intellectuals came to invest 'language' with extraordinary force, at a time when the social and political order of the continent was itself in question. By examining linguistic turns in concert rather than in isolation, the volume changes the way we see them—no longer simply as moves in individual disciplines, but as elements of a larger constellation, held together by common concerns and anxieties. In a series of detailed readings, the volume reveals how each linguistic turn invested 'language as such' with powers that could redeem not just individual disciplines but Europe itself. It shows how, in the hands of different writers, language becomes a model of social and political order, a tool guaranteeing analytical precision, a vehicle of dynamic change, a storehouse of mythical collective energy, a template for civil society, and an image of justice itself. By detailing the force linguistic turns attribute to language, and the way in which they contrast 'language as such' with actual language, the volume dissects the investments made in words and sentences and the visions behind them. The constellation of linguistic turns is explored as an intellectual event in its own right and as the pursuit of social theory by other means.
