Adjectival Modification and Order Restrictions

Adjectival Modification and Order Restrictions
Author: Sven Kotowski
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2016-09-12
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110476460

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This monographs investigates into the influence of the individual-/stage-level distinction (IL/SL) on order restrictions of multiple prenominal adjectives (AORs). It rejects the restriction regularly postulated—across different research frameworks—that SL-adjectives are being realized farther from the head noun than IL-adjectives, relegating the alleged constraint to an epiphenomenon of more general principles. While formal-theoretic hypotheses on AORs are formulated and put to the test empirically via a large corpus as well as two rating studies, the book also addresses adjective classification, modification patterns, and the IL-SL-debate in general. The preferred prenominal positions of typical SL-adjectives are argued to follow from their nature as absolute-gradable adjectives as well as from the distinction between object- and kind-modification. The empirical studies corroborate these considerations. The book critically discusses and opposes several well-established hypotheses on AORs, sketches a flexible and parsimonious syntax of adjectival modification, and will be of interest to syntacticians and semanticists working on DP-structure, the IL-SL-debate, and adjectival modification

The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax

The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax
Author: Marcel den Dikken
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 1412
Release: 2013-07-25
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1107354587

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Syntax – the study of sentence structure – has been at the centre of generative linguistics from its inception and has developed rapidly and in various directions. The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax provides a historical context for what is happening in the field of generative syntax today, a survey of the various generative approaches to syntactic structure available in the literature and an overview of the state of the art in the principal modules of the theory and the interfaces with semantics, phonology, information structure and sentence processing, as well as linguistic variation and language acquisition. This indispensable resource for advanced students, professional linguists (generative and non-generative alike) and scholars in related fields of inquiry presents a comprehensive survey of the field of generative syntactic research in all its variety, written by leading experts and providing a proper sense of the range of syntactic theories calling themselves generative.

Interdisciplinary Approaches to Language

Interdisciplinary Approaches to Language
Author: C. Georgopoulos
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 681
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9401138184

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The thirty-two papers in this collection are offered to Professor S.-Y. Kuroda by his friends, as a ge sture of their deep respect and enduring affection. One of the many ways in which Professor Kuroda has impressed us all is in the breadth of his interests and areas of expertise. He is one of those rare scholars whose work and interests span the whole range of his discipline. He is a figure of such intellectual stature that he has inspired, influenced, and encouraged researchers in an astonishing variety of projects. He continues to do so at an unslackened pace today, just as his own productivity remains vigorous. But mention of Yuki's inspiration and influence is inadequate without mention of his special humorousness, his mischievous wit, his charm and as a friend, has added a unique warmth. Knowing Yuki, and counting him quality to our lives. We who have contributed to this collection have done so in partial acknowledgement of, and gratitude for, this benign and masterful influence. The contributions to the collection reflect the range of Yuki's own interests, and cover a rich variety of approaches to the analysis of natural language. These include papers in philosophy, psychology, computer sciencel artificial intelligence, and linguistics, and, within linguistics, the entire breadth of the field: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and computation. Though diverse in their themes, language areas, and foci, the papers are bound by their authors' common bond to Yuki.

Adjectives

Adjectives
Author: Patricia Cabredo Hoffher
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2010
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027255369

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Adjectives are comparatively less well studied than the lexical categories of nouns and verbs. The present volume brings together studies in the syntax and semantics of adjectives. Four of the contributions investigate the syntax of adjectives in a variety of languages (English, French, Mandarin Chinese, Modern Hebrew, Russian, Spanish, and Serbocroatian). The theoretical issues explored include: the syntax of attributive and predicative adjectives, the syntax of nominalized adjectives and the identification of adjectives as a distinct lexical category in Mandarin Chinese. A further four contributions examine different aspects in the semantics of adjectives in English, French, and Spanish, dealing with superlatives, comparatives, and aspect in adjectives. This volume will be of interest to researchers and students in syntax, formal semantics, and language typology.

Conceptual Restrictions on Weakly Referential Constructions

Conceptual Restrictions on Weakly Referential Constructions
Author: Maartje Schulpen
Publisher:
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2016
Genre:
ISBN: 9789460932229

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This dissertation investigates the restrictions on weak defi such as in going to the hospital, on bare predicates like in hij is kunstenaar (Dutch, lit.?he is artist?), and on bare singular nouns such as in tenir pis (Catalan, lit?to have apartment?). These so- called weakly referential constructions are selective in terms of which nouns and noun-verb combinations they can contain. These restrictions are in fact conceptual in nature. The commonly observed intuition is that they can only express concepts that are culturally or contextually well-established in some way, but what this means exactly has so far remained an open question. This dissertation addresses this issue from a semantic perspective, using adjectival modifi as a tool to probe the limits of what can and what cannot be expressed by these constructions. By means of empirical studies of the adjectival modifi restrictions on weak defi bare predicates and bare singular nouns, it is shown that there is in fact a linguistic correlate to conceptual well-establishedness, in that these constructions have a clear preference for adjectives whose semantics is independent of outside factors such as situations and speakers. This shows that something as intangible as conceptual requirements can still be traced back to lexical semantics, showing a link between linguistics and the conceptual level.

Modification

Modification
Author: Marcin Morzycki
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2016
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1107009758

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An accessible guide to the linguistic semantics of adjectives, adverbs, gradability, vagueness, comparatives, and modification more generally.

Possessors, Predicates and Movement in the Determiner Phrase

Possessors, Predicates and Movement in the Determiner Phrase
Author: Artemis Alexiadou
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 394
Release: 1998-10-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027282293

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This volume presents a cross-section of current research on the internal syntax of ‘Determiner Phrases` (DPs), with special emphasis on the analysis of DPs modified by genitival, adjectival and other non-finite attributes. Possessors, Predicates and Movement in the DP illustrates clearly the ongoing debate over older and more recent approaches to the syntax of DPs in particular in the wake of the minimalist program (Chomsky 1995) and Kayne’s antisymmetry hypothesis (Kayne 1994). The relative theoretical coherence among the contributions permits detailed comparison of specific syntactic proposals, providing a solid basis for further debate. Several of the papers address the syntactic questions in parallel with related semantic or morphological issues. The value of this collection to the study of Universal Grammar is also underlined by its comparative bias. Analyses of Germanic, Romance and Balkan languages figure prominently, and a number of new empirical generalizations within and between languages are discussed.

New Perspectives on Chinese Syntax

New Perspectives on Chinese Syntax
Author: Waltraud Paul
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2014-12-12
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110338777

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Mandarin Chinese has become indispensable for crosslinguistic comparison and syntactic theorizing. It is nevertheless still difficult to obtain comprehensive answers to research questions, because Chinese is often presented as an "exotic" language defying the analytical tools standardly used for other languages. This book sets out to demystify Chinese. It places controversial issues in the context of current syntactic theories and offers precise analyses based on a large array of representative data. Although the focus is on Modern Mandarin, earlier stages of Chinese are occasionally referred to in order to highlight striking continuities in its history. VO order is one such constant factor, thus invalidating the idea that Chinese went through a major word order change from OV to VO and back to OV. Another claim often made for Chinese as an isolating language, viz. the existence of an impoverished inventory of parts of speech, is likewise refuted. Other long debated issues addressed here include the relevance of the dichotomy topic vs subject prominence and the role of Chinese as a recurring exception to crosscategorial harmonies posited in typological studies.

Prosodic Weight

Prosodic Weight
Author: Kevin M. Ryan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2019-02-21
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0192550209

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This volume provides the most comprehensive treatment of phonological weight to date, bringing together traditional notions of categorical, rime-based weight and new developments in statistical prosodic phonology. The book demonstrates that while some systems treat weight as a simple (heavy vs. light) distinction, others treat it as a rich continuum of heaviness. Following an introduction to weight-sensitive systems in phonology, Kevin Ryan explores the range of phenomena that interact with prosodic weight. Chapters examine the analysis of scales in terms of prominence rather than moraic coercion; prosodic minimality in the context of larger prosodic constituents; syllable weight in metrics; and the relationship between prosodic end-weight and stress. Throughout, the analysis is based on a survey of weight systems both within and across the world's languages, which yields a number of valuable generalizations and points towards a universal theory of weight in human language.

Focus and Secondary Predication

Focus and Secondary Predication
Author: Susanne Winkler
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 493
Release: 2011-12-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110815214

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The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon.