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Author: Louise McNally Publisher: Taylor & Francis ISBN: 9780815325574 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 238
Book Description
Proposes a new semantics for English statements beginning with there, which adopts the generally rejected characterization of them as subject-predicate prepositions in which the subject is a property or description of an individual and the predicate affirms the instantiation of the property of des
Author: Louise McNally Publisher: Taylor & Francis ISBN: 9780815325574 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 238
Book Description
Proposes a new semantics for English statements beginning with there, which adopts the generally rejected characterization of them as subject-predicate prepositions in which the subject is a property or description of an individual and the predicate affirms the instantiation of the property of des
Author: Louise McNally Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1315536471 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 181
Book Description
First published in 1997, this book addresses the question: What is the interpretation of English there-existential construction? One of the principal goals is to develop an interpretation for the construction that will specifically address other properties of the postcopular DP. After outlining the problem, the author goes on to present a syntactic motivation for the claim that the postcopular DP is the sole complement to the existential predicate, as well as for the claim that the optional final phrase is a predictive adjunct. In chapter 3 the interpretation for the basic existential construction is developed and then compared to analyses that take the postcopular DP to denote an ordinary individual or a generalised quantifier of individuals. This analysis is then augmented to account for the contribution of the final XP and shows how the predicate restriction can be derived from a more general condition on depictive/circumstantial VP-adjuncts. The final chapter contain some speculative discussion of the broader implications of the proposal in the context of data such as "list" existential and "presentational-there" sentences.
Author: Michael Lumsden Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1317933710 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 269
Book Description
What is the relationship between the structure of existential sentences and their meaning? How do hearers interpret existential sentences using pragmatic assumptions? This study attempts to account for the relationship between the structure of existential sentences (ES) and their meaning. The study of ES has received a great deal of attention because the construction has complex syntactic properties, is associated with restrictions of a semantic nature, and provides an interesting area for investigation at a pragmatic level.
Author: Susann Fischer Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing ISBN: 1443898007 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 475
Book Description
This volume explores in detail the empirical and conceptual content of the definiteness effect in grammar. It brings together a variety of relevant observations from a typological, diachronic and a bilingual/second language acquisition perspective, and provides a general overview of different approaches concerned with the syntactic, morphological, semantic, and pragmatic properties of the Definiteness Effect in a series of European and non-European languages.
Author: Laure Sarda Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company ISBN: 9027252882 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 364
Book Description
This volume reflects the centrality of the existential construction in current linguistic research and offers studies that both consolidate and challenge established research agendas. It addresses (i) a variety of constructions related to ‘prototypical’ existentials (including the have-possessive construction), and investigates (ii) the relationships between locative, existential, and information structure, (iii) the quantification of the pivot and (iv) the issue of negative existentials. It brings together different and complementary approaches (functional, cognitive, pragmatic, typological, comparative, diachronic, philosophical) based on a wide variety of data sources. The contributions illustrate how the so-called existential construction can take a variety of forms – more or less grammaticalized – and functions – ranging from the expression of literal existence to that of localization and discursive focus – in a wide range of languages. The book will be valuable for linguists, researchers or students, interested in the cross-linguistic manifestations of existential constructions at the interface between syntax, semantics and information structure.
Author: Wang Yong Publisher: Taylor & Francis ISBN: 1040051359 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 209
Book Description
This book investigates the existential clause (EC) from a cross-linguistic perspective and within the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics. The prototypical EC in the less familiar languages is identified through its functional equivalents in the more familiar ones, which share the common semantic basis of ‘there exists something in some location’. Topics addressed include the morpho-syntactic features of the EC, the subject of the EC, the definiteness effect and its manifestations in the EC, the EC as impersonals, the distinction between entity- vs. event-existentials, and the EC and its related constructions. Drawing on both cross-linguistic observations based on the language sample and in-depth investigations in particular languages (e.g., in Chinese and English), the study aims to unravel how the lexico-grammar of EC is related to its meanings and functions, that is, how meaning is realised in form. The title will appeal to scholars and students in the field of linguistics, especially functional linguistics, and syntax.
Author: Cathal Doherty Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1135714142 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 157
Book Description
This Study investigates the syntax of complement and relative clauses in English which lack overt complementizers (clauses without that ). The central analytical claim is that these clauses differ in phrase structure from their synonymous counterparts with overt complementizers. In particular, novel evidence from adjunction facts is used to demonstrate that clauses without that are more appropriately analyzed as bare sentences of the category IP rather than CP with a phonologically null head, a proposal which has since been adopted in many economy-driven approaches to phrase structure. In addition to strong empirical support, the IP-analysis is shown to provide explanations for a variety of related syntactic phenomena, superior to those available under the previous CP-analysis. These include the restricted syntactic distribution of that -less complements, in addition to the adjacency restrictions on that -less relative clauses. The analytical task posed by the that -trace effect is also very much reduced under the IP-analysis. The work also examines the syntax of 'subject contact clauses' (e.g. There's a man wants to see you .), common in many non-standard varieties, including Hiberno-English and establishes that they have all the distinctive properties of other that -less relative clauses. This book will be of interest to a broad variety of readers: scholars working in all areas of generative syntax, specialists in English and Germanic syntax, in addition to researchers in non-standard English and Hiberno-English.
Author: Louise McNally
Author: Louise McNally
Author: Louise McNally
Author: Louise McNally
Author: Michael Lumsden
Author: Susann Fischer
Author: Laure Sarda
Author: Leiv Egil Breivik
Author: Wang Yong
Author: Cathal Doherty
Author: Alex Silk