Non-Finiteness PDF Download

Author: Bingjun Yang
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316513416
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
As a gateway to central questions in linguistics, non-finiteness is unavoidable in both typological studies and aspects of natural language processing, such as text segmentation and annotation. This study presents a 'process relation framework' to explain the more complex, previously unaccounted for, instances of non-finiteness in clause structure.

Author: Claudine Chamoreau
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027267022
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
This volume addresses the relation between finiteness and nominalization, which is far more complex than the simple opposition finite-nonfinite. The contributions analyze finiteness cross-linguistically from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives, focusing on a number of topics that has not been thoroughly explored in the literature. First, the correlation between finiteness and nominalization is also affected by a third factor, information structure. Second, there is a correlation between the continuum of finiteness and the scale from main/independent clauses to dependent clauses. Given that of nominalized constructions occur not only in dependent clauses, but also in independent clauses, it is possible to grade according to degree of nominalization, which can then be related to the scale of finiteness. Finally, each of these scales can also be seen as a product the diachronic process of re-finitization and of finitization.

Author: Kristin Melum Eide
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027266972
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
"Although standardly recognized by linguists of many diverse theoretical persuasions, finiteness continues to figure among [...] the most poorly understood concepts of linguistic theory”. This was eloquently stated by Ledgeway (2000, 2007) and remains true even today. The present volume thus aims to shed some much needed light on this area of linguistic theorizing, with eleven chapters approaching finiteness phenomena from the fields of syntax, semantics, language acquisition, and Creole studies, and providing data from a range of different languages. Traditionally, approaches to finiteness within the Principles and Parameters framework have seen as their main aim to understand the relation between the morphological exponents of finiteness and the syntactic operations seemingly depending on these exponents. The papers in this volume mostly take their point of departure from this more traditional view on finiteness, before elaborating on, modifying and diverging from this tradition in novel and interesting ways.

Author: Carsten Breul
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027227928
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
The notion of focus structure in this work refers to the distinction between categorical, thetic and identificational sentences. The central claim is that the syntactic representation of every sentence has to encode which of these types of focus structure is realized. This claim is discussed in great detail with respect to syntax, intonation and semantics within the framework of the Minimalist Program. It is shown that the incorporation of focus structure into syntax offers new perspectives for a solution of vexing problems in syntax and semantics. For example, fronting (preposing, 'topicalisation') is treated as a syntactic operation which clearly belongs to core grammar, i.e. is not optional or 'stylistic'; the semantic notion of quantifier raising is dispensed with in favour of a focus structural treatment of phenomena which gave rise to it. The book appeals to generative linguists and to functional linguists who do not believe in an unbridgeable gap between the formal and functional analysis of language.

Author: Peter Juul Nielsen
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004321837
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 535

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Book Description
In this book, Peter Juul Nielsen examines the foundations of morphological theory from a structural-functional perspective on language as a sign system. He offers a framework for the analysis of morpheme relations based on a thorough discussion of syntagmatic and paradigmatic structure, indexical relations, zero as meaningful absence and morphological relations across grammatical categories. It is argued that when paradigmatically related morphological structures have different syntactic functions, the semantics of the paradigmatic opposition consists in the specification of functional potential. The framework is applied in three detailed studies of Danish nonfinite verbs presenting new accounts of their morphological structure, semantic coding and paradigmatic organisation.

Author: Martin Haspelmath
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110194260
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1013

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Book Description
This handbook provides a comprehensive and thorough survey of our current insights into the diversity and unity found across the 6000 languages of this planet. The 125 articles include inter alia chapters on the patterns and limits of variation manifested by analogous structures, constructions and linguistic devices across languages (e.g. word order, tense and aspect, inflection, color terms and syllable structure). Other chapters cover the history, methodology and the theory of typology, as well as the relationship between language typology and other disciplines. The authors of the individual sections and chapters are for the most part internationally known experts on the relevant topics. The vast majority of the articles are written in English, some in French or German. The handbook is not only intended for the expert in the fields of typology and language universals, but for all of those interested in linguistics. It is specifically addressed to all those who specialize in individual languages, providing basic orientation for their analysis and placing each language within the space of what is possible and common in the languages of the world.

Author: Grant Goodall
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000516512
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
This book reflects on key questions of enduring interest on the nature of syntax, bringing together Grant Goodall’s previous publications and new work exploring how syntactic representations are structured and the affordances of experimental techniques in studying them. The volume sheds light on central issues in the theory of syntax while also elucidating the methods of data collection which inform them. Featuring Goodall’s previous studies of linguistic phenomena in English, Spanish, and Chinese, and complemented by a new introduction and material specific to this volume, the book is divided into four sections around fundamental strands of syntactic theory. The four parts explore the dimensionality of syntactic representations; the relationship between syntactic structure and predicate-argument structure; interactions between subjects and wh-phrases in questions; and more detailed investigations of wh-dependencies but from a more overtly experimental perspective. Taken together, the volume reinforces the connections between these different aspects of syntax by highlighting their respective roles in defining what syntactic objects look like and how the grammar operates on them. This book will be a valuable resource for scholars in linguistics, particularly those with an interest in syntax, psycholinguistics, and Romance linguistics.

Author: Matti Miestamo
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110197634
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 505

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Book Description
This book is the first cross-linguistic study of clausal negation based on an extensive and systematic language sample. Methodological issues, especially sampling, are discussed at length. Standard negation – the basic structural means languages have for negating declarative verbal main clauses – is typologized from a new perspective, paying attention to structural differences between affirmatives and negatives. In symmetric negation affirmative and negative structures show no differences except for the presence of the negative marker(s), whereas in asymmetric negation there are further structural differences, i.e. asymmetries. A distinction is made between constructional and paradigmatic asymmetry; in the former the addition of the negative marker(s) is accompanied by further structural differences in comparison to the corresponding affirmative, and in the latter the correspondences between the members of (verbal etc.) paradigms used in affirmatives and negatives are not one-to-one. Cross-cutting the constructional-paradigmatic distinction, asymmetric negation can be further divided into subtypes according to the nature of the asymmetry. Standard negation structures found in the 297 sample languages are exemplified and discussed in detail. The frequencies of the different types and some typological correlations are also examined. Functional motivations are proposed for the structural types – symmetric negatives are language-internally analogous to the linguistic structure of the affirmative and asymmetric negatives are language-externally analogous to different asymmetries between affirmation and negation on the functional level. Relevant diachronic issues are also discussed. The book is of interest to language typologists, descriptive linguists and to all linguists interested in negation.

Author: Michael T. Putnam
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 902725527X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
This volume explores recent advancements in the Minimalist Program that adopt Stroik s (1999, 2009) Survive Principle as the principle means of accounting for displacement phenomena in earlier versions of generative theory. These contributions bring to light many advantages and challenges that beset the Survive-minimalist framework, including topics such as the lexicon-syntax relationship, coordinate symmetries, scope, ellipsis, code-switching, and probe-goal relations. Despite the diverse, broad range of topics discussed in this volume, the papers are connected by a renewed investigation of Frampton & Gutmann s (2002) vision of a crash-proof syntax. This volume provides new and interesting perspectives on theoretical issues that have challenged the Minimalist Program since its inception and will provide ample food for thought for syntacticians working in the Minimalist tradition and beyond."

Author: Artemis Alexiadou
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027255245
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
The present volume contains a selection of papers presented at the 21st and 22nd Comparative Germanic Syntax Workshop held at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the University of Stuttgart. The contributions provide insightful discussions of several topics of current interest for syntactic theory on the basis of comparative data from a wide range of contemporary and historical Germanic languages. The theoretical issues explored include: the left periphery, with a number of contributions touching on the pros and contras of cartographic accounts; different aspects of word order and how it arises from movement and clause structure; the interplay of thematic relations and case theory with the realization of DPs; and the treatment of finiteness and modal structures. This book is of interest to syntacticians working in a comparative perspective and to advanced undergraduates.