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First published in 1983, the aim of this book is to diagnose linguists’ failure to advance satisfactory theories of lexical meaning, then to propose the requirements that such a theory should meet and, drawing on work in philosophy and psychology, to take the first steps towards satisfying these requirements. It begins by discussing the work of Quine on the indeterminacy of translation and it is shown that attempts by linguists to answer Quine’s arguments by proposing universal ‘semantic primiti...

One prominent function of natural language is to convey information. One peculiarity is that it does not do so randomly, but in a structured way, with information structuring formally recognized to be a component of grammar. Among all information structuring notions, focus is one primitive needed to account for all phenomena. Focus Manifestation in Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese: A Comparative Perspective aims to examine from a semantic perspective how syntactic structures and focus adverbs in...

A novel logic-based framework for representing the syntax-semantics interface of natural language, applicable to a range of phenomena.In this book, Yusuke Kubota and Robert Levine propose a type-logical version of categorial grammar as a viable alternative model of natural language syntax and semantics. They show that this novel logic-based framework is applicable to a range of phenomena—especially in the domains of coordination and ellipsis—that have proven problematic for traditional approache...

A collection of original essays advancing the study of culture from a sociological perspective. Exploring and extending recent studies of culture with both qualitative and quantitative analysis, this book focuses on the ways in which contemporary cultural products function as vocabularies of public life. The contributors cover a wide range of topics; these include the symbolic structure of religion, science and the arts. The book is unified with a common concern - the concrete manifestations of...

An examination of the evidence for and the theoretical implications of a universal word order constraint, with data from a wide range of languages.This book presents evidence for a universal word order constraint, the Final-over-Final Condition (FOFC), and discusses the theoretical implications of this phenomenon. FOFC is a syntactic condition that disallows structures where a head-initial phrase is contained in a head-final phrase in the same extended projection/domain. The authors argue that F...

This title, first published in 1985, provides a detailed analysis of aspects of the semantics and the syntax of some wh-constructions. The first part of the book deals with the semantics of questions, whilst the other part discusses the syntax of que and quoi (what) in questions in French and the syntax of free relatives in French and other languages. This title will be of interest to students of language and linguistics.

This work, first published in 1985, is an analysis of the syntax of the Albanian verb complex. The term "verb complex" is defined here as the verb stem and its conjugational endings, together with the perfect auxiliaries and verb clitics. In a wider sense the verb includes the verb and its central arguments: subject, direct object, and indirect object. The analysis is presented in a somewhat expanded version of the relational grammar framework of Perlmutter and Postal (1977). It is argued that...

This new study on modality in English represents a departure from more traditional approaches to the subject, where the modal auxiliaries have been the usual focus of attention, by examining in detail the nature of their association with different categories of modal adverb. Modality is notoriously complex but the present work offers an accessible introduction to the topic, a comprehensive account of modal-adverb co-occurrence, and a reappraisal of the English modal system. The descriptive frame...

The volume deals with the grammaticalization and lexicalization processes that have marked the evolution of syntactic and semantic structures throughout the history of Sinitic languages. It brings together studies published in Chinese, on the features and pathways of grammaticalization and lexicalization typical of Sinitic languages. These contributions are now available to a Western audience who has little or no access to the Chinese language.

An argument that Merge is binary but its binarity refers to syntactic positions rather than objects. In this book, Barbara Citko and Martina Gračanin-Yüksek examine the constraints on Merge--the basic structure-building operation in minimalist syntax--from a multidominant perspective. They maintain that Merge is binary, but argue that the binarity of Merge refers to syntactic positions Merge relates: what has typically been formulated as a constraint that prevents Merge from combining more than...

Focusing mainly on classifiers, Numeral Classifiers and Classifier Languages offers a deep investigation of three major classifier languages: Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. This book provides detailed discussions well supported by empirical evidence and corpus analyses. Theoretical hypotheses regarding differences and commonalities between numeral classifier languages and other mainly article languages are tested to seek universals or typological characteristics. The essays collected here from l...

Symmetrizing Syntax seeks to establish a minimal and natural characterization of the structure of human language (syntax), simplifying many facets of it that have been redundantly or asymmetrically formulated. Virtually all past theories of natural language syntax, from the traditional X-bar theory to the contemporary system of Merge and labeling, stipulate that every phrase structure is "asymmetrically" organized, so that one of its elements is always marked as primary/dominant over the other...

This volume collects eleven papers written between 1991 and 2016, some of them unpublished, which explore various aspects of the architecture of grammar in a minimalist perspective. The phenomena that are brought to bear on the architectural issue come from a range of languages, among them French, European Portuguese, Welsh, German and English, and include clitic placement, expletive pronouns, resumption, causative structures, copulative and existential constructions, VP ellipsis, as well as the...

Can language directly access what is true, or is the truth judgment affected by the subjective, perhaps even solipsistic, constructs of reality built by the speakers of that language? The construction of such subjective representations is known as veridicality, and in this book Anastasia Giannakidou and Alda Mari deftly address the interaction between truth and veridicality in the grammatical phenomena of mood choice: the indicative and subjunctive choice in the complements of modal expressions...

A new theory of labeling that sheds light on such syntactic phenomena as relativization, successive cyclicity, island phenomena, and Minimality effects.When two categories merge and a new syntactic object is formed, what determines which of the two merged categories transmits its properties one level up—or, in current terminology, which of the two initial categories labels the new object? In (Re)labeling, Carlo Cecchetto and Caterina Donati take this question as the starting point of an investig...

In the 1970s, the behavioral psychologist Herbert S. Terrace led a remarkable experiment to see if a chimpanzee could be taught to use language. A young ape, named “Nim Chimpsky” in a nod to the linguist whose theories Terrace challenged, was raised by a family in New York and instructed in American Sign Language. Initially, Terrace thought that Nim could create sentences but later discovered that Nim’s teachers inadvertently cued his signing. Terrace concluded that Project Nim failed—not becaus...

For use at home, school, or office, The Joy of Vocabulary is the perfect tool to enhance your language skills in all areas of communication—swiftly and enjoyably! Whether you want to improve your speech, have a better understanding of our wonderfully complex language, or communicate with confidence in writing or in meetings, this indispensable guide provides the means to do it all. Divided into logical sections for easy assimilation, The Joy of Vocabulary offers 800 new words and the skills to...

Chinese grammar is characterized by its simple structure, lack of inflections, and wide use of monosyllabic morphemes. With the increased popularity of learning Chinese as a second language, there is a demand for a guide to Chinese grammar that's targeted at second language learners. This four-volume set is one of the earliest and most influential works of Chinese grammar, with a special focus on teaching and learning Chinese as a second language. Drawing on rich teaching experience, the author...

Shape grammar and space syntax have been separately developed but rarely combined in any significant way. The first of these is typically used to investigate or generate the formal or geometric properties of architecture, while the second is used to analyze the spatial, topological, or social properties of architecture. Despite the reciprocal relationship between form and space in architecture—it is difficult to conceptualize a completed building without a sense of both of these properties—the t...

Explorations of language development in different types of learner populations and across various languages. This volume examines language development in different types of learner populations and across various languages. The contributors analyze experimental studies of child and adult language acquisition, heritage language development, bilingualism, and language disorders. They consider theoretical and methodological issues; language development in children, discussing topics that range from...