Co- and subordination in German and other languages

Co- and subordination in German and other languages
Author: Augustin Speyer
Publisher: Helmut Buske Verlag
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2018-09-17
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3875489578

Fragen der Koordination und der Subordination stehen seit langer Zeit im Fokus sprachwissenschaftlicher Forschung. Während in den 70er und auch noch in den 80er Jahren die Analyse der als kanonisch zu bezeichnenden Fälle im Vordergrund stand, drängten sich in den letzten 30 Jahren vor allem Grenzfälle wie weil-V2-Sätze, abhängige V2-Sätze, selbständige und weiterführende VL-Sätze etc. in das Zentrum des Interesses. Die Beiträge zum vorliegenden Band bauen auf den Erkenntnissen dieser Arbeiten auf, ergänzen sie aber systematisch um eine breit angelegte Diskussion typologischer, diachroner und erwerbstheoretischer Aspekte. Ein weiteres zentrales Anliegen der Arbeiten besteht darin,die theoretischen Konzepte zur Modellierung relevanter Strukturbedeutungen (z.B. V2) zu präzisieren. Linguistic research has focussed on issues related to coordination and subordination for a long time. Whereas in the 1970s and 1980s, the main concern was the analysis of canonical clause structure, the interest shifted towards non-canonical phenomena such as weil-verb-second-clauses, dependent verb-second-clauses, independent and continuative verb-final clauses etc. The contributions to this issue build on findings of these studies, at the same time systematically adding a broad discussion of typological, diachronic and acquisition-related aspects. A further central concern of the studies is to make precise theoretical concepts of modelling the semantics of relevant structural configurations, such as verb-second.

Deconstructing Language Structure and Meaning

Deconstructing Language Structure and Meaning
Author: Mihaela Tănase-Dogaru
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2021-07-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1527571815

This volume brings together a number of researchers working on generative syntax and semantics, language acquisition and phonology to explore various theoretical frameworks, ranging from generative grammar and formal semantics to more descriptive approaches. The contributions gathered here investigate various aspects in the syntax, semantics, phonology and acquisition of Romanian in comparison with other (mainly Romance) languages. The book will be of interest to linguists who are keen on keeping up with the latest advances in the field of Romance studies, as well as those whose research bears on languages such as Hungarian, German, and Maltese, among others.

Revisiting Sentence Adverbials and Relevance

Revisiting Sentence Adverbials and Relevance
Author: Irina T. Pandarova
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2023-06-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027252831

This book offers a fresh take on several long-standing issues relating to the (non-)truth-conditional interpretation of epistemic, evidential, hearsay and attitudinal sentence adverbials. Drawing on a wealth of data from English and German, it shows for the first time that all four adverbial classes can have both truth-conditional and non-truth-conditional (parenthetical) readings. A novel account is presented according to which (non-)truth-conditional readings may arise at either the syntactic or the pragmatic level. Couched in relevance theory, the book also re-examines the explicature and illocutionary status of the adverbial qualification and the qualified proposition, and refines the notions of pointhood and at-issueness to provide an original information-structural analysis applicable to not just sentence adverbials but a range of other propositional qualifiers. Finally, the investigation identifies five factors affecting (non-)truth-conditional interpretation: linear position, prosody, the semantics of the adverbial, its information-structural properties and the wider context. The book will be of interest to those interested in relevance theory, the semantics/pragmatics interface, the syntax/pragmatics interface and information structure, as well as for syntacticians, semanticists and pragmatists interested in sentence adverbials, other propositional qualifiers and parentheticality, syntactic and interpretational.

Micro- and Macro-variation of Causal Clauses

Micro- and Macro-variation of Causal Clauses
Author: Łukasz Jędrzejowski
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2023-03-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027254478

This collection presents novel insights into the micro- and macro-variation of causal clauses from a cross-linguistic perspective. It contains a general introduction to the topic setting the scene and nine chapters based on data from Dutch, German, English, Icelandic, Chinese, and Japanese. Topics discussed in the individual chapters involve, inter alia, external, internal and linear syntax of adverbial clauses expressing a causal relation, their semantic interpretation and information-structural properties, verb position, volitionality, and the development of particular causal conjunctions. The findings gained here are of synchronic and diachronic nature and offer new theoretical perspectives on how causal dependency relationships are expressed by inherent causal morpho-syntactic patterns. They also provide a deeper comprehension of how sentential modifiers work, emerge, and develop in general. This volume is an asset to grammarians, syntacticians, theoretical, and historical linguists.

Brazilian Portuguese, Syntax and Semantics

Brazilian Portuguese, Syntax and Semantics
Author: Roberta Pires De Oliveira
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2020-05-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027261202

This book opens with Angelika Kratzer and Luigi Rizzi talking about contemporary issues, such as non-recursiveness of focus and the semantics of topics. The chapters climb down the spine from the left periphery to DP: the value of subjunctive across the history of German, expressive expressions in Brazilian Portuguese, left and right dislocation and the speaker’s perspective in Italian, Brazilian double subjects and left dislocated topic, long versus short wh-movement in Brazilian Portuguese and Quebec French, low adverbs and the raising of the verb in Brazilian Portuguese, ellipsis and null objects in Brazilian and European Portuguese, and bare singulars in Brazilian Portuguese. The chapters propose original accounts for language variation and historical changes, most of them focusing on Brazilian Portuguese, a challenge to syntax and semantics. Thus, the volume contributes to Brazilian and Portuguese Linguistics, as well as to general and contemporary research on syntax and semantics of natural languages.

The Syntax of Relative Clauses

The Syntax of Relative Clauses
Author: Guglielmo Cinque
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 415
Release: 2020-09-24
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 110884605X

Relative clauses play a hugely important role in analysing the structure of sentences. This book provides the first evidence that a unified analysis of the different types of relative clauses is possible - a step forward in our understanding. Using careful analyses of a wide range of languages, Cinque argues that the relative clause types can all be derived from a single, double-headed, structure. He also presents evidence that restrictive, maximalizing, ('integrated') non-restrictive, kind-defining, infinitival and participial RCs merge at different heights of the nominal extended projection. This book provides an elegant generalization about the structure of all relatives. Theoretically profound and empirically rich, it promises to radically alter the way we think about this subject for years to come.

Verb Second

Verb Second
Author: Horst Lohnstein
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 600
Release: 2020-03-09
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1501508040

This book addresses a general phenomenon in the European languages: verb second. The articles provide a comprehensive survey of synchronic vs. diachronic developments in the Germanic and Romance languages. New theoretical insights into the interaction of the properties of verbal mood and syntactic structure building lead to hypotheses about the mutual influence of these systems. The diachronic change in the syntax together with changes in the inflectional system show the interdependence between the syntactic and the inflectional component. The fact that the subjunctive can license verb second in dependent clauses reveals further dependencies between these subsystems of grammar. "Fronting finiteness" furthermore constitutes an instance of a main clause phenomenon. Whether "assertion" or "at-issueness" are encoded through this grammatical process will be a matter in the debates discussed in the book. Moreover, information structure appears to be directly related to the fronting of other constituents in front of the finite verb. Questions concerning the interrelations between these various subcomponents of the grammatical system are investigated.

Rethinking Verb Second

Rethinking Verb Second
Author: Rebecca Woods
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 979
Release: 2020-02-20
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0198844301

This volume provides the most exhaustive and comprehensive treatment available of the Verb Second property, which has been a central topic in formal syntax for decades. While Verb Second has traditionally been considered a feature primarily of the Germanic languages, this book shows that it is much more widely attested cross-linguistically than previously thought, and explores the multiple empirical, theoretical, and experimental puzzles that remain in developing an account of the phenomenon. Uniquely, formal theoretical work appears alongside studies of psycholinguistics, language production, and language acquisition. The range of languages investigated is also broader than in previous work: while novel issues are explored through the lens of the more familiar Germanic data, chapters also cover Verb Second effects in languages such as Armenian, Dinka, Tohono O'odham, and in the Celtic, Romance, and Slavonic families. The analyses have wide-ranging consequences for our understanding of the language faculty, and will be of interest to researchers and students from advanced undergraduate level upwards in the fields of syntax, historical linguistics, and language acquisition.

Null Subjects in Generative Grammar

Null Subjects in Generative Grammar
Author: Federica Cognola
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2018-04-19
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0192547887

This book considers the null-subject phenomenon, whereby some languages lack an overtly realized referential subject in specific contexts. In generative syntax-the approach adopted in this volume-the phenomenon has traditionally been explained in terms of a 'pro-drop' parameter with associated cluster properties; more recently, however, it has become clear that pro-drop phenomena do not always correlate with all the initially predicted cluster properties. This volume returns to the centre of the debate surrounding the empirical phenomena associated with null subjects. Experts in the field explore the cluster properties associated with pro-drop; the types of null category involved in null-subject phenomena and their identification; and the typology of null-subject languages, with a special focus on partial null-subject languages. Chapters include both novel empirical data and new theoretical analyses covering the major approaches to null subjects in generative grammar. A wide range of languages are examined, ranging from the most commonly studied in research into null subjects, such as Finnish and Italian, to lesser-studied languages such as Vietnamese and Polish, minority languages such as Cimbrian and Kashubian, and historical varieties such as Old French and Old High German. The research presented also contributes to the understanding of other key syntactic phenomena, such as the nature of control, the role of information structure and semantics in syntax, the mechanisms of language change, and the formalization of language variation. The breadth and depth of the volume will make it a valuable resource not only for generative syntacticians, but also for all those working in the fields of historical linguistics, typology, comparative grammar, semantics, and theoretical and descriptive linguistics more generally.

Big Events, Small Clauses

Big Events, Small Clauses
Author: Cathrine Fabricius-Hansen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 468
Release: 2012-10-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 311028586X

This book investigates specific syntactic means of event elaboration across seven Indo-European languages (English, German, Norwegian, French, Russian, Latin and Ancient Greek): bare and comitative small clauses (“absolutes”), participle constructions and related clause-like but non-finite adjuncts that increase descriptive granularity with respect to constitutive parts of the matrix event (elaboration in the narrowest sense), or describe eventualities that are co-located and connected with but not part of the matrix event. The book falls in two parts. Part I addresses central theoretical issues: How is the co-eventive interpretation of such adjuncts achieved? What is the internal syntax of participial and converb constructions? How do these constructions function at the discourse level, as compared to various finite structures that are available for co-eventive elaboration? Part II takes an empirical cross-linguistic perspective. It consists of five self-contained chapters that are based on parallel corpora and study either the use of a specific construction across at least two of the seven object languages, or how a specific construction is rendered in other languages.