Coordination and the Syntax – Discourse Interface

Coordination and the Syntax – Discourse Interface
Author: Daniel Altshuler
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2022-06-09
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0192526286

This survey explores interactions between syntax and discourse, through a case study of patterns of extraction from coordinate structures. The theoretical breadth of the volume makes it the most complete account of extraction from coordinate structures to date: at first glance, it appears to be a syntactic matter, but the survey raises theoretical and empirical questions not just for syntax, but also across semantics, pragmatics, and discourse structure. Rather than promoting a single analysis, Daniel Altshuler and Robert Truswell outline reasonable hypotheses that allow theoretical conclusions to be deducted from empirical facts. The theoretical conclusions show that coordinate structures have the potential to discriminate between current syntactic theories, and to inform work on the interfaces between syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse. In many cases, however, the necessary empirical work has not yet been carried out, and too much of the literature revolves around the same handful of primarily English examples. The volume offers a starting point for further research on extraction from coordinate structures, particularly in understudied languages, and provides a guide to how to tease out the theoretical implications of empirical findings.

Coordination and the Syntax DS Discourse Interface

Coordination and the Syntax DS Discourse Interface
Author: Daniel Altshuler
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2022-07-09
Genre: Discourse analysis
ISBN: 0198804237

This survey explores interactions between syntax and discourse, through a case study of patterns of extraction from coordinate structures. The theoretical breadth of the volume makes it the most complete account of extraction from coordinate structures to date: at first glance, it appears to be a syntactic matter, but the survey raises theoretical and empirical questions not just for syntax, but also across semantics, pragmatics, and discourse structure. Rather than promoting a single analysis, Daniel Altshuler and Robert Truswell outline reasonable hypotheses that allow theoretical conclusions to be deducted from empirical facts. The theoretical conclusions show that coordinate structures have the potential to discriminate between current syntactic theories, and to inform work on the interfaces between syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse. In many cases, however, the necessary empirical work has not yet been carried out, and too much of the literature revolves around the same handful of primarily English examples. The volume offers a starting point for further research on extraction from coordinate structures, particularly in understudied languages, and provides a guide to how to tease out the theoretical implications of empirical findings.

Development of the Syntax-Discourse Interface

Development of the Syntax-Discourse Interface
Author: S. Avrutin
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2013-04-17
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9401712395

In this book, I address several issues of child linguistic development from the perspective of the syntax -discourse interface. Traditionally, language acquisition research has focused on the development of one of the linguistic modules, e.g. acquisition of syntax, morphology or phonology. While this approach can be viewed as fruitful in some cases, there is a number of linguistic phenomena whose explanation depends on the interaction of different modules and, therefore, different domains of linguistic knowledge. A typical example is pronominal anaphora: It can be shown that to correctly use pronominal elements, normal adult speakers must possess both syntactic and pragmatic knowledge, and that these kinds of knowledge must interact with each other. With regard to the language acquisition process, such phenomena suggest a somewhat different approach to the language acquisition research. Indeed, if some experimental studies show that children make errors in the construction under investigation, it will be necessary to consider these results from the point of view of the interaction of the different domains of linguistic knowledge involved in their interpretation. In other words, if this particular construction requires the integration of, for example, syntactic and discourse-based knowledge, children's errors may, in principle, be due to their lack of the former, the latter, or both kinds of knowledge, and cannot be taken as direct evidence for the "underdeveloped" status of just one of them.

The Composition of Meaning

The Composition of Meaning
Author: Alice G. B. ter Meulen
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2004-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9789027247698

In the modular design of generative theory the syntax–semantics interface has accounted all along for meanings at the level of Logical Form. The syntax–pragmatics interface, on the other hand, is the result of what one may call the 'pragmatic turn' in the linguistic theory, where content is partitioned into given and new information. In other words, the structural division of the clause has been subjected to criteria of information, or discourse structure. Both interfaces require a structurally descriptive inventory whose specific shapes can be motivated on theory-internal grounds only. The present collection of original articles develops the concept of these interfaces further. The papers in the first section focus on the syntax–semantics interface, those in the second section on the syntax–pragmatics interface.

Exploring the Syntax-Semantics Interface

Exploring the Syntax-Semantics Interface
Author: Robert D. van Valin, Jr.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2005-07-07
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9781139445375

Language is a system of communication in which grammatical structures function to express meaning in context. While all languages can achieve the same basic communicative ends, they each use different means to achieve them, particularly in the divergent ways that syntax, semantics and pragmatics interact across languages. This book looks in detail at how structure, meaning, and communicative function interact in human languages. Working within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG), Van Valin proposes a set of rules, called the 'linking algorithm', which relates syntactic and semantic representations to each other, with discourse-pragmatics playing a role in the linking. Using this model, he discusses the full range of grammatical phenomena, including the structures of simple and complex sentences, verb and argument structure, voice, reflexivization and extraction restrictions. Clearly written and comprehensive, this book will be welcomed by all those working on the interface between syntax, semantics and pragmatics.

Discontinuity in Second Language Acquisition

Discontinuity in Second Language Acquisition
Author: Stefano Rastelli
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2014-09-12
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1783092483

With a particular focus on the morphosyntactic features of second language, this book discusses the idea that language acquisition is a discontinuous and 'quantized' process and thus that some items might be learned twice, statistically and grammatically. It argues that the switch from one way of learning to another is statistically-driven and grammatically motivated. The volume brings together and discusses insights and evidence from learner corpora analysis and electrophysiological data in an attempt to provide the reader with a unified outlook and it suggests a new, developmentally-oriented interpretation of findings. The topics discussed will be of interest to researchers working in the field of psycho- and neurolinguistics and SLA.

The Language of Fiction

The Language of Fiction
Author: Emar Maier
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2022-01-07
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0198846371

This volume brings together new research on fiction from the fields of philosophy and linguistics. Fiction has long been a topic of interest in philosophy, but recent years have also seen a surge in work on fictional discourse at the intersection between linguistics and philosophy of language. In particular, there has been a growing interest in examining long-standing issues concerning fiction from a perspective that is informed both by philosophy and linguistic theory. Following a detailed introduction by the editors, The Language of Fiction contains 14 chapters by leading scholars in linguistics and philosophy, organized into three parts. Part I, 'Truth, Reference, and Imagination', offers new, interdisciplinary perspectives on some of the central themes from the philosophy of fiction: What is fictional truth? How do fictional names refer? What kind of speech act is involved in telling a fictional story? What is the relation between fiction and imagination? Part II, 'Storytelling', deals with themes originating from the study of narrative: How do we infer a coherent story from a sequence of event descriptions? And how do we interpret the words of impersonal or unreliable narrators? Part III, 'Perspective Shift', focuses on an alleged key characteristic of fictional narratives, namely how we get access to the fictional characters' inner lives, through a variety of literary techniques for representing what they say, think, or see. The volume will be of interest to scholars from graduate level upwards in the fields of discourse analysis, semantics and pragmatics, philosophy of language, psychology, cognitive science, and literary studies.

Coordination in Syntax

Coordination in Syntax
Author: Niina Ning Zhang
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2009-12-10
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1139485083

Coordination in syntax is an important part of the analysis of sentence structure. Niina Ning Zhang addresses the issues raised by coordinate pairings and the implications of these structures, looking in particular at examples within English and Chinese. The volume covers the major questions regarding coordinates in syntax, providing a fresh perspective to arguments raised within previous literature. She explains how such coordinate complexes are structured, how some coordinators can be combined in parts of speech, the fixed nature of some of these pairings and what changes exist between the coordinate and non-coordinate constructions. The theories raised are backed up by a rich variety of examples as well as providing a cross-linguistic perspective, contextualising these ideas within current syntactic research.