Selected Lexical and Grammatical Issues in the Meaning-text Theory

Selected Lexical and Grammatical Issues in the Meaning-text Theory
Author: Leo Wanner
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2007-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027230943

The Meaning Text Theory (MTT) is a lexicon-centred and dependency-based theory for the description of language using a holistic model that incorporates semantics, syntax, morphology and lexis. This volume, prepared on the occasion of Igor Mel'cuk's 70th birthday, offers a cross-section of the current advances in MTT and its applications. The first part of the book focuses on lexical phenomena that are still largely neglected in mainstream linguistics: sound symbolism as manifested by ideophones, and idiosyncratic lexical relations as manifested by lexical functions (LFs). In particular, LFs are addressed from different angles (including the introduction of new “standard” LFs, the argument structure and semantic decomposition of lexical relations captured by LFs, automatic recognition of LF-instances in corpora, and the use of LFs in terminology and natural language processing). The second part of the book deals with such prominent model-oriented issues as semantic paraphrasing in MTT, the role of phrase structure in MTT and syntactic analysis within MTT.

Selected Lexical and Grammatical Issues in the Meaning–Text Theory

Selected Lexical and Grammatical Issues in the Meaning–Text Theory
Author: Leo Wanner
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2007-02-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027292779

The Meaning Text Theory (MTT) is a lexicon-centred and dependency-based theory for the description of language using a holistic model that incorporates semantics, syntax, morphology and lexis. This volume, prepared on the occasion of Igor Mel'čuk’s 70th birthday, offers a cross-section of the current advances in MTT and its applications. The first part of the book focuses on lexical phenomena that are still largely neglected in mainstream linguistics: sound symbolism as manifested by ideophones, and idiosyncratic lexical relations as manifested by lexical functions (LFs). In particular, LFs are addressed from different angles (including the introduction of new “standard” LFs, the argument structure and semantic decomposition of lexical relations captured by LFs, automatic recognition of LF-instances in corpora, and the use of LFs in terminology and natural language processing). The second part of the book deals with such prominent model-oriented issues as semantic paraphrasing in MTT, the role of phrase structure in MTT and syntactic analysis within MTT.

Dependency in Linguistic Description

Dependency in Linguistic Description
Author: Alain Polguère
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2009
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027205787

The book covers three major topics crucial for contemporary syntactic research. Firstly, it offers a sketch of a general theory of dependency in natural language. Different types of linguistic dependencies are distinguished (semantic, syntactic, and morphological), the criteria for their recognition are formulated, and all possible combinations are discussed in some detail. Secondly, it demonstrates the application of the general theory in two specific domains: establishing the system of Surface-Syntactic Relations in French and linear positioning of clitics in Serbian. Thirdly, it presents a formal sketch of Head-Driven Phrase-Structure Grammar modelled in terms of syntactic dependencies.

Collocations and other lexical combinations in Spanish

Collocations and other lexical combinations in Spanish
Author: Sergi Torner Castells
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2016-12-08
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1315455234

This edited collection presents the state of the art in research related to lexical combinations and their restrictions in Spanish from a variety of theoretical approaches, ranging from Explanatory Combinatorial Lexicology to Distributed Morphology and Generative Lexicon Theory. Section 1 offers a presentation of the main theoretical and descriptive approaches to collocation. Section 2 explores collocation from the point of view of its lexicographical representation, while Section 3 offers a pedagogical perspective. Section 4 surveys current research on collocation in Catalan, Galician and Basque. Collocations and other lexical combinations in Spanish will be of interest to students of Hispanic linguistics.

Experiential Constructions in Yucatec Maya

Experiential Constructions in Yucatec Maya
Author: Elisabeth Verhoeven
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 406
Release: 2007-03-22
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027292574

This book combines a fieldwork-based language-specific analysis with a typological investigation. It offers a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the form and semantics of experiencer constructions in Yucatec, the Mayan language of the Yucatecan peninsula in Mexico. Since the linguistic expression of experience is not restricted to a specific grammatical area the study touches a great variety of grammatical fields in the language such as argument structure, grammatical relations, possessive constructions, subordinate constructions, etc. The empirical analysis of the Yucatec data is preceded by a thorough examination of the functional domain and the cross-linguistic coding of experience which until now could not be found in the literature. This study will be of interest to scholars working in the fields of typology and Native American linguistics, and especially to those interested in argument structure and the syntax-semantics interface.

Aspect and the Categorization of States

Aspect and the Categorization of States
Author: David Brian Roby
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2009-11-19
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027288941

In this work, the Spanish copulae ser and estar are argued to be aspectual morphemes. Their binary opposition reflects the universal aspectual values [±Perfective], which are the same ones overtly expressed by the preterite and imperfect past tense forms in Spanish. It can therefore be shown that different types of states, just like different types of events, can be categorized based on their aspectual composition. Additionally, the inherent semantic differences between events and states can be accounted for by analyzing aspect as applying to events internally and to states externally. A useful resource for the beginning linguist as well as the most seasoned analyst, this work is written in language that is easy to understand while remaining faithful to all of the appropriate relevant technical terminology. Anyone who is seriously interested in exploring why the Spanish verbs ser and estar are used the way they are should read this book.

Semantics

Semantics
Author: Igor? Aleksandrovi? Mel??uk
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 459
Release: 2012
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027205965

This book presents an innovative and novel approach to linguistic semantics, beginning with the idea that language can be described as a system for the expression of linguistic Meanings as particular surface forms or Texts. Semantics is specifically that system of rules that ensures a correct transition from a Semantic Representation of the Meaning of a family of synonymous sentences to the Deep Syntactic Representation of a particular sentence. Framed in the terms of Meaning-Text linguistics, this volume discusses in detail the problems of Semantic Representation —including the semantic structure of utterances, the semantics of Causation in English, and communicative, or information, structure. Based on the author's life-long dedication to the study of the semantics and syntax of natural language, this book is a paradigm-shifting contribution to the language sciences whose originality and daring will make it essential reading for linguists, anthropologists, semioticians, and computational linguists.

Computational and Corpus-Based Phraseology

Computational and Corpus-Based Phraseology
Author: Ruslan Mitkov
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 464
Release: 2017-11-03
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3319698052

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Computational and Corpus-Based Phraseology, Europhras 2017, held in London, UK, in November 2017. The 31 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions and are organized into the following thematic sessions: Phraseology in translation and contrastive studies, Lexicography and terminography, Exploitation of corpora in phraseological studies, Development of corpora for phraseological studies, Phraseology and language learning, Cognitive and cultural aspects of phraseology, Theoretical and descriptive approaches to phraseology, and Computational approaches to phraseology. The chapter 'Frequency Consolidation Among Word N-Grams' is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.

Modality and Subordinators

Modality and Subordinators
Author: Jackie Nordstrom
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2010
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027205833

This book connects two linguistic phenomena, modality and subordinators, so that both are seen in a new light, each adding to the understanding of the other. It argues that general subordinators (or complementizers) denote propositional modality (otherwise expressed by moods such as the indicative-subjunctive and epistemic-evidential modal markers). The book explores the hypothesis both on a cross-linguistic and on a language-branch specific level (the Germanic languages). One obvious connection between the indicative-subjunctive distinction and subordinators is that the former is typically manifested in subordinate clauses. Furthermore, both the indicative-subjunctive and subordinators determine clause types. More importantly, however, it is shown, through data from various languages, that subordinators themselves often denote the indicative-subjunctive distinction. In the Germanic languages, there is variation in many clause types between both the indicative and the subjunctive and "that" and "if "depending on the speaker s and/or the subject s certainty of the truth of the proposition."

New Approaches to Slavic Verbs of Motion

New Approaches to Slavic Verbs of Motion
Author: Viktoria Hasko
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 407
Release: 2010
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027205825

This volume unifies a wide breadth of interdisciplinary studies examining the expression of motion in Slavic languages. The contributors to the volume have joined in the discussion of Slavic motion talk from diachronic, typological, comparative, cognitive, and acquisitional perspectives with a particular focus on verbs of motion, the nuclei of the lexicalization patterns for encoding motion. Motion verbs are notorious among Slavic linguists for their baffling idiosyncratic behavior in their lexical, semantic, syntactical, and aspectual characteristics. The collaborative effort of this volume is aimed both at highlighting and accounting for the unique properties of Slavic verbs of motion and at situating Slavic languages within the larger framework of typological research investigating cross-linguistic encoding of the motion domain. Due to the multiplicity of approaches to the linguistic analysis the collection offers, it will suitably complement courses and programs of study focusing on Slavic linguistics as well as typology, diachronic and comparative linguistics, semantics, and second language acquisition. "This important book is a model of in-depth exploration that is much needed: intra-typological, diachronic, and synchronic exploration of contrasting ways of encoding a particular semantic domain û in this case the domain of motion events. The various Slavic languages present contrasting but related solutions to the intersection of motion and aspect. And, as a group, they offer alternate forms of satellite-framed typology, in contrast to the more heavily studied Germanic languages of this general type. The up-to-date and interdisciplinary nature of the volume makes it essential reading in cognitive and typological linguistics."-Dan I. Slobin, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley "A feast for the mind, with untold riches and variety: different approaches, patterns and usage, diachronic as well as synchronic, Slavic and not just Russian. All on a high intellectual level from capable scholars. Ful besy were the editors in every thing, That to the feste was appertinent."-Alan Timberlake, Columbia University