Lexical Meaning

Lexical Meaning
Author: M. Lynne Murphy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2010-10-28
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 113949337X

The ideal introduction for students of semantics, Lexical Meaning fills the gap left by more general semantics textbooks, providing the teacher and the student with insights into word meaning beyond the traditional overviews of lexical relations. The book explores the relationship between word meanings and syntax and semantics more generally. It provides a balanced overview of the main theoretical approaches, along with a lucid explanation of their relative strengths and weaknesses. After covering the main topics in lexical meaning, such as polysemy and sense relations, the textbook surveys the types of meanings represented by different word classes. It explains abstract concepts in clear language, using a wide range of examples, and includes linguistic puzzles in each chapter to encourage the student to practise using the concepts. 'Adopt-a-Word' exercises give students the chance to research a particular word, building a portfolio of specialist work on a single word.

Expanding the Lexicon

Expanding the Lexicon
Author: Sabine Arndt-Lappe
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2018-01-22
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110498162

The creation of new lexical units and patterns has been studied in different research frameworks, focusing on either system-internal or system-external aspects, from which no comprehensive view has emerged. The volume aims to fill this gap by studying dynamic processes in the lexicon – understood in a wide sense as not being necessarily limited to the word level – by bringing together approaches directed to morphological productivity as well as approaches analyzing general types of lexical innovation and the role of discourse-related factors. The papers deal with ongoing changes as well as with historical processes of change in different languages and reflect on patterns and specific subtypes of lexical innovation as well as on their external conditions and the speakers’ motivations for innovating. Moreover, the diffusion and conventionalization of innovations will be addressed. In this way, the volume contributes to understanding the complex interplay of structural, cognitive and functional factors in the lexicon as a highly dynamic domain.

Word-Formation

Word-Formation
Author: Peter O. Müller
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 824
Release: 2015-03-30
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110246252

This handbook comprises an in-depth presentation of the state of the art in word-formation. The five volumes contain 207 articles written by leading international scholars. The XVI chapters of the handbook provide the reader, in both general articles and individual studies, with a wide variety of perspectives: word-formation as a linguistic discipline (history of science, theoretical concepts), units and processes in word-formation, rules and restrictions, semantics and pragmatics, foreign word-formation, language planning and purism, historical word-formation, word-formation in language acquisition and aphasia, word-formation and language use, tools in word-formation research. The final chapter comprises 74 portraits of word-formation in the individual languages of Europe and offers an innovative perspective. These portraits afford the first overview of this kind and will prove useful for future typological research. This handbook will provide an essential reference for both advanced students and researchers in word-formation and related fields within linguistics.

Words: Structure, Meaning, Function

Words: Structure, Meaning, Function
Author: Christiane Dalton-Puffer
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2011-06-24
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110809168

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

From Earth to Art

From Earth to Art
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2022-06-08
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9004454950

From Earth to Art presents papers from the ‘Early Medieval Plant Studies’ symposium, a meeting designed to explore the various disciplines which could help to elucidate the plant-names of Anglo-Saxon England, many of which are not understood. The range of disciplines represented includes landscape history, place-name studies, botany, archaeology, art history, Old English literature, the history of food and of medicine, and linguistic approaches such as semantics and morphology. This collection represents a first experimental step in the work of the Anglo-Saxon Plant-Name Survey (ASPNS), a multidisciplinary research project based in the University of Glasgow. ASPNS is dedicated to collecting and reviewing, for the first time, the total multidisciplinary evidence for each plant-name, and establishing new or improved identifications. The results will have implications for various historical studies such as agriculture, pharmacology, nutrition, climate, dialect, and more. Included in the book is the first ASPNS word-study, concerned with the Old English word æspe (the ancestor of ‘aspen’), and it is shown that this tree-name had a broader meaning than has hitherto been suspected. This book will be of interest to historians, botanists, archaeologists, linguists, geographers, gardeners, herbalists, conservationists and anyone interested in the crucial role of plants in history.

Introduction to English Syntax

Introduction to English Syntax
Author: Rolf Kreyer
Publisher: Peter Lang
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2010
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 9783631559611

This book provides an overview of basic syntactic categories, analytical methods and theoretical frameworks that are needed for a comprehensive and systematic description and analysis of the syntax of English as it is spoken and written today. It is therefore useful for students of the English language but also for teachers who are looking for an overview of traditional syntactic analysis. In addition, the book explores various related aspects, such as syntactic variation, the relation between syntax and semantics, and psycholinguistic approaches to syntax. One focus throughout is to introduce the reader to the 'art' or science of syntactic argumentation. Almost all of the examples that are found in this book are drawn from language corpora - each syntactic concept, therefore, is exemplified by authentic language data.

Handbook of Word-Formation

Handbook of Word-Formation
Author: Pavol Štekauer
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 496
Release: 2005-07-29
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9781402035951

This is the most comprehensive book to date on word formation in terms of scope of topics, schools and theoretical positions. All contributions were written by the leading scholars in their respective areas.

Metapragmatics in Use

Metapragmatics in Use
Author: Wolfram Bublitz
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2007-12-12
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027291241

This collection of papers fills a gap in current research on both metapragmatics and pragmatics in that it combines data-based pragmatic analysis with metapragmatic theory and focuses on the ways in which metadiscourse is actually used. The 12 contributions investigate speech acts and verbal (as well as non-verbal) expressions which highlight (meta-)linguistic aspects of ongoing discourse and thus provoke a deviation from the latter’s original direction and purpose. All case studies discuss ways and means which interactants employ to resolve diverging pragmatic expectations in communication. The papers analyze authentic examples from English and other languages (and cultures), including Thai, Chinese and Japanese, and center around three principal domains of communication: ordinary everyday interaction, interaction in educational contexts and in specialized discourse. The introductory chapter locates the various contributions within a systematically broader theoretical framework. The wide scope of the collection, its empirical orientation and the reader-friendly form of presentation should appeal to anyone interested in pragmatics, whether scholar or student.

The Linguistics Wars

The Linguistics Wars
Author: Randy Allen Harris
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 569
Release: 2021-09-13
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0197608655

An updated and expanded history of the field of linguistics from the 1950s to the current day The Linguistics Wars tells the tumultuous history of language and cognition studies from the rise of Noam Chomsky's Transformational Grammar to the current day. Focusing on the rupture that split the field between Chomsky's structuralist vision and George Lakoff's meaning-driven theories, Randy Allen Harris portrays the extraordinary personalities that were central to the dispute and its aftermath, alongside the data, technical developments, and social currents that fueled the unfolding and expanding schism. This new edition, updated to cover the more than twenty-five years since its original publication and to trace the impact of that schism on the shape of linguistics in the twenty-first century, is essential reading for all those interested in the study of language, the making of knowledge, and some of the most brilliant minds of our era.