Working Papers in Grammatical Theory and Discourse Structure

Working Papers in Grammatical Theory and Discourse Structure
Author: Maysayo Ilda
Publisher: Center for the Study of Language and Information Publications
Total Pages: 256
Release: 1987-07-30
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780937073254

This volume of working papers emerged from a workshop on Morphology/Syntax/Discourse Interactions held in the summer of 1985 at the Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. The central objective of the workshop was to discover how the overall linguistics architecture must be structured to explain the kinds of interactions between morphological, syntactic, and discourse phenomena that are empirically found to occur. The papers included in the volume are refined and augmented versions of the material originally presented in the workshop and deal with different aspects of interactions between syntax and other subsystems of the grammar.

Syntax - Theory and Analysis. Volume 1

Syntax - Theory and Analysis. Volume 1
Author: Tibor Kiss
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 816
Release: 2015-02-17
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110377403

This Handbook represents the development of research and the current level of knowledge in the fields of syntactic theory and syntax analysis. Syntax can look back to a long tradition. Especially in the last 50 years, however, the interaction between syntactic theory and syntactic analysis has led to a rapid increase in analyses and theoretical suggestions. This second edition of the Handbook on Syntax adopts a unifying perspective and therefore does not place the division of syntactic theory into several schools to the fore, but the increase in knowledge resulting from the fruitful argumentations between syntactic analysis and syntactic theory. It uses selected phenomena of individual languages and their cross-linguistic realizations to explain what syntactic analyses can do and at the same time to show in what respects syntactic theories differ from each other. It investigates how syntax is related to neighbouring disciplines and investigate the role of the interfaces especially the relationship between syntax and phonology, morphology, compositional semantics, pragmatics, and the lexicon. The phenomena chosen bring together renowned experts in syntax, and represent the consensus reached as to what has to be considered as an important as well as illustrative syntactic phenomenon. The phenomena discuss do not only serve to show syntactic analyses, but also to compare theoretical approaches with each other.

Primitive Elements of Grammatical Theory

Primitive Elements of Grammatical Theory
Author: Katherine McKinney-Bock
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2013-10-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1134510950

This book is a compilation of manuscripts and publications from 2001-2010 by Jean-Roger Vergnaud, in collaboration with colleagues and students. This work is guided by the scientific belief that broader mathematical principles should guide linguistic inquiry, as they guide classical biology and physics. From this, Vergnaud’s hypotheses take the representation of the computational component of language to a more abstract level: one that derives constituent structure. He treats linguistic features as primitives, and argues that a 2 x n matrix allows for multiple discrete dimensions to represent symmetries in linguistic features and to derive the fabric of syntax (and perhaps of phonology as well). Three primary research questions guide the core of these papers. (A) Methodologically, how can broadly defined mathematical/cognitive principles guide linguistic investigation? (B) To what extent do general mathematical principles apply across linguistic domains? What principles guide computation at different levels of linguistic structure (phonology, metrical structure, syntax)? (C) How is the computational domain defined? In these manuscripts, Vergnaud’s goal is not to radically depart from the Minimalist Program within generative grammar, but rather to take the underlying goal of the generative program and bring it to an even more general scientific level. The themes of symmetry and periodicity in this book reflect his goal of scientific progress in linguistics, and he has opened the doors to new exploration of old empirical problems in linguistics that may, someday, have deeper biological and physical explanations through the theory presented in this publication.

Grammatical Change and Linguistic Theory

Grammatical Change and Linguistic Theory
Author: Thórhallur Eythórsson
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 454
Release: 2008-03-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027291578

This book contains 15 revised papers originally presented at a symposium at Rosendal, Norway, under the aegis of The Centre for Advanced Study (CAS) at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. The overall theme of the volume is ‘internal factors in grammatical change.’ The papers focus on fundamental questions in theoretically-based historical linguistics from a broad perspective. Several of the papers relate to grammaticalization in different ways, but are generally critical of ‘Grammaticalization Theory’. Further papers focus on the causes of syntactic change, pinpointing both extra-syntactic (exogenous) causes and – more controversially – internally driven (endogenous) causes. The volume is rounded up by contributions on morphological change ‘by itself.’ A wide range of languages is covered, including Tsova-Tush (Nakh-Dagestan), Zoque, and Athapaskan languages, in addition to Indo-European languages, both the more familiar ones and some less well-studied varieties.