Books
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Information on Forthcoming Books can be found on the benjamins.com website.
141 - 148 of 148 results
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Noun-Modifying Clause Constructions in Languages of Eurasia
More LessThis volume presents a cross-linguistic investigation of clausal noun-modifying constructions in genetically varied languages of Eurasia. Contrary to a common premise that, in any language, adnominal clauses that share some features of relative clauses constitute a structurally distinct construction, some languages of Eurasia exhibit a General Noun-Modifying Clause Construction (GNMCC) -- a single construction covering a wide range of semantic relations between the head noun and the clause. Through in-depth examination of naturally-occurring and elicited data from Ainu, languages of the Caucasus (e.g. Ingush, Georgian, Bezhta, Hinuq), Japanese, Korean, Marathi, Nenets, Sino-Tibetan languages (e.g. Cantonese, Mandarin, Rawang), and Turkic languages (e.g. Turkish, Sakha), the chapters discuss whether or not the language in question exhibits a GNMCC and the range of noun modification covered by such a construction. The findings afford us new facts, new theoretical perspectives and the first step toward a more global assessment of the possibilities for GNMCCs.
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Noun-Modifying Constructions in Japanese
More LessThis study examines the clausal noun-modifying construction (NMC) in Japanese, a much-discussed construction that embraces what have usually been called relative clause and noun complement constructions. Drawing upon a broad range of naturally-occurring NMCs, including types that fall outside the domains of relative clause and noun complement constructions, Yoshiko Matsumoto argues for an analysis of NMCs that gives an important role to semantics and pragmatics. The framework in which this approach is presented draws from, and further refines, concepts of frame semantics. By using a frame semantic definition of semantic integration, the author reveals the commonality of diverse types of NMCs in Japanese, and posits a tripartite classification of NMCs which is both more comprehensive and more revealing than the traditional dichotomy between relative clause and noun complement constructions.
As the first comprehensive and systematic study in English of Japanese NMCs with diverse lexical heads, this work is further notable for its detailed discussion of the dependence of NMCs on both linguistic and extra-linguistic context.
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The NP-strategy for Expressing Reciprocity
More LessThis book provides a comprehensive treatment of the syntax and semantics of a single linguistic phenomenon – the NP-strategy for expressing reciprocity – in synchronic, diachronic, and typological perspectives. It challenges the assumption common in the typological, syntactic, and semantic literature, namely that so-called reciprocal constructions encode symmetric relations. Instead, they are analyzed as constructions encoding unspecified relations. In effect, it provides a new proposal for the truth-conditional semantics of these constructions. More broadly, this book introduces new ways of bringing together historical linguistics and formal semantics, demonstrating how, on the one hand, the inclusion of historical data concerning the sources of reciprocal constructions enriches their synchronic analysis; and how, on the other hand, an analysis of the syntax and the semantics of these constructions serves as a key for understanding their historical origins.
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Nuevos Enfoques Lingüísticos y Traductológicos del Discurso Turístico
More LessEl presente volumen explora la riqueza y pluralidad del turismo y su discurso a través de un análisis interdisciplinario, que proporciona una visión integral del impacto del turismo en diversas esferas comunicativas, sociales y culturales. Esta obra recopila un total de quince investigaciones que destacan la naturaleza intercultural, multifacética y multilingüe de esta actividad, así como la variedad de géneros discursivos que merecen un análisis detenido.
El volumen aborda desde la influencia de las redes sociales y la creación de nuevos formatos del discurso turístico hasta la emoción y la subjetividad presentes en las comunicaciones promocionales. Ofrece una panorámica de cómo el turismo contemporáneo se entrelaza con múltiples dimensiones y formatos discursivos, subrayando los desafíos estratégicos que enfrentan traductores, terminólogos y lingüistas.
This volume explores the richness and plurality of tourism and its discourse through an interdisciplinary analysis, providing a comprehensive view of the impact of tourism on various communicative, social and cultural spheres. It compiles a total of fifteen investigations which highlight the intercultural, multifaceted and multilingual nature of this activity, as well as the variety of discursive genres that merit close analysis.
The volume addresses everything from the influence of social networks and the creation of new formats of tourism discourse to the emotion and subjectivity present in promotional communications. It provides an overview of how contemporary tourism is intertwined with multiple dimensions and discursive formats, highlighting the strategic challenges facing translators, terminologists and linguists.
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Null Objects from a Cross-Linguistic and Developmental Perspective
More LessThe volume Null Objects from a Cross-Linguistic and Developmental Perspective brings together theoretical and empirical contributions on missing object constructions, revealing a nuanced and multifaceted phenomenon that poses challenges to current theories of null objects. The selected papers highlight the significance of the interplay between formal constraints and semantic properties (namely definiteness and animacy) in the licensing of null objects cross-linguistically. The formally oriented papers contribute to ongoing discussions on the mechanisms underlying the derivation of null objects. The differences between null objects that are licensed by rich agreement and those that are agreement independent are also addressed. From a developmental perspective, the papers on null objects in language acquisition, including second language learning, further provide valuable insights into the intricate processes underlying the acquisition of referential expressions. The role of animacy emerges as a central question, particularly in the context of Portuguese varieties, where differences in pronominal systems contribute to variation in null object distribution.
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Number – Constructions and Semantics
More LessThis book is the outcome of several decades of research experience, with contributions by leading scholars based on long-term field research. It combines approaches from descriptive linguistics, anthropological linguistics, socio-historical studies, areal linguistics, and social anthropology. The key concern of this ground-breaking volume is to investigate the linguistic means of expressing number and countable amounts, which differ greatly in the world’s languages. It provides insights into common number-marking devices and their not-so-common usages, but also into phenomena such as the absence of plurals, or transnumeral forms. The different contributions to the volume show that number is of considerable semantic complexity in many languages worldwide, expressing all kinds of extendedness, multiplicity, salience, size, and so on. This raises a number of challenging questions regarding what exactly is described under the slightly monolithic label of ‘number’ in most descriptive approaches to the languages of the world.
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Numeral Classifier Systems
More LessNumeral Classifier Systems considers the functional significance of the Japanese numeral system, its conclusions based on a corpus of 500 uses of classifier constructions drawn from oral and written Japanese texts.
Interestingly, although the Japanese system appears to conform at least superficially to universalistic predictions about its semantic structure, this study reports that in actual usage, the semantic role of classifiers is slight — only very rarely do they carry any lexical information unavailable from the context or the noun with which the classifier occurs. It does appear, however, that the system has an important role to play in providing pronoun-like anaphoric elements and in marking pragmatic distinctions such as the individuatedness of referents and the newness of numerical information. For these reasons, the classifier system is deeply involved in a number of subsystems of Japanese grammar, and the demise of the system (sometimes rumored to be impending) would have substantial implications for the structure of the language as a whole.
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La négation dans les langues romanes
More LessNegation has always been and still is a central topic in typological studies and theoretical research. Its centrality shows itself in the fact that it is not restricted to a given linguistic field but compasses the whole domain of linguistic studies. Very often, works on negation are brought about in a one-sided perspective which excludes other points of view. This book, on the contrary, puts together studies on negation based on various theoretical frameworks and aims to cover a wide range of theoretical perspectives. The book offers contributions on negation in Old Occitan, in Old Italic languages, and in several modern Romance languages (Italian, Roumanian, French, Spanish, Occitan, Catalan, among others). It covers the diachronic dimension of negation, and explores the syntactic as well as the semantico-pragmatic side of the phenomenon; aspects of negative affixation provide the morphological dimension. The originality of this volume thus lies in the multidisciplinarity of the approaches and perspectives offered.La question de la négation a toujours été et demeure un sujet central dans les recherches en linguistique théorique et typologique. Son caractère central réside en ceci qu’elle n’est pas limitée à un domaine linguistique donné, mais embrasse le champ entier de la recherche linguistique. Aussi les travaux sur la négation sont-ils très souvent réalisés dans une perspective donnée qui exclut de facto d’autres points de vue ou d’autres approches. Cet ouvrage prend au contraire le parti de réunir des études dont les postulats théoriques et méthodologiques sont variés, couvrant ainsi un éventail de perspectives théoriques. Le présent volume propose donc des contributions sur la négation en Ancien Occitan, dans les langues de l’Italie ancienne et dans diverses langues romanes contemporaines (notamment en Italien, Roumain, Français, Espagnol, Occitan, Catalan). Il couvre ainsi la dimension diachronique de la négation, et s’attache à en décrire le fonctionnement d’un point de vue syntaxique aussi bien que sémantico-pragmatique. La dimension morphologique de la négation est également abordée via la problématique de l’affixation négative. L’originalité de cet ouvrage réside donc dans la multidisciplinarité des approches et des perspectives qu’il offre.
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