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The papers in this volume reflect the renewed interest in the semantics of grammatical categories and the issues of invariance and variation in grammar. In particular this collection presents the current understanding of invariance of grammar with respect to the synchronic and diachronic analyses of specific languages and as realized in work on typology and universals.The book is divided into five sections: The Question of Invariance; Invariance and Grammatical Categories; Grammar and Discourse; Grammar and Pragmatics; Typology and Universals.

Today computer-mediated communication spans a range of activities from interactive messages to word processing. Researchers interested in this new technology have concentrated on its effects in the workplace for knowledge production and dissemination or on its word processing function. The study reported here examines communication events in which the computer is the medium and views such computer-mediated communication from the perspective of language use. Its goal is to understand through data collected from an anthropological perspective the ways of communicating used by members of an established community of computer users. In particular it answers the questions: (i) How do computer communicators choose among the available media and modes of communication? (ii) What are the basic and recurring discourse patterns across media and modes through which this community achieves its institutional goals of innovation and product development? (iii) How do the answers to the previous two questions inform our understanding of language use in general?

This is a postmodernist history of the historical novel with special attention to the political implications of the postmodernist attitude toward the past.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>Beginning with the poetics of Sir Walter Scott Wesseling moves via a global survey of 19th century historical fiction to modernist innovations in the genre.<br/>Noting how the self-reflexive strategy enables a novelist to represent an episode from the past alongside the process of gathering and formulating historical knowledge the author discusses the elaboration of this strategy introduced by novelists such as Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner in the work of among others Julian Barnes Jay Cantor Robert Coover and Graham Swift. Wesseling also shows how postmodernist writers attempt to envisage alternative sequences for historical events. Deliberately distorting historical facts authors of such uchronian fiction like Thomas Pynchon Ishmael R. Read Salman Rushdie and Gunter Grass imagine what history looks like from the perspective of the losers rather than the winners.

This wide-ranging book presents the linguistic achievements of four major cultures to readers presumably conversant with modern theoretical linguistics. The chapter on India discusses in detail Pāṇini's (c. 400 B.C.) grammar Ast-adhy-ay-i as well as the work of his commentators Kātyāyana Patanjali and Bhartṛhari. In the Chinese tradition the Confucian doctrine of the Rectification of Names' is singled out for treatment. Arabic linguistics is represented by Sibawaihi's (d. 793) grammar al-Kitāb in particular its syntax as well as the subsequent commentary tradition. The chapter on Europe which is the most comprehensive of the four covers the time span from antiquity to the 20th century; special attention is devoted to the contributions of Plato Aristotle the Stoics Varro Apollonius Dyscolus and the Modistae. The achievements of the cultures in linguistics are treated throughout from a deliberately value-laden point of view. The achievements of Western antiquity and the Middle Ages are shown to be much more than the average linguist is inclined to believe. Even more importantly it is shown that the Indian and the Arab traditions have been superior to the European tradition at least until the 20th century. The fact that a linguistic theory created some 2400 years ago is fully as adequate as our best theories today must have far-reaching implications for the notion of 'scientific progress'. More precisely it proves necessary to distinguish between 'progress in the human sciences' and 'progress in the natural sciences'. These issues which pertain to the general philosophy of science are treated in the final chapter of the book.

Until recently grammars of English have received surprisingly little scholarly attention while a lot of research is done on dictionaries. It appears however that learners of English shy away from modern grammars and prefer to consult dictionaries or traditional reference grammars instead. This raises questions as to the relationship between theoretical linguistics and grammar writing and calls for more research into this area especially for the period from 1800 onwards which was crucial for the development of grammatical thinking and its acceptance (or rejection) at all educational levels today.This volume brings together work from international experts on the historiography of English grammar writing who deal with a variety of topics grouped into three overlapping sections: I. Native Grammars of English II. Non-native Grammars of English and III. Grammatical Analyses. The volume includes summaries of the articles and a name index.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>

This volume comprises the first part of selected papers of the International Pragmatics Conference in Antwerp August 1987.

The subject of this two part work is the acquisition of language structure in which the development of syntax and morphology is examined by investigations on children without language problems and on children with developmental dysphasia. The author uses a comparative acquisition study to provide insights into the structure and development of the language acquisition device which cannot be obtained by isolated analysis of only one type of learning. The theoretical framework used for the investigations is the learnability theory in which acquisition models are proposed which are heavily influenced by theoretical linguistics. Part I shows how child grammar acquisition can be explained in the framework of learnability theory and Part II deals with deficiencies in normal grammar acquisition using the learnability theory.

Reprint of the original Latin text Tentamina semiologica sive quaedam generalem theoriam signorum spectantia (1789) edited translated and with an Introduction by Robert E. Innis The 33 sections of this classic text by Hoffbauer have a twofold focus: a descriptive inventory of signs and a comparison of the expressive and cognitive powers of different sign systems. Using his sign typology as a point of departure Hoffbauer inquires into the elements of matter and form both necessary and adequate to arrive at a definition of the sign. His purpose in doing so is to present his own version of a general sign theory after pointing out significant errors and weaknesses in the characteristicae universalis of Leibniz Becher Toennis Kalmar etc. Against the background of criticism of the contemporary deductive sign theories of Lambert Baumgarten Mendelssohn Daries Wilkins Kircher and others Hoffbauer's general semiology gives shape to an outline of a deductive-hypothetical theory of signs. In this historical perspective Hoffbauer's semiology is of outstanding importance and provides the opportunity to think through once again central and permanent problems of the general science of signs.

The study of grammaticalization raises a number of fundamental theoretical issues pertaining to the relation of langue and parole creativity and automatic coding synchrony and diachrony categoriality and continua typological characteristics and language-specific forms etc. and therefore challenges some of the basic tenets of twentieth century linguistics.This two-volume work presents a number of diverse theoretical viewpoints on grammaticalization and gives insights into the genesis development and organization of grammatical categories in a number of language world-wide with particular attention to morphosyntactic and semantic-pragmatic issues.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>The papers in Volume I are divided into two sections the first concerned with general method and the second with issues of directionality. Those in Volume II are divided into five sections: verbal structure argument structure subordination modality and multiple paths of grammaticalization.