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Toward a Calculus of Meaning : Studies in markedness, distinctive features and deixis
Dec 1996
Book
This volume contains papers presented at a symposium in honor of Cornelis H. van Schooneveld and invited papers on the topics of invariance markedness distinctive feature theory and deixis. It is not a Festschrift in the usual sense of the word but more of a collection of articles which represent a very specific way of defining and viewing language and linguistics. The specific approach presented in this volume has its origins and inspirations in the theoretical and methodological paradigm of European Structuralism in general and the sign-oriented legacy of Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Peirce and the functional and communication-oriented approach of the Prague School in particular.
The book is divided in three sections: Theoretical and Methodological Overview: Cornelis H. van Schooneveld; Anatoly Liberman; Petr Sgall; Alla Bemova and Eva Hajicova; Robert Kirsner. Studies in Russian and Slavic Languages: Edna Andrews; Lawrence E. Feinberg; Annie Joly Sperling; Ronald E. Feldstein; Irina Dologova and Elena Maksimova; Stefan M. Pugh. Applications to Other Languages Language Families and Aphasia: Ellen Contini-Morava; Barbara A. Fennell; Victor A. Friedman; Robert Fradkin; Yishai Tobin; Mark Leikin.
The book is divided in three sections: Theoretical and Methodological Overview: Cornelis H. van Schooneveld; Anatoly Liberman; Petr Sgall; Alla Bemova and Eva Hajicova; Robert Kirsner. Studies in Russian and Slavic Languages: Edna Andrews; Lawrence E. Feinberg; Annie Joly Sperling; Ronald E. Feldstein; Irina Dologova and Elena Maksimova; Stefan M. Pugh. Applications to Other Languages Language Families and Aphasia: Ellen Contini-Morava; Barbara A. Fennell; Victor A. Friedman; Robert Fradkin; Yishai Tobin; Mark Leikin.
De Lingua Latina X : A new critical text and English translation with prolegomena and commentary
Dec 1996
Book
De Lingua Latina X has never been so courageously edited nor so daringly translated as in this long-awaited sequel to Taylor’s Declinatio (SiHoLS 2). The editor’s intimate familiarity with both the extant archetype and Varro’s unique linguistic theory and practice make this volume indispensable for an understanding of LL X one of the most important texts in the entire corpus of Latin grammatical writings. The stimulating Prolegomena introduce Varro his revolutionary language science book ten and both the manuscript and the editorial traditions and the Commentary explains in absorbing detail how and why the editor has set the text as he has. The world’s foremost Varro scholar of this day has successfully combined classical philology and the history of linguistics to produce an inspired new edition and novel translation of book ten of Varro’s magnum opus.
The Grammar of Possession : Inalienability, incorporation and possessor ascension in Guaraní
Dec 1996
Book
The Grammar of Possession: Inalienability incorporation and possessor ascension in Guaraní is an exhaustive study of linguistic structures in Paraguayan Guaraní which are directly or indirectly associated with the semantic domain of inalienability. Constructions analyzed in the book include adnominal and predicative possessive constructions noun incorporation and possessor ascension. Examples are drawn from a rich data base that incorporate native speaker intuitions and resources in the construction of illustrative linguistic forms as well as the analysis of the communicative use of the forms under study. The book provides a complete picture of inalienability as a coherent integrated system of grammatical and semantic oppositions in a language that has received little attention in the theoretical linguistic literature.
The analysis moves from general principles to specific details of the language while applying principles of Cognitive Grammar and Functional Linguistics. There is an explicit aim to uncover the particularities of form-meaning connections as well as the communicative and discourse functions of the structures examined. Other approaches are also considered when appropriate resulting in a theoretically informed study that contains a rich variety of considerations.
The analysis moves from general principles to specific details of the language while applying principles of Cognitive Grammar and Functional Linguistics. There is an explicit aim to uncover the particularities of form-meaning connections as well as the communicative and discourse functions of the structures examined. Other approaches are also considered when appropriate resulting in a theoretically informed study that contains a rich variety of considerations.
Terminology, LSP and Translation : Studies in language engineering in honour of Juan C. Sager
Dec 1996
Book
A state-of-the-art volume highlighting the links between lexicography terminology language for special purposes (LSP) and translation and Machine Translation that constitute the domain of Language Engineering.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>Part I: Terminology and Lexicography. Takes us through terminological problems and solutions in Europe the former Soviet Union and Egypt.<br/>Part II focuses on LSP for second language learners and lexical analysis.<br/>Part III treats translator training in a historical context as well as new methods from cognitive and corpus linguistics.<br/>Part IV is about the application of language engineering in Machine Translation corpus linguistics and multilingual text generation.<br/>
From Grammar to Science : New Foundations for General Linguistics
Dec 1996
Book
Although efforts have been under way for the past two centuries to treat language scientifically linguists and others who work with language speech or communication have not found an adequate scientific foundation in current linguistic theory. Many of the difficulties are caused by longstanding confusions between the logical domain of science and grammar and the physical domain of sound waves and the people who speak and understand.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>In this book therefore the last impediments of tradition the ancient semiotic-grammatical foundations of linguistics are set aside. We move into the physical domain where theories and hypotheses can be tested against observations of the physical reality. Here new foundations are laid that are fully consonant with modern science as practiced in physics chemistry and biology.<br/>On these foundations is built a structure of testable specific dynamic causal laws of communicative behavior that provides support for treating previously recalcitrant context-dependent semantic pragmatic interactive rhetorical and literary phenomena. The central role of context in the foundations of the theory provides the insights of scientific lawfulness while still honoring the particularity of situations celebrated in the humanities.
Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics : Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics. Volume IX: Washington D.C., 1995
Dec 1996
Book
This volume includes twelve papers selected from the Ninth Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics held at Georgetown University Washington D.C. 1995. Three of the papers deal with codeswitching with Arabic two with the acquisition of Arabic and four with different aspects of Arabic grammatical structure. The volume also includes three papers presenting data on negation in some Arabic dialects (including those of Yemen Morocco Egypt).<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>The topics are diverse and include Arabic and constraints on codeswitching verb embeddings and collocations in codeswitching ellipsis in child language acquisition clitic left dislocation parameter resetting in second language acquisition accessing pharyngeal place and the derivation of imperatives.<br/>
Aspects of Argument Structure Acquisition in Inuktitut
Nov 1996
Book
This book discusses the first language acquisition of three morphosyntactic mechanisms of transitivity alternation in arctic Quebec Inuktitut. Data derive from naturalistic longitudinal spontaneous speech samples collected over a nine-month period from four Inuit children. Both basic and advanced forms of passive structures are shown to be used productively by Inuktitut-speaking children at an early age relative to English-speaking children but consistent in age with speakers of non-Indo-European languages reported on in the literature; potential explanations of this difference include frequency of caregiver input and details of language structure. Morphological causatives appear slightly later in the acquisition sequence and their first instances reflect use of unanalyzed routines. Lexical causatives are present from the earliest ages studied. Evidence of a period of overgeneralization of lexical causatives in one subject at the same time as the morphological causative shows signs of being productively acquired suggests that the seeming overgeneralization may reflect nothing more than as yet unstable use of the morphological causative. Noun incorporation structures are shown to be used productively by Inuktitut-speaking children at an early age relative to Mohawk-speaking children; potential explanations of this difference include details of language structure and relative language use in the environments of the learners. Findings are considered in light of current debates in the literature concerning continuity versus maturation of grammatical structure and concerning the functional categories available to the child at early stages of acquisition. Data presented argue against late maturation and suggest that all functional categories may be accessed by the Inuktitut-speaking child early in the acquisition process.
Heraklit : Der Werdegang des Weisen
Nov 1996
Book
In der älteren Tradition wird Heraklit zu den Naturphilosophen gezählt doch sein Denken grenzt sich vom reinen Ansammeln von Wissensmaterial und den kosmologischen Spekulationen der ionischen Naturphilosophen ab. Heraklit distanziert sich vom allgemein erfahrbaren Wissen und geht mit Hilfe der konsequenten Rückkehr zu sich selber der Erkenntnissuche nach.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>Die anhand einer Reihe ausgewählter Fragmente durchgeführte Untersuchung erbringt neu den Nachweis wie Heraklit eine klare Pädagogik vorschreibt die in manchen Aspekten spätere philosophische Denkformen vorausnimmt. Im Rahmen seiner Paideia gibt er Anweisungen zur Lebenseinstellung und zum ethischen Verhalten welche angehende Schüler befähigen sollen nach dem Logos zu suchen. Bei dieser Suche nach dem Logos in der eigenen Psyche begegnet er dem Logos der Welt. Heraklits Wirklichkeitsvorstellung entsteht aus der Wende nach innen aufgrund derer eine nicht inhaltlich neue Kosmologie sondern ein von einer veränderten Perspektive her betrachteter Kosmos sichtbar wird.<br/>Die so verstandene Weisheitssuche bildetet in der griechischen Gedankenwelt ein Novum: denn erst Heraklit formte die Auffassung von Philosophie als systematische Suche welche mit der Rückwendung auf sich selber zur Erkenntnis der kosmischen Wirklichkeit gelangt.
Trubetzkoy's Orphan : Proceedings of the Montréal Roundtable on “Morphonology: contemporary responses” (Montréal, October 1994)
Nov 1996
Book
In putting ‘morphonology’ up for adoption as a chapitre particulier in 1929 Trubetzkoy started a debate regarding the boundary between phonology and morphology that has not ended yet. Essentially a record of a roundtable devoted to that boundary (Montréal October 1994) Trubetzkoy’s Orphan is a full and fascinating picture of some very important contemporary attempts to define it. In addition to papers that focus on it the volume also contains important papers on the closely related topics of ‘morphoprosody’ and the ‘lexicon’ views from ‘the floor’ and ‘the outside’ and edited transcripts of the discussions that took place at the Montréal Roundtable.
Intended both for practicising and future phonologists and morpho-logists Trubetzkoy’s Orphan is a valuable record of a very important debate regarding one of the most central questions in phonology and morphology.
Intended both for practicising and future phonologists and morpho-logists Trubetzkoy’s Orphan is a valuable record of a very important debate regarding one of the most central questions in phonology and morphology.
Microparametric Syntax and Dialect Variation
Nov 1996
Book
Richard Kayne’s introduction to this volume stresses that comparative work on the syntax of very closely related languages and dialects is a research tool promising to provide both a broad understanding of parameters at their finest-grained and an approach to the question of the minimal units of syntactic variation. The 11 articles in this collection demonstrate the use of this tool in analyzing microparametric variation principally with reference to Chomsky’s Minimalist program in a variety of languages. Topics include se/si constructions hypothetical infinitives and adverbial quantifiers in French and other Romance languages; that-trace variation Scandinavian possessive constructions reflexives and subject-verb agreement in Icelandic & Faroese and verb clusters in continental West Germanic dialects; anaphoric agreement in Labrador Inuttut; negative particle questions in Chinese; imperative inversion in Belfast English; and the second person singular interrogative in the traditional vernacular of Bolton.
Anglicisms, Neologisms and Dynamic French
Oct 1996
Book
This comprehensive study of Anglicisms in the context of accelerated neological activity in Contemporary Metropolitan French not only provides detailed documentation and description of a fascinating topic but opens up new vistas on issues of general linguistic interest: the effects of technology on language the analyticity-syntheticity controversy the lexical contribution to language vitality the study of compound word formation the interplay between cultural and linguistic affectivity. By investigating the dynamics of borrowing within the larger framework of general neological productivity and by bringing to bear cognitive and pragmatic considerations a much-needed fresh approach to the entire question of Anglicisms takes shape. All pertinent phenomena regarding Anglicisms in French — a topic which continues to command the attention of language commentators and defenders in France and elsewhere — are explored: integral borrowings semantic calques structural calques the generation of pseudo-Anglicisms and hybrids graphological and phonological phenomena. In each case the phenomenon is investigated in the proper context of its interaction with other pertinent neological phonological and sociocultural developments. These include general changes in French compound word formation modified derivational dynamics the microsystem of pseudo-Classical morphology historic phonological instabilities the pressure for more synthetic types of lexical production in relation to the needs of technology and society. Rather than adhering rigidly to any single theoretical model there is an attempt to set up a dialog between differing models in order to arrive at a multidimensional view of the phenomena investigated.
Classification Syntaxique des Constructions Adjectivales en Coréen
Oct 1996
Book
The purpose of this study is the systematic description of a set of data called Adjectives in Korean which reduces to a minimum theoretical preoccupations and abstract formalisations with no practical applications. The framework of our research is the Lexicon-grammar whose fundamental idea is that the minimal meaningful unit is the simple sentence and not an isolated word. This work is constituted as follows: given that the corpus extracted from current dictionaries is insufficient for our purpose we will reconstitute a complete corpus: first with a formal definition and then according to some other principles discussed in the first section. With this more complete corpus (5300 items) we will examine in the second section general syntactic properties of adjectival constructions. The third section is devoted to the description of 15 classes of adjectival structures. These syntactic classes will be represented in the form of tables in the annex. The results obtained in this work are indispensable at least for the following activities: first the elaboration or verification of a linguistic theory demands a priori examination and systematic description of empirical data; furthermore a syntactic description of lexical data which is as exhaustive as possible has a particular interest in the perspective of the elaboration of a lexicon suitable for computer processing of natural language.L’objectif de cette étude est la description systématique d’un ensemble de données dit Adjectifs en coréen en réduisant au minimum les préoccupations théoriques et les formalisations abstraites et éloignées des faits. Notre démarche s’inscrit dans le cadre du Lexique-grammaire dont l’idée fondamentale est que l’unité minimale de sens est la phrase simple et non le mot isolé. Ce travail est constitué de la manière suivante: étant donné que le corpus extrait des dictionnaires actuels est insuffisant pour notre objectif on reconstituera un corpus complet: d’abord avec une définition formelle et ensuite selon certains autres principes dont nous parlerons dans la première partie; une fois ce corpus constitué (5300 items) on examinera dans la deuxième partie les propriétés syntaxiques générales des constructions adjectivales; la troisième partie est consacrée à décrire 15 classes de structures adjectivales. Ces classes syntaxiques se présentent sous la forme des tables dans l’annexe. Les résultats que nous avons obtenus dans ce travail sont indispensables au moins pour les deux activités suivantes: d’abord une élaboration ou une vérification d’une théorie linguistique exige préalablement l’examen et la description systématique de données empiriques; par ailleurs une description syntaxique des données lexicales aussi exhaustive que possible a un intérêt particulier dans la perspective de l’élaboration d’un lexique adéquat au traitement informatique du langage naturel.
Advances in Clinical Phonetics
Oct 1996
Book
Advances in Clinical Phonetics focuses on important developments in phonetic description. Recent years have seen increasing developments in phonetic description in both instrumental and impressionistic approaches. Not restricted to the phonetics of normal speech clinical phoneticians and speech scientists working with disordered speech have been at the forefront of recent work. Some instrumental developments (such as electropalatography) and some transcription developments (such as extIPA symbols) have been spearheaded by clinical phoneticians. The present collection describes and explores these developments. Part one consists of major accounts of advances in clinical phonetics contributed by major international researchers: Raymond D. Kent; William Hardcastle; Martin J. Ball and John Local; and Wolfram Ziegler and Erich Hartmann. The second part comprises six chapters where such advances are illustrated in the context of specific case studies by authors from America and Europe: Fiona Gibbon William Hardcastle Hilary Dent and Fiona Nixon; Marie-Thèrése Le Normand and Claude Chevrie-Muller; Kate Moore and Anna-Maja Korpijaakko-Huuhka; Martin J. Ball and Joan Rahilly; P. Dejonckere and G. Wieneke; Nigel Hewlett Nicola Topham and Catherine McMullen; and Shaween Awan.
Demonstrating the wideranging and lively nature of the field of clinical phonetics the current contributions offer building blocks for further developments in phonetic description — both improvements in instrumentation and refinements in impressionistic transcription leading to an increase in our understanding of the speech production process both in normal and atypical speakers.
Demonstrating the wideranging and lively nature of the field of clinical phonetics the current contributions offer building blocks for further developments in phonetic description — both improvements in instrumentation and refinements in impressionistic transcription leading to an increase in our understanding of the speech production process both in normal and atypical speakers.
The Social Uses of Literacy : Theory and Practice in Contemporary South Africa
Oct 1996
Book
This book details the findings of a research project investigating the social uses of literacy in a range of contexts in South Africa. This approach treats literacy not simply as a set of technical skills learnt in formal education but as social practices embedded in specific contexts discourses and positions. What this means is made clear through a series of fine-grained accounts of social uses and meanings of literacy in contexts ranging from the taxi industry in Cape Town to family farms urban settlements and displacement sites rural land holdings and various sites during the 1994 elections and among different sectors of South African society Black Colored and White.
Since the view of literacy presented here is so dependent on context the book provides not only descriptions of literacy practices but also rich insights into the complexity of everyday social life in contemporary South Africa at a major point of transition. It can be read as a concrete way of understanding the emergence of the New South Africa as it appears to actors on the ground focused through attention to one central feature of contemporary life — the uses and meanings of literacy.
“Using fascinating and carefully documented case-study material this book raises vital questions about literacy and illiteracy and about adult education. Above all it questions the efficacy of any literacy programme which fails to acknowledge the many ways in which uneducated and so called ‘illiterate’ people already use reading writing and numeracy in their everyday lives.” Jenny Maybin The Open University Milton Keynes
Since the view of literacy presented here is so dependent on context the book provides not only descriptions of literacy practices but also rich insights into the complexity of everyday social life in contemporary South Africa at a major point of transition. It can be read as a concrete way of understanding the emergence of the New South Africa as it appears to actors on the ground focused through attention to one central feature of contemporary life — the uses and meanings of literacy.
“Using fascinating and carefully documented case-study material this book raises vital questions about literacy and illiteracy and about adult education. Above all it questions the efficacy of any literacy programme which fails to acknowledge the many ways in which uneducated and so called ‘illiterate’ people already use reading writing and numeracy in their everyday lives.” Jenny Maybin The Open University Milton Keynes
Germanic Linguistics : Syntactic and diachronic
Oct 1996
Book
This volume contains ten revised and expanded papers selected from the dozens presented at the last Michigan-Berkeley Germanic Linguistics Roundtable five contributions each from syntax (by Werner Abraham Sarah Fagan Isabella Barbier John te Velde and Ruth Lanouette) and historical linguistics (by Garry Davis and Gregory Iverson Mary Niepokuj Neil Jacobs Edgar Polomé and David Fertig).
The authors start from current theoretical discussions in syntactic and diachronic research using theory to address longstanding but still current problems in Germanic linguistics from clitic placement and verb-second phenomena through the Verschärfung to the Twaddellian view of umlaut. Each contribution relies on careful sifting of data situated in the relevant comparative context Germanic Indo-European and cross-linguistic.
The authors start from current theoretical discussions in syntactic and diachronic research using theory to address longstanding but still current problems in Germanic linguistics from clitic placement and verb-second phenomena through the Verschärfung to the Twaddellian view of umlaut. Each contribution relies on careful sifting of data situated in the relevant comparative context Germanic Indo-European and cross-linguistic.
Second Language Acquisition and Linguistic Variation
Oct 1996
Book
This volume corrects the relative neglect in Second Language Acquisition studies of the quantitative study of language variation and provides insights into such issues as language transfer acquisition through exposure language universals learner’s age and so forth.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>These studies bolster the idea that a full account of SLA development (and hence a “theory of SLA”) must be built on not only detailed accounts of interlanguage data but also on a wide appeal to factors which govern the psycholinguistic bases of SLA. <br/>An important addition to the volume is a comprehensive guide to both the DOS and Macintosh versions of the VARBRUL statistical program used by variationists.<br/>
Foundations of Understanding
Oct 1996
Book
How can symbols have meaning for a subject? Foundations of Understanding argues that this is the key question to ask about intentionality or meaningful thought. It thus offers an alternative to currently popular linguistic models of intentionality whose inadequacies are examined: the goal should be to explain not how symbols mental or otherwise can refer to or ‘mean’ states of affairs in the external world but how they can mean something to us the users. The essence of intentionality is shown to be conscious understanding the roots of which lie in experiences of embodiment and goal-directed action. A developmental path is traced from a foundation of conscious understanding in the ability to perform basic actions through the understanding of the concept of an objective external world to the understanding of language and abstract symbols. The work is interdisciplinary: data from the neurosciences and cognitive psychology and the perspectives of phenomenologists such as Merleau-Ponty are combined with traditional philosophical analysis. The book includes a chapter on the nature of conscious qualitative experience and its neural correlates. (Series A)
Concept-Driven Development and the Organization of the Process of Change : An evaluation of the Swedish Working Life Fund
Oct 1996
Book
The Swedish Working Life Fund — a temporary organization functioning from 1990 to 1995 — distributed 10 billion Swedish crowns for workplace development and initiated 25000 projects. About half of the total labor market was affected. This evaluation study which is built on case studies as well as a survey of a representative sample of the project population describes the emergent characteristics of organization development in Swedish enterprises and services. In order to locate the efforts of the Fund within an explanatory context the study draws on the idea of concept-driven change of participation in development processes of development coalitions of infrastructure for change and of a society that is supportive of change.
Reported Speech : Forms and functions of the verb
Sept 1996
Book
In sentences containing reported speech thought or perception it is possible to distinguish different voices or views associated with different discourse roles. They originate in two different clauses: one clause signals a reporting situation and the other a reported situation.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>This volume examines the methods used for combining these two types of clauses in a range of languages. In each of the contributions the focus is on the forms and functions of verbs; topics dealt with include the meaning of tense mood and aspect (and their interaction) in the various types of reported speech the speech act status of reported utterances correlations between reporting verbs and verbs in reported clauses (and the conjunctions introducing them) and possible intra-systemic and cross-linguistic correlations of these properties.<br/>The articles concentrate on the Slavic languages Russian Bulgarian Macedonian Serbian Croatian and Slovene the Romance languages Latin Old and Modern French and Spanish the Germanic languages Swedish German Dutch and English the Indo-Iranian language Bengali and Mandarin Chinese.<br/>
Numeral Classifier Systems : The Case of Japanese
Sept 1996
Book
Numeral 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.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>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.